limits of the continental shelf for the environmental powers of the coastal state
beyond 200 nm.
7.2.1 Definition of Environmental Jurisdiction
in International Law
The concept of jurisdiction comprises both rights and obligations held by sovereign
states in a given legal framework.
54 Applied to the protection and preservation of the
world’s oceans, those rights and obligations form what some scholars have named as
“marine environmental state jurisdiction”.
55 This work sides with the Canadian
conception of “environmental jurisdiction”, employed as early as 1986, in that
country’s Memorial in the Gulf of Maine case before the ICJ. For Canada, delimiting
a physical boundary enables states to allocate jurisdiction for environmental purposes within the EEZ, such as pollution control or regulation of oil and gas
operations. What is more, “as a general proposition, States have a legitimate interest
in the exercise of this jurisdiction in areas that are nearer to their coasts than to the
coasts of a neighboring State”.
56
When it comes to analyses of marine environmental issues, one should take into
consideration provisions from within UNCLOS, but also from outside the strict
realm of the law of the sea, in particular principles and rules set out in multilateral
environmental agreements (MEAs) and, occasionally, in international human rights
instruments. Sure, assessing coastal states’ environmental jurisdiction in a given
maritime zone is a task which demands a holistic reading of UNCLOS, its
implementing agreements and its preparatory works. Yet, marine environmental
matters extrapolate UNCLOS, peering into the domain of other special subsystems
of public international law. Such a diagonal regime interaction is in line with a
unifying approach to international law, one that prioritizes a coherent application of
the discipline, instead of focusing on fragmentated parts and the tensions permeating
inter-regime relations.
57
For instance, states have obligations under diverse human rights treaties to protect
the fundamental rights to life, to physical integrity, to health, as well as the right to a
healthy and sane environment.
58 In order to protect those rights, states are required to
54 This view has been defended in previous sections of this work.
55 Sage-Fuller (2015), p. 310.
56 ICJ Case Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in The Gulf of Maine Area
(Canada/United States), Memorial of Canada, 27 September 1982.
57 For more on the need for focus on regime interaction and unity, rather than on fragmentation of
international law, see generally Peters (2016) and Young (2012).
58 This author has claimed in a previous publication that certain human rights, particularly the right
to life and the right to health, could be interpreted in a way that the environment would also be
safeguarded. It is the case of human rights established in the American Convention on Human
7.2 Coastal States’ Environmental Jurisdiction in the Law of the Sea: Seeing Beyond. . .
203
beyond 200 nm.
7.2.1 Definition of Environmental Jurisdiction
in International Law
The concept of jurisdiction comprises both rights and obligations held by sovereign
states in a given legal framework.
54 Applied to the protection and preservation of the
world’s oceans, those rights and obligations form what some scholars have named as
“marine environmental state jurisdiction”.
55 This work sides with the Canadian
conception of “environmental jurisdiction”, employed as early as 1986, in that
country’s Memorial in the Gulf of Maine case before the ICJ. For Canada, delimiting
a physical boundary enables states to allocate jurisdiction for environmental purposes within the EEZ, such as pollution control or regulation of oil and gas
operations. What is more, “as a general proposition, States have a legitimate interest
in the exercise of this jurisdiction in areas that are nearer to their coasts than to the
coasts of a neighboring State”.
56
When it comes to analyses of marine environmental issues, one should take into
consideration provisions from within UNCLOS, but also from outside the strict
realm of the law of the sea, in particular principles and rules set out in multilateral
environmental agreements (MEAs) and, occasionally, in international human rights
instruments. Sure, assessing coastal states’ environmental jurisdiction in a given
maritime zone is a task which demands a holistic reading of UNCLOS, its
implementing agreements and its preparatory works. Yet, marine environmental
matters extrapolate UNCLOS, peering into the domain of other special subsystems
of public international law. Such a diagonal regime interaction is in line with a
unifying approach to international law, one that prioritizes a coherent application of
the discipline, instead of focusing on fragmentated parts and the tensions permeating
inter-regime relations.
57
For instance, states have obligations under diverse human rights treaties to protect
the fundamental rights to life, to physical integrity, to health, as well as the right to a
healthy and sane environment.
58 In order to protect those rights, states are required to
54 This view has been defended in previous sections of this work.
55 Sage-Fuller (2015), p. 310.
56 ICJ Case Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in The Gulf of Maine Area
(Canada/United States), Memorial of Canada, 27 September 1982.
57 For more on the need for focus on regime interaction and unity, rather than on fragmentation of
international law, see generally Peters (2016) and Young (2012).
58 This author has claimed in a previous publication that certain human rights, particularly the right
to life and the right to health, could be interpreted in a way that the environment would also be
safeguarded. It is the case of human rights established in the American Convention on Human
7.2 Coastal States’ Environmental Jurisdiction in the Law of the Sea: Seeing Beyond. . .
203