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IN DEPTH

THE U.N. ENVIRONMENT FIRST

GLOBAL REPORT ON ENVIRONMENTAL

By Bruno Petriccione tries are extending legal rights or cording to the first “Environmental
legal personhood to natural sy- Rule of Law” report (UNEP, 2019)
stems. As the United Nations has released by UNEP (now U.N. En-
“Natural resources should be
treated as global assets as ju- observed, living by the rule of law vironment) on January 24, 2019,
xtaposed with national proper- is critical to peace. It is a pre-requi- an invaluable resource for legal
ty” (report presentation by Ju- site to the realization of all human empowerment efforts dedicated to
stice Swatanter Kumar (Retd.), rights” (report presentation by the land and natural resource rights.
former Supreme Court of India Di Caprio Foundation). Despite a 38-fold increase in the
Judge, former National Green Despite prolific growth in environ- number of environmental laws sin-
Tribunal Chairperson). mental laws and agencies worldwi- ce 1972, failure to fully implement
“Many species’ survival rests de over the last four decades, and enforce legislation is proving
upon the success of environ- environmental threats are one of the greatest challenges to
mental rule of law, which is why being exacerbated by glo- mitigating climate change, redu-
an increasing number of coun- bally weak enforcement, ac- cing pollution and preventing wi-
despread species and habitat
Effective engagement of an informed loss. Since 1972, international
civil society results in better govern- aid has helped scores of coun-
tries enter into over 1.100 en-
ment decision making, more respon- vironmental agreements and
develop numerous environ-
sible corporate environmental actions mental framework laws, but
and more effective environmental law. neither aid, nor domestic bud-
geting has led to the establish-
ment of strong environmental

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