Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2011
When we speak of transnational environmental law and legal process, we are concerned with the migration and impact of legal norms, rules and models across borders. Such migration can occur through the mediation of international law and institutions, or through the impact of unilateral legal developments in one jurisdiction that affect behaviour in others. The paper discusses the importance of assessing transnational environmental law in light of the constraints facing consent-based international environmental law, examines the trade-offs between transnational and international environmental law from the perspective of legitimacy, and concludes by discussing the important but delicate relation of international law to transnational environmental law as both a check and a consolidator. International law should guard against the self-serving unilateral use of transnational environmental law, but it should do so in a way that preserves (and does not shut off) the dynamic, responsive character of the transnational environmental law process. Otherwise international law itself will be delegitimized.
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38 Cf. Sunstein, n. 30 above, at pp. 5–9 (contending that unilateral action was in the US interest in terms of ozone protection but not in terms of climate change policy); and Freeman, J. & Guzman, A., ‘Climate Change and U.S. Interests’ (2009) 109 Columbia Law Review, pp. 1531–1601Google Scholar, at 1542 (contending that unilateral action by the US is likely to be in the US interest despite the multilateral stalemate).
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41 Case C-366/10, The Air Transport Association of America and Others v. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, judgment pending. Opinion by A-G Kokott delivered on 6 Oct. 2011.
42 Chicago, IL (US), 7 Dec. 1944, in force 4 Apr. 1947, available at: http://www.icao.int/icaonet/dcs/7300.html.
43 Air Transport Agreement between the US and EU 2007 (‘Open Skies Agreement’), Washington, DC (US), 30 Apr. 2007, in force 30 Mar. 2008, available at: http://www.state.gov/e/eeb/tra/ata.
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48 Shaffer, n. 2 above, at p. 3 (‘Where the transnational legal norms are relatively clear, coherent and accepted, the transnational legal order can be viewed in systematic terms. Where they are less so, the transnational legal order is more contingent and fragile.’).