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This emphasizes the relationship between two distinct legal terms that is,
sovereignty and responsibility. While the former term connotes that States have
sovereign rights over their natural resources and can exploit them within the
ambit of their domestic legal framework, the latter connotes that States should
not cause damage to the environment. This implies that the concept of
sovereignty is not absolute, and States have the general responsibility not to
cause damage to the environment of other States. This was affirmed in
Principle 2 of the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development 1992
which provides that "States have, in accordance with principles of international
law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own
environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that
activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the
environment of other States or areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction." In
the areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, such as the high seas, the
applicable concept is not one of sovereignty, but one of common heritage of
humanity. In such cases of shared resources, the principle of States’
responsibility emphasizes an obligation on States to ensure an equitable and
harmonious utilization of such resources, and not to cause damage to the
legitimate interests of other States in those resources. In addition, States have
the responsibility to cooperate in ensuring the conservation of common or
shared resources. For instance, the Gulf of Guinea Commission was launched
in 2001 to promote close consultation among member-States on the
exploitation of the natural resources of the Gulf of Guinea.
The polluter pays principle can also be understood from the perspective of
polluters externalizing the environmental costs of their pollution. For instance,
industries emitting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or discharging toxic
chemicals in a river are not paying for their waste disposal. Instead, the cost is
pushed to the entire community in the form of environmental pollution and its
attendant effects. Likewise, the driver of a vehicle even though responsible for
the cost of fuelling and maintaining the vehicle, however externalizes the costs
associated with the gases emitted from the exhaust of the vehicle. However,
Principle 16 of the Rio Declaration requires States to promote the
internalization of environmental costs and the use of economic instruments
taking into account that it is in the public interest that a polluter bears the
cost of pollution. Hence, environmental laws and regulations are expected to
force polluters to bear the real costs of their pollution, even though such costs
are often times difficult to calculate precisely. Regulatory measures that are
common in this regard include requirements to invest in cleaner technologies
or clean-up of releases of hazardous substances such as oil spills, issuance of
environmental permits for a fee, environmental taxes, carbon pricing, etc.
v. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Sustainable use of natural resources deals with the proper management and
exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of humanity. The principle of
integration emphasizes the need to ensure that environmental considerations
are integrated into the economics of development plans. According to Principle
4 of the Rio Declaration, environmental protection should constitute an integral
part of development processes. The principle of sustainable development
constitutes one of the core foundations for the implementation of various
environmental impact assessment laws across the globe.