Browsing by Author "Eilittä, Eleonoora"

The international community has, rather recently, raised concern over biodiversity loss. Human impact is widely accepted as the main cause for mass extinction of species and the decrease of biodiversity results in drastic consequences for human societies. This thesis assesses how international law responds to this concern in the context of commercial seabed mining, under State jurisdiction. This particular activity was chosen, since the world’s first commercial seabed-mining project is commencing in the near future and, opposed to seabed mining on the high seas, the international law regulating the activity has not received attention in literature. The purpose of this thesis is to discover how international environmental law regulates activities that are potentially hazardous for unique ecosystems that thrive near hydrothermal vents. The study focuses on the responsibility of States allowing private companies to mine massive sulphide deposits under their jurisdiction. No specific rules govern this particular activity under international law. What follows is that the thesis analyses different sources of international environmental law in order to investigate what the responsibility of the State is. Three different approaches are used in the thesis. First, the activity is analysed according to international environmental customary law. The rules governing the activity are the no harm principle and the obligation to undertake an environmental impact assessment. In this context, the doctrine of State responsibility is of particular interest, since the activity itself is not prohibited under international law and a private company is performing the activity. The main finding here is that States have a due diligence obligation to prevent significant transboundary harm on their jurisdiction. This obligation requires the State to undertake an environmental impact assessment. Research conducted here regarding case law suggests that obscurity remains on when the obligation to assess is triggered and what the content of the assessment should be. The second approach considers if the rules of customary law are specified by environmental law treaties. The studied treaties were the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. The treaties do specify terms relevant to the research question and pose additional substantial requirements for the environmental impact assessment. However, the unclear aspects of the no harm principle and the obligation to undertake an environmental impact assessment influence both Conventions. The third approach addresses the status, content and application of the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is a highly debated principle and in this thesis one of the main questions is whether the principle has reached the status of customary law. The case law and literature provides for an uncertainty over the status of the principle and in this thesis it is approached as an emerging principle of international law. The contents and actuation of the precautionary principle suggest that the principle poses a stricter obligation to investigate possible harmful effects, which would be beneficial considering the high-risk nature of seabed mining, and the uncertainties of the effects on the environment. The main conclusion of this thesis is that the rules of international environmental law that have been analysed here are not defined in a manner that would effectively impose an obligation to preserve the ecosystems and species endangered by the activity.