The impact of the environmental crises upon international law

Research Area 2 –Norms and Transgression

Contact: arthur.thevenet(@)cefres.cz

The environment is a recent concept in the legal sciences. Because it is part of the human sciences, law has not escaped the fact that it has evolved over the centuries, reflecting the major issues facing humanity.

From a legal point of view, international texts began to take environmental protection into account in the 1970s and 1980s (Stockholm Declaration, Montreal Protocol, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

Nevertheless, acts harmful to the environment on an international scale are not yet clearly punished. The issue of the crime of ecocide, recognised only in a dozen of States, has not yet emerged at the international level and is not included in the category of international crimes recognised before the International Criminal Court.

Several jurisprudences, such as the Bering Sea Arbitration of 1893, would have us believe that environmental considerations have been recognised and protected since the 19th century. It is only as a complement to other prejudices that fauna and flora have been given legal or legislative protection.

Even on a regional scale, such as the European system for the protection of fundamental rights, we observe only an indirect protection of the environment, by interpreting lato sensu the right to private and family life in an extensive manner. A legal technique that will be taken up at national level, including in the Netherlands in December 2019. Conversely, because it is more recent, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in Article 24, provides for a right to live in a healthy environment without this being derived from other rights.

Consequently, this research is intended to be transversal. It seeks to link environmental protection with the protection of human rights, but also to rethink the concept of international responsibility through the prism of environmental issues, applicable to both public and private actors. It is also a question of shedding light on the anticipatory capacity of international law, since it is a question of establishing rules based on scientific forecasts to ensure the continuity of humankind.

CV

Education

• 2019: Ph.D student in co-tutelle between Palacky University and University Clermont Auvergne
• 2018: Master European and International Law, Palacky University Olomouc
• 2017: Master International Careers, Université Clermont Auvergne
• 2016: Bachelor’s in public law – Political Science, University Clermont Auvergne

Teaching

Lectures

• 2022: Public International Law, Palacky University Olomouc, Faculty of law
• 2021: Introduction to international relations, University Clermont Auvergne

Seminars

• 2021: Constitutional Law, Clermont-Ferrand faculty of law
• 2020-2021: Public International Law
• 2021: Law of cultural public institutions
• 2020-2021: Methodology for legal studies
• 2020: French legal system

Recent academic activities

• September 2022: “The relationship between the US government and the Republic of Gilead, a two-headed state in public international law” in the colloquium The Handmaid’s Tale and International law – University Jean Moulin Lyon 3 (publication to come)
• May 2022: co-organizer of the workshop The EU Environmental Policy under the French and Czech Presidencies of the Council of the European Union – Palacky University Olomouc, Faculty of Law.
• February 2022: conference European union: success and failures –University Clermont Auvergne
• January 2021 : “Is a legal characterization of the phenomenon possible ?” in the colloquium Garbage Island : what legal approach for what ecological reality – University Clermont Auvergne (publication : https://hal.uca.fr/hal-03101494)