Second Thoughts? The International Adjudication of Environmental Disputes 30 Years Later

The role of international adjudication with respect to environmental disputes has been a matter of significant debate, particularly since the late 1980s. Scepticism about the creation of an international environmental court, the lack of use of specialised environmental chambers and the rise of non-compliance procedures largely supported the view that international adjudication had a limited role to play in this context. This conventional view is today being reconsidered. This is due in part to the surge in domestic climate litigation but also, as argued in this brief contribution, to the potential of international adjudication to address the challenges that had once supported arguments against it, namely (1) the ambiguity and indeterminacy of substantive provisions in multilateral environmental treaties; (2) States’ own capacity limitations to discharge their duties under such treaties, and (3) the need for treaty regimes to accommodate changing social, economic, political and, of course, environmental circumstances.