Domestic jurisdiction over natural resources and their conservation and protection under international law

Abstract

The development of international law is essentially a dynamic process whereby new rules are constantly being fashioned to regulate and deal with emerging situations which have international implications. The assertion of international environmental law as a new branch of international law is a perfect example, as States began to realise that significant impacts on the environment can produce negative effects outside national boundaries and that this situation required them to address environmental problems from an international perspective rather than treating them as issues pertaining solely to the realm of domestic jurisdiction. Although it may be argued that there exists no separate body of law on environmental protection, which has its own sources or which provides for its own law making machinery under international law, various circumstances and incidents during these last three decades have generated a distinct legal regime based on traditional principles of international law and which have as their ultimate objective environmental protection. The protection and conservation of natural resources is one of the major components of this system of rules and principles constituting international environmental law. Natural resources were originally considered only in an indirect manner under customary international law, that is when it came to determine the basis on which property rights regarding such resources would be attributed to States. The conservation and protection of such resources in fact was considered to be only a side issue and important only in so far as this was essential for states to utilise to the maximum an exploitable resource which they held in common or shared with other States.