The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth's only continent without a native human population. It was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, setting aside the continent as a scientific preserve, establishing freedom of scientific investigation, and banning military activity; for the purposes of the treaty system, Antarctica is defined as all the land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude. Since September 2004, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which implements the treaty system, is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. This includes environmental regulations; laws governing management of natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries; and related topics such as environmental impact assessments.
In economics and in an ecological context, the tragedy of the commons is a situation in which individual users, who have open access to a resource unhampered by shared social structures, formal rules, charges, fees, or taxes that regulate access and use, act independently according to their own self-interest and, contrary to the common good of all users, cause depletion of the resource through their uncoordinated action in the case that there are too many users related to the available resources.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. As of June 2016, 167 countries and the European Union are parties.
Equity is a particular body of law that was developed in the English Court of Chancery. Its general purpose is to provide a remedy for situations where the law is not flexible enough for the usual court system to deliver a fair resolution to a case. The concept of equity is deeply intertwined with its historical origins in the common law system used in England. However, equity is in some ways a separate system from common law: it has its own established rules and principles, and was historically administered by separate courts, called "courts of equity" or "courts of chancery".
Terra nullius is a Latin expression meaning "nobody's land". It was a principle sometimes used in international law to justify claims that territory may be acquired by a state's occupation of it. There are currently three territories claimed to be terra nullius, two of which are caused by border disputes between sovereign states.
Space law is the body of law governing space-related activities, encompassing both international and domestic agreements, rules, and principles. Parameters of space law include space exploration, liability for damage, weapons use, rescue efforts, environmental preservation, information sharing, new technologies, and ethics. Other fields of law, such as administrative law, intellectual property law, arms control law, insurance law, environmental law, criminal law, and commercial law, are also integrated within the space law.
The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, is a multilateral treaty that turns jurisdiction of all celestial bodies over to the participant countries. Thus, all activities would conform to international law, including the United Nations Charter.
The Australian Department of the Environment was a department of the Government of Australia that existed between September 2013 and July 2016. The department was charged with responsibility for developing and implementing national policy, programs and legislation to protect and conserve Australia's environment and heritage.
Natural heritage refers to the sum total of the elements of biodiversity, including flora and fauna, ecosystems and geological structures. It forms part of our natural resources.
The public trust doctrine is the principle that the sovereign holds in trust for public use some resources such as shoreline between the high and low tide lines, regardless of private property ownership.
Global commons is a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global resource domains in which common-pool resources are found. Global commons include the earth's shared natural resources, such as the high oceans, the atmosphere and outer space and the Antarctic in particular. Cyberspace may also meet the definition of a global commons.
M. C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath was a landmark case in Indian environmental law. In the case, the Supreme Court of India held that the public trust doctrine applied in India.
Res extra commercium is a doctrine originating in Roman law, holding that certain things may not be the object of private rights, and are therefore insusceptible to being traded.
Common sense is sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that is shared by nearly all people.
Common heritage of humanity is a principle of international law that holds the defined territorial areas and elements of humanity's common heritage should be held in trust for future generations and be protected from exploitation by individual nation states or corporations.
National Audubon Society v. Superior Court was a key case in California highlighting the conflict between the public trust doctrine and appropriative water rights. The Public Trust Doctrine is based on the principle that certain resources are too valuable to be privately owned and must remain available for public use. In National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, the court held that the public trust doctrine restricts the amount of water that can be withdrawn from navigable waterways. The basis for the Public Trust Doctrine goes back to Roman law. Under Roman law, the air, the rivers, the sea and the seashore were incapable of private ownership; they were dedicated to the use of the public. In essence, the public trust doctrine establishes the role of the state as having trustee environmental duties owed to the public that are subsequently enforceable by the public. There is judicial recognition of this, dictating that certain rights of the public are key to individual common law rights. Judicial recognition of the public trust doctrine has been established for tidelands and non-navigable waterways, submerged land and the waters above them, and preservation of a public interest.
Lady Denman is a former Sydney Harbour ferry built in 1912 for the Balmain New Ferry Company. She was later run by Sydney Ferries Limited and its government successors. She is now preserved at the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum near her original build site in Huskisson, New South Wales, Australia.
An environmental protection area is a type of protected area in Brazil that has some degree of human occupation, but where the primary intent is environmental protection. Human occupation is monitored and controlled. An environmental protection area often contains other types of conservation units, which may be more strictly protected.
Seabed mining, also known as Seafloor mining is the recovery of minerals from the seabed by techniques of underwater mining. The concept includes mining at shallow depths on the continental shelf and deep-sea mining at greater depths associated with tectonic activity, hydrothermal vents and the abyssal plains. While there is opportunity for economical mineral extraction at areas of high concentration of valuable minerals, there is also significant risk of ecological damage of unknown and to some degree, unpredictable, extent. Increasing requirements for minerals and metals, largely for use in the technology sector, has led to renewed interest in exploitation of seabed mineral resources. including massive polymetallic sulfide deposits around hydrothermal vents, cobalt-rich crusts on the sides of seamounts and fields of manganese nodules on the abyssal plains.
