Sustainability Through the Lens of Principles of International Environmental Law

This proposal will attempt to further develop the “requirement” of sustainability[1], as this concept plays a key role in the development of environmental law. Particularly, we focus on the temporal aspect of sustainability. There are different definitions of sustainable development but they all are undermined: the long time. For instance, on the one hand, the International Institute for sustainable development insists on that must “redesigning institutions to ensure current and future potential to meet the needs and aspirations of communities”[2]. On the other hand, the Brundtland Report states: “Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”[3]. It’s why the question that gives a direction for presentation is: How is international and environmental law can take into account terms issues? To try to answer this question, we will focus on the international and environmental jurisprudence. This framework is the place where conflicting issues enhanced conflicting approaches. Judges must settle those conflicting temporalities. There are at least two difficulties: first, litigants claims evokes different time scales. Environmental conservation implies a long time approach where economical approach supposes a shorter scale of time. Time is plural and it varies according to social activity concerned. The legal activity is no exception. Secondly, judges must take in account the time of law. Studying jurisprudence in international and environmental jurisprudence is a field to highlight how judges settle conflicts of temporalities. [1] For the “requirement”, see Morgan Sweeney, L’égalité en droit social au prisme de la diversité et du dialogue des juges, Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 2010, en cours de publication. [2] International Institute for Sustainable development, Impoverishment and Sustainable Development (Winnipeg : IISD, 1996). [3] World Commission on Environment and Development, Our common Future (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1987)