Cambridge Studies on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Governance: The Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law

Prevention is recognized as a cornerstone of international environmental law, but this principle remains abstract and elusive in terms of exactly what is required of states to prevent environmental harm. In this illuminating work, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli addresses this issue by offering a systematic, comprehensive assessment in which she clarifies the rationale, content, and scope of the prevention principle while also placing it in a wider legal context. The book offers a detailed analysis of treaty law, custom codification works, and case law before culminating in a conceptualization of prevention based on three definitional traits: 1. Its anticipatory rationale; 2. Its due diligence content; and 3. Its wide spatial scope to protect the environment as a whole. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the evolving principle of prevention in international environmental law, and how it increasingly shares common ground with reparation in the arena of compliance control.

Introduction; Part I. From Reparation to Prevention: International Environmental Law through the Lenses of Prevention: 1. The foundations of prevention: reparation and resource management; 2. The paradigm shift: prevention as the cornerstone of international environmental law; Part II. The Normative Impacts of the Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law; 3. Prevention in treaty law; 4. Prevention in international customary law; 5. Prevention in the jurisprudence; Part III. The Three Definitional Dimensions of Prevention: 6. Prevention and risk anticipation: the rationale; 7. Prevention and proactivity: content; 8. Prevention and the protection of the environment: spatial scope; 9. Prevention and its relationship with other environmental norms; Part IV. Prevention as a Consolidated norm: Current Trends and Future Prospects: 10. Role and place of prevention in the international legal order; 11. The frontiers of prevention? Reparation and compliance control; Conclusion.