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Gillespie, Alexander --- "An Introduction to Ethical Considerations in International Environmental Law" [2010] ELECD 594; in Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos (eds), "Research Handbook on International Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Environmental Law

Editor(s): Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201249

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: An Introduction to Ethical Considerations in International Environmental Law

Author(s): Gillespie, Alexander

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

6 An introduction to ethical considerations in
international environmental law
Alexander Gillespie



Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to give the reader an overview of where some of the ethical
debates in international environmental law are currently found. This chapter builds upon my
earlier work in this area, which is contained in International Environmental Law, Policy and
Ethics (Gillespie, 1997). I shall be using the template from the work, in terms of all of the
ethical values at play in international environmental law as the guide for the following analy-
sis.
At the time of writing my 1997 text, I approached the issue of ethics and international
environmental law, as most doctoral students do, in a very theoretical manner. Over the
subsequent ten years, whilst I have had found no reason to change my mind with regard to
the philosophical considerations in this area, I have been actively involved in the practice of
international environmental diplomacy for both national governments and international orga-
nizations. Accordingly, my professional work has often been driven towards very practical,
somewhat traditional solutions to immediate problems, and the luxuries of philosophical puri-
ties have often been remote. Accordingly, one important difference from my work in 1997
and now is the realization that although many ethical propositions for conservation may
contain philosophical problems, it is still very important to pursue these, if conservation goals
in the present can be obtained. The luxury of only pursuing the absolute correct, philosophi-
cally pure and defensible ethics in ...