Sustainability as a Principle of International Environmental Law

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability as one of the foremost general legal principles within international environmental law has shown itself to possess innate normative traction, but also suffers from inherent ambiguity. It reflects a moral necessity to act to protect the environment, whilst often failing within its own terms to provide the specific constraints ordinarily associated with a legal ordinance. Whether perceived as a legally binding rule, or a “softer” more guiding legal principle, sustainability has over the last five decades proved both emblematic and problematic. It covers a broad span from preservation through conservation to sustainable use; and has a still-unsettled relationship with the even more amorphous paradigm of sustainable development.

Most international rules are, of course, treaty-based, species or ecosystem-specific, and do not rely on general principles. And yet, the existence, content, and contours of a principle of sustainability are important both to framing the broad normative framework and providing a necessary “fall back” in the treaty gaps. Regardless, as most empirical evidence shows, the environment is getting worse; and as we understand more of the planetary realities of environmental degradation, the principle seems wholly inadequate, and ineffective. In short, sustainability as a legal principle has failed to constrain the wide array of negative externalities.

This Special Issue seeks to explore sustainability as a critical norm, and how it needs to be reshaped in the light of the Anthropocene and the emergence of planetary boundaries. This is not a question that can be solved by legal scholars, or by legal scholars alone. It must be contextualised within, and critiqued by, natural science, economics, political sciences, environmental philosophy, behavioural scientists, and other related disciplines. Western legal thought also needs to be challenged by a more diverse range of community and indigenous knowledges. This Special Issue seeks a broad range of contributions—from within and without the legal sphere—to foster a challenging and exciting analysis of this most important, if inchoate, principle. Mixed-discipline contributions will be particularly welcome.

Prof. Dr. Duncan French
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability
• environmental law
• preservation
• conservation
• sustainable development
• Anthropocene
• planetary boundaries
• indigenous knowledge