From the above-mentioned literature that advocates an environmental nonregression principle, it is evident that such suggestions are often modelled on the human rights notion of non-regression. Hence, before returning to the question of a non-regression principle within the framework of IEL in Part II, it will be useful to provide some context by looking into international human rights law in greater detail.

A survey of human rights law is likely to be illuminating in the present context for at least two reasons: First, on a doctrinal level, it will be seen in the following chapters how a human rights concept of non-regression has developed and that it has largely evolved in conjunction with – and perhaps as the flipside to – the understanding of human rights obligations as ‘progressive’ obligations. Second, on a more theoretical level, human rights law provides perhaps the chief subject-area of international law where the very idea of ‘progress’ is deeply woven into legal scholarship and discourse. It is often suggested, for example, that international human rights law, from its relatively modest beginnings under the auspices of the League of Nations, has made considerable headway in the aftermath of the Second World War. For example, Thomas Buergenthal observed that the development of a significant body of human rights law throughout the second half of the 20th century

While this observation of a continuous progress towards an ever better human rights situation may or may not be true on an empirical level, there is arguably a deeper meaning that is accorded to progress as an overarching theme, narrative or motif of human rights law.