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Beyond the national resource privilege: towards an International Court of the Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2014

Fabian Schuppert
Fabian Schuppert*
Affiliation:
Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Ireland
*
E-mail: f.schuppert@qub.ac.uk
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Abstract

The national resource privilege, which holds that states are allowed to control all the natural resources found in their territory, is a cornerstone of international politics. Supporters of the national resource privilege claim that without the privilege states would fail to be sovereign and self-determining entities which provide for the needs of their citizens. However, as this paper shows the case is not as simple as that. In fact, control over resources must be carefully unpacked. Doing so shows that states do not require full control over all resources found in their territory in order to be sovereign. Moreover, sovereignty and self-determination come with a set of responsibilities and duties attached. Based on these observations the paper will sketch the contours of an alternative resource governance scheme built around the idea of an International Court of the Environment.

Keywords

natural resourcessovereigntyself-determinationresource rightsenvironmental governanceinternational law
Type
Original Papers
Information
International Theory , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 68 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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