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International Environmental Legal Issues of Iron Rhine Railway Case

  • DONG-A LAW REVIEW
  • 2014, (65), pp.579-613
  • Publisher : The Institute for Legal Studies Dong-A University
  • Research Area : Social Science > Law

JAE GON LEE 1

1충남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The article is to analyze the ‘Iron Rhine case’ which was a legal dispute between Belgium and the Netherlands and was settled by an arbitration tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration with a special emphasis on the issues of international environmental law. Based on the analysis of the Case, the article appreciated that the award of the arbitration tribunal contributed to the extended development or clarification of a couple of important issues of international environmental law such as the harmonization between territorial sovereignty and international protection of the environment, the principle of responsibility not to cause environmental damage, the principle of prevention, the principle of cooperation, the principle of sustainable development by dealing with principles of international environmental law, even though the issues were not the essential of the case. The article also recognized that the award of the tribunal made a contribution to the improvement of discussion about the concept of the ‘environment’ which had critical importance for the conceptual definition of environmental pollution and for the decision on the scope of environmental damage in international environmental law, but was very difficult to define by making an endeavor to illustrate some words which could be included in the concept of ‘environment’. The article indicated that the award indirectly recognized the effectiveness of environmental impact assessment(EIA) through the assessment of the reasonableness and legality of the parties allegation which was partly based on the result of environmental impact assessment of the revitalization project of the Iron Rhine Railway. Additionally, the article singled out some deficiencies in the award such as 1) the insufficient reasoning for the extension of the application of principle not to cause environmental damage into the special situation as in the Case; 2) the avoidance of the use of the term, sustainable development and the lack of willingness of the conceptual establishment of the term; 3) the blurred dealing with the principles of international environmental law.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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