Adam Turner

Clare Hall

The Role of Reciprocity in International Environmental Law

As an autonomous legal concept, reciprocity has significant implications for international environmental law, as it does for public international law more broadly. Specifically, a contrast can be drawn between reciprocal, synallagmatic obligations and non-reciprocal, holistic obligations of an erga omnes partes character. The former would appear to be better suited to a system of international law grounded in traditional Westphalian notions of sovereignty and statehood, but the latter may be necessary to accommodate the universalising vocabulary of ecological interdependence. This poses something of a conundrum, as the highest objectives of the international system remain 'benefits' to the state and state survival, as opposed to the 'collective interest' of the international community as a whole. What is more, a distinction can be drawn on linguistic grounds between the relatively clear, specific commitments of reciprocal obligations, and the open-textured, general content of non-reciprocal obligations. Compliance with the former may be incentivised, if not necessarily enforced, by means of reciprocity.  

Start Date: 2009/10.

End Date: 2012/10.

Academic Qualifications:

Ph.D. Candidate in International Environmental Law, University of Cambridge

Graduate Diploma in Law, The College of Law (London Moorgate)

M.Phil in Environmental Policy, University of Cambridge

B.Sc (Hons.) in Environmental Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science

 

Awards/Scholarships:

ESRC Ph.D. Research Studentship Award Holder 

International environmental law, public international law, WTO law.

Dr Catherine MacKenzie