Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter

“Earth” is an integrated whole, a relationship of ecosystems, providing the habitat for life. However, the “world” is composed of disparate nations, each with distinct cultures and economies. The peoples of these nations celebrate nature in their poetry and song, in their parks and protected areas, and share aim to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, forests, combat desertification, and halt biodiversity loss.” 1 Paradoxically, these same nation States also actively degrade Earth's habitat, imperiling human civilization. The paper seeks to examine the scope and broad contours for affixing state responsibility for causing harm to the Earth's climate system that impinges upon our planetary future.

At the Stockholm + 50 (June 2–3, 2022) event, the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Antonio Guterres warned the assembled world leaders that we have not kept our promises on the environment since our consumption is “at the rate of 1.7 planets a year” and the “global well-being is in jeopardy.” It set the global alarm bells ringing for the global decision-makers. The gathering storms indicate smoldering of a planetary-level environmental crisis. It appears, the humankind has literally sleepwalked into an existential planetary crisis. Does this planetary crisis cast shadows of the coming events before as we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century? Can we reverse the planetary crisis? What lies in store for the planetary future with rapidly “depleting time”? This ‘moment of truth’ posits some existential questions for the humankind. It is in this context that this paper modestly engages in preliminary prognosis as well as search for prospects for our planetary future. It calls for ideating on the nature and content of the planetary crisis and moots some initial workable proposals to augment ‘low-hanging’ instrumentalities for securing future of the humankind and the planet Earth. The Pact for the Future, outcome document of the UN Summit of the Future (New York; September 22–23, 2024), reflected in the UNGA (resolution 79/1 of September 22, 2024) is indicative of the limits of multilateralism at work as it is neither inspiring nor adequate for a decisive course correction and attaining the intended objectives for a robust planetary future. With some 59 conflicts raging in the world that jeopardize the lives of one-fourth (2 billion) of the global population (8 billion) and 700 million people (2024) facing undernourishment (hunger), we need many more concrete ideas along with an effective blueprint of international environmental governance to enable walking-the-talk for salvaging our planetary future.

Protagonists of global environmental governance often view the sovereign State as well as the principle of sovereignty as major stumbling blocks for effective environmental conservation and sustainable development. Some even herald the demise of the idea of the sovereign State. However, reality has it differently. Sovereignty is no longer an unqualified concept. Manifold new duties have been imposed upon the sovereign State as a result of the progressive development of international law. Much of the modern international law movement vests States with the responsibility to adopt regulations, to monitor and secure compliance and exercise justice in order to achieve its implementation, whereas supranational global environmental governance has remained notoriously weak. This article examines this proposition by reference to the environmental and developmental role of states in three landmark multilateral treaties: The United Nations Law of the Sea Convention (1982), the Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity (1992) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (2015). They demonstrate that sovereignty serves as a key organisational principle for the realization of global values, such as environmental conservation and sustainable development. It also came out vividly in the Pact for the Future (2024).

The 2024 Summit of the Future was organized by the United Nations in quick succession to the two global conferences: in 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Summit and 2022 Stockholm + 50 Conference. It was a timely conclave to examine the state of the world in view of warning signs for a planetary level crisis. The Summit was expected to think aloud and ahead for the future of the planet Earth. Did it attain its objectives? The outcome document – Pact for the Future – provides a menu in usual UN jargon and gives calls to the UN member states to perform in several areas to secure future of our planet. Will the Pact help in making a course correction for the planetary future? Time will provide us answers to these questions. Still, the Summit yielded a great promise with an unwavering commitment to act in accordance with international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes and principles. The drafters of the Pact left no doubt whatsoever by positioning prima facie non-legally binding instrument ( Pact for the Future) on the bedrock of International Law in general and the UN Charter in particular. The inclusion of two more instruments as annexes on Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations, though work-in-progress, are also pregnant with futuristic possibilities. This paper seeks to provide a preliminary stocktaking of the Pact for the Future and its two annexes.

While cooperation regarding the management of transboundary water resources continues to improve in terms of the extent and intensity of inter-State engagement, watercourse States will increasingly need to employ flexible arrangements to facilitate the adaptive management of shared waters in response to the likely impacts of climate change. The legal challenges involved in crafting and applying such arrangements will require greater focus upon the community of interest understood to exist amongst co-basin States, and greater reliance upon the principle of solidarity underlying this concept. Though long a feature of international law, solidarity plays a particularly important role in the continuing development and functioning of international water law, and today offers a set of cooperative values to assist international water law in adapting to the looming global water crisis.

The planetary future is now at stake in view of excessive exploitation of the Earth's finite resources. Since survival of the humankind and planet earth itself is in jeopardy, all right-thinking scholars and decision-makers need to think aloud and ahead to find solutions for our common future. We have inherited wisdom from our ancestors and it is time to walk-the-talk. For centuries, the Indian civilization has survived all onslaughts and provided ideas for the entire humankind and the world as one: vasudhaiva kutumbakam as well as respecting nature as: Bhawani Vasundhra. This paper draws upon the author's more than seven decades of ‘tryst with history’ and provides some reflections for look ahead into the planetary future with courage and fortitude.

The Third Pole region, comprising the vast glaciers and water systems of the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH), is emerging as a key indicator of global climate change. Often referred to as the “Water Tower of Asia,” it sustains nearly 2 billion people through its water resources, yet the region is experiencing unprecedented changes. This review examines the region's evolving climate dynamics, focusing on key climate scenarios and potential strategic responses. The paper synthesizes data from the latest climate models, regional governance frameworks, and international climate policy developments to explore future pathways for the Third Pole. It also delves into the region's socio-economic vulnerabilities, water security challenges, and the geopolitical complexities of transboundary environmental governance. Our findings emphasize the need for proactive adaptation strategies, transboundary cooperation, and innovative policy mechanisms to mitigate climate risks. The review provides a roadmap for policymakers, scientists, and regional stakeholders to navigate the looming environmental crises, highlighting pathways that could forge a resilient future for the Third Pole.

This paper considers whether climate change falls within the scope of the 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourses Convention). General principles of treaty interpretation are used to examine various environmental obligations concerning the protection and preservation of ecosystems and the marine environment, pollution, harmful conditions, and emergency situations. While similar analyses have been conducted in relation to other treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, this paper represents a novel analysis with respect to the UN Watercourses Convention. This paper concludes that climate change may be implied into three obligations: the obligation to protect and preserve the ecosystems of international watercourses, the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment, and the obligation to prevent or mitigate harmful conditions.

Since its inception, the United Nations (UN) system has been instrumental in fulfilling the objectives of the UN Charter. Despite these successes, environmental degradation has escalated to critical levels especially in the last six decades. The prevailing development model, reliant on infinite natural resource extraction, is unjust and unsustainable. Growing scientific evidence on planetary boundary warns that this unbalanced developmental model is driving the humanity toward irreversible damage to essential ecological processes. Radical transformations and extraordinary cooperation among nations are required to reverse these. This paper argues that the UN system is critical in facilitating this extraordinary cooperation and charting pathways to a sustainable planetary future by harnessing its convening power, scientific & technical expertise and global presence. To achieve this, the UN must strive for stable and sustainable pathways as a common good by all the 193 member states. This commitment will require structural reforms, robust governance architecture, strengthened multilateralism, and, above all, moving away from artificial geographical boundaries while recognizing the critical role of the UN member states. As a corollary, the UN needs to build capacity and assist sovereign states in translating the ambitious action plans for our planetary future.

The constitutional tradition is based in normality, which allows to think in a general social ordination through a constitutional document. Against the backdrop of the global environmental crisis, which has been described as a transition to a new geological era, as the Anthropocene; scholars and policy-makers are bound to cope with the new situation through the creation of some kind of new constitutional order as an ecological constitution indeed. But, the global transformation produced by the growing entanglement between society and biosphere is generating such a complex scenario that the pretension of order seems out of place. This paper tries to draw some insights from taking this new complexity and uncertainty that it creates seriously. The proposal is to see (constitutional) law rather as an event than an order, in the assumption of a permanent state of exception.

Turning the dirt, we have cultivated back into soil is critical to securing our planetary future. The world’s principal existential challenges – food, water and energy security, climate change abatement, biodiversity protection and human health1 – are all underpinned by soil dysfunction. Yet, little is known about soil function, soil services and threats to soil, or how the state of our soils, determined by land use and land management, cause desertification and climate change. As greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming solar radiation, we must mitigate excess atmospheric heat by reducing the amount of organic matter mined from the soil, because when the sun’s rays fall on exposed, drained, baked dry soil, most of the solar radiation is converted from latent heat to sensible heat. Soil specific policy and legislation must be developed to regulate sources of excess sensible heat, consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Through soil security, we can deliver a better present and safeguard our planetary future.

 In 2024, around the world nearly 60 national elections will be held involving billions of people. Many commentators see this as a make-or-break moment in terms of re-establishing democracy and pushing back against rising authoritarian regimes that have been increasing in recent years. This essay explores why –despite worldwide scientific consensus that we are facing ecological collapse –there is little discussion about the climate crisis among the upcoming wave of national elections. This silence around the climate emergency raises several pressing questions: Why is there limited political will on behalf of national leaders when it comes to mitigating the climate crisis? What does this suggest about the state of democracy when political leaders can sidestep and ignore the escalating demands of their constituencies? Finally, what actions can be taken by ordinary people who are increasingly subject to repressive anti-protest laws that prevent them from speaking out against antidemocratic leaders and their political collusion with the fossil fuel sector?

 The British Office for Environmental Protection was established in 2021 following the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. It is the most recent of just a handful of independent environmental watchdog bodies established in global jurisdictions to date, and has a broad range of powers. These include the evaluation of government policy, advice to government on new environmental law, reviewing the implementation of environmental law, and enforcement powers against government and other public bodies for breaches of environmental duties. The need for such bodies in the environmental field is important, and the Office for Environmental Protection may provide a useful model for other countries.