Transboundary Harm in International Law: Lessons from the Trail Smelter Arbitration

by Edited by Rebecca M. Bratspies , Russell A. Miller

• ISBN13: 9780521126427
• ISBN10: 0521126428
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Originally published in 2006, this book reveals the many harms which flow across the ever-more porous sovereign borders of a globalising world. These harms expose weaknesses in the international legal regime built on sovereignty of nation states. Using the Trail Smelter Arbitration, one of the most cited cases in international environmental law, this book explores the changing nature of state responses to transboundary harm. Taking a critical approach, the book examines the arbitration's influence on international law generally, and international environmental law specifically. In particular, the book explores whether there are lessons from Trail Smelter that are useful for resolving transboundary challenges confronting the international community. The book collects the commentary of a distinguished set of international law scholars who consider the history of the Trail Smelter arbitration, its significance for international environmental law, its broader relationship to international law, and its resonance in fields beyond the environment.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Trail Smelter Arbitration - History, Legacy and Revival: A. History

An outcrop of Hell: history, environment, and the politics of the Trail Smelter Dispute

The Trail Smelter Dispute

Of paradoxes, precedents and progeny: the Trail Smelter Arbitration 65 years later

Pollution by analogy: the Trail Smelter Arbitration

Has international law outgrown Trail Smelter?

The flawed Trail Smelter procedure: the wrong tribunal, the wrong parties, and the wrong law

Re-reading Trail Smelter

Trail Smelter and the International Law Commission's work on state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts and state liability

Derivative Versus Direct Liability as a basis for state liability for transboundary harms

Transboundary pollution, unilateralism and the limits of extraterritorial jurisdiction: the second Trail Smelter Dispute

Trail Smelter and Contemporary Transboundary Harm - The Environment

Trail Smelter in contemporary international environment law: its relevance in the nuclear energy context

Through the looking glass: sustainable development and other emerging concepts of international environmental law in the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros case and the Trail Smelter arbitration

Trail Smelter's (semi) precautionary legacy

Surprising parallels between Trail Smelter and the global climate change regime

Sovereignty's continuing importance: traces of Trail Smelter in the international law governing hazardous waste transport

The legacy of Trail Smelter in the field of transboundary air pollution

The impact of the Trail Smelter Arbitration on the law of the sea Stuart

Trail Smelter and Contemporary Transboundary Harm - Beyond the Environment

Trail Smelter and terrorism: international mechanisms to combat transboundary harm

The conundrum of corporate social responsibility: reflections on the changing nature of firms and states

A pyrrhic victory: applying the Trail Smelter principle to State creation of refugees

Transboundary harm: internet torts

International drug pollution? Reflections on Trail Smelter and Latin American drug trafficking

Application of international human rights conventions to transboundary state acts

Annex: convention for settlement of difficulties arising from operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia, Trail Smelter Arbitral Decision 1938, and Trail Smelter Arbitral Decision 1941

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