Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by David D. Caron
- TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION – HISTORY, LEGACY, AND REVIVAL
- PART TWO TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – THE ENVIRONMENT
- 11 Trail Smelter in Contemporary International Environmental Law: Its Relevance in the Nuclear Energy Context
- 12 Through the Looking Glass: Sustainable Development and Other Emerging Concepts of International Environmental Law in the Gabčikovo-Nagymaros Case and the Trail Smelter Arbitration
- 13 Trail Smelter's (Semi) Precautionary Legacy
- 14 Surprising Parallels between Trail Smelter and the Global Climate Change Regime
- 15 Sovereignty's Continuing Importance: Traces of Trail Smelter in the International Law Governing Hazardous Waste Transport
- 16 The Legacy of Trail Smelter in the Field of Transboundary Air Pollution
- 17 The Impact of the Trail Smelter Arbitration on the Law of the Sea
- PART THREE TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – BEYOND THE ENVIRONMENT
- Annex A Convention Between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada Relative to the Establishment of a Tribunal to Decide Questions of Indemnity and Future Regime Arising from the Operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia
- Annex B Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal Decision, April 16, 1938
- Annex C Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal March 11, 1941, Decision
- Index
16 - The Legacy of Trail Smelter in the Field of Transboundary Air Pollution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by David D. Caron
- TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION – HISTORY, LEGACY, AND REVIVAL
- PART TWO TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – THE ENVIRONMENT
- 11 Trail Smelter in Contemporary International Environmental Law: Its Relevance in the Nuclear Energy Context
- 12 Through the Looking Glass: Sustainable Development and Other Emerging Concepts of International Environmental Law in the Gabčikovo-Nagymaros Case and the Trail Smelter Arbitration
- 13 Trail Smelter's (Semi) Precautionary Legacy
- 14 Surprising Parallels between Trail Smelter and the Global Climate Change Regime
- 15 Sovereignty's Continuing Importance: Traces of Trail Smelter in the International Law Governing Hazardous Waste Transport
- 16 The Legacy of Trail Smelter in the Field of Transboundary Air Pollution
- 17 The Impact of the Trail Smelter Arbitration on the Law of the Sea
- PART THREE TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – BEYOND THE ENVIRONMENT
- Annex A Convention Between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada Relative to the Establishment of a Tribunal to Decide Questions of Indemnity and Future Regime Arising from the Operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia
- Annex B Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal Decision, April 16, 1938
- Annex C Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal March 11, 1941, Decision
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
When I began my research in this field a few years ago I assumed, like many writing about international environmental law, that the Trail Smelter dispute would provide a useful starting point from which to assess the framework of accountability that existed in international law for transboundary air pollution damage. The Tribunal's famous pronouncement, “that under the principles of international law, as well as the law of the United States, no state has the right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by fumes in or to the territory of another or the properties of persons therein, when the case is of serious consequence and the injury is established by clear and convincing evidence,” had in many ways irrevocably confirmed that transboundary environmental damage, and specifically transboundary air pollution, entailed state responsibility.
The precedential value of this passage had been acknowledged in diverse contexts such as water disputes, pollution of the seas, and in various neighbourhood disputes between European States, as well as in the extensive literature that proliferated in the period after the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. It substantially informed the work of the International Law Commission on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, and on Liability for Injurious Consequences of Acts not Prohibited by International Law. It also was unequivocally endorsed, either directly or in form, in the many environmental treaties that were enacted in the wake of the Stockholm Conference.
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- Chapter
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- Transboundary Harm in International LawLessons from the Trail Smelter Arbitration, pp. 195 - 208Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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