The UN Environment Assembly - the highest-level UN body ever convened on the environment - opened on 23 June 2014 at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi. UNEA feeds directly into the General Assembly and has universal membership of all 193 UN member states as well as other stakeholder groups. With this wide reach into the legislative, financial and development arenas, the body presents a platform for leadership on global environmental policy.
Two major declarations on international environmental law are:
The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (the 1972 Stockholm Declaration) (UN Doc. A/CONF/48/14/REV.1 (1972). This declaration represented a first major attempt at considering the global human impact on the environment, and an international attempt to address the challenge of preserving and enhancing the human environment. The Stockholm Declaration espouses mostly broad environmental policy goals and objectives rather than detailed normative positions. The UN website provides introductory information, procedural history and preparatory documents associated with the Declaration, as well as the full text of the Declaration.
The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (vol. I)) was a short document produced at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), known as the Rio Earth Summit. The Rio Declaration consists of 27 principles intended to guide future sustainable development around the world.
In 2012 the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit was commemorated by the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development.
A useful and concise summary of the importance and impact of the Stockholm and Rio declarations can be found on the UN's Audiovisual Library website.
Customary law and general principles relating to the environment, such as the 'precautionary principle' and sustainable development, are evolving but it is arguable whether any have yet become normative rules. The speed with which awareness of global environmental problems has reached the international political agenda has meant that customary law has tended to take second place to treaty law in the evolution of legal norms, and treaties have been the main method by which the international community has responded to the need to regulate activities which threaten the environment. There are hundreds of bilateral and multilateral environmental treaties creating states' rights and obligations. The UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development have negotiated many of these treaties.
A full list of international environmental law treaties can be found on Wikipedia. This is arranged alphabetically and also by subject.
Treaties generally concern one of the following broad subjects: toxic and hazardous substances, nuclear damage, ocean and marine sources, ozone and protection of the atmosphere, pollution, biodiversity and the protection and conservation of species and wildlife, sustainable development, and trade and the environment.
The Globalex Guide on International Environmental Legal Research provides a useful table of these subjects together with links to the agreements and relevant agencies. Descriptions of the major environmental treaties by subject can also be found on the ILO website.
The University of Melbourne's Public International law guide provides more in-depth information on researching international law.
The full text of all IEL treaties can be found on the following open access platforms:
• Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Declaration), 1972 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992
• Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, 1985, and Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 1987
• Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, 1989
• Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992, and Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2000
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 (see also: UNFCCC website)
• United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, 1994 (see also: UNCCD website)
• Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1997 (see also: Kyoto Protocol website)
• Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, 1997
• Articles on Prevention of Transboundary Harm from Hazardous Activities, 2001
• Principles on the Allocation of Loss in the Case of Transboundary Harm Arising Out of Hazardous Activities, 2006
• Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers, 2008
• Paris Agreement, 2015 (see also The Paris Agreement site)
NASA's Environmental Treaties and Resources Indicators database contain comprehensive information on country participation in multilateral environmental agreements up until August 2012. The database has a sophisticated search engine which can be interrogated using multiple criteria.