Note: [1] This article is based upon the presentation made (through recorded video) at the PluriCourts and University of Hawai’i Law Review Symposium on The Role of International Courts in Protecting Environmental Commons at William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii, (Honolulu, USA), 9-10 November 2018. Hence, the article has been drawn, revised, updated and rewritten from the earlier version published in Environmental Policy & Law, vol.1-2, 2020.
Abstract: This article seeks to place under scanner the role of international courts and tribunals (ICTs) as important agents for the peaceful settlement of international disputes through the instrumentality of law. The rapid upswing in the number of specialized international courts and tribunals (in areas such as trade, human rights, law of the sea, criminal justice and environment) can be perceived as an attempt by the sovereign states to maintain viability of the ICTs in light of perplexity in international relations, growing recognition of peaceful co-existence, quest for institutionalized cooperation and emergence of some of the ‘Common Concerns of Humankind’ and the ‘Duty to Cooperate’. It has sought to make sense of emergence of ICTs as the ‘New Environmental Sentinels’. Do we need a specialized International Environmental Court (IEC) as an ‘ideal’? What does it portend for our common future?
Keywords: International courts & tribunals, peaceful settlement of international disputes, common concerns of humankind, duty to cooperate, new environmental sentinels, international environmental court
