Effectiveness of International Environmental Law in Addressing Transboundary Harm and Promoting Environmental Justice
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Environmental harm is constitutively indifferent to political boundaries. Yet the mechanisms through which international law purports to address transboundary environmental damage remain fragmented, asymmetrically enforced, and ill-suited to the structural complexity of contemporary challenges. Beginning from the foundational architecture of the Trail Smelter Arbitration (1941)[1] and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992)[2], the article evaluates whether the no-harm rule and the polluter pay principle the twin pillars of IEL accountability remain adequate to modern environmental governance. The article employs doctrinal research and analytic methods to examine the effectiveness of international environmental law (IEL) in addressing transboundary environmental harm and advancing environmental justice across three contemporary dimensions climate-induced loss and damage, cross-border pollution, and the environmental impacts of multinational corporations. The article opines that despite considerable maturity in the normative architecture of IEL, particularly in light of the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change,[3] the Loss and Damage Fund operationalised at COP28;[4] the emerging transnational influenced Uganda’s domestic environmental framework under the National Environment Act 2019 and the constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment under Article 39 of the Constitution of Uganda;[5] as well as judicial enforcements in Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) v Attorney General[6] and Green watch (U) Ltd v Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd and Attorney General;[7] the contemporary environmental challenges arising from oil development in the Albertine Graben and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline;[8] and the transboundary implications of environmental degradation within the Nile basin;[9] a structural enforcement deficit, chronic attribution difficulties, and a politically entrenched resistance to compensatory liability collectively undermine the transformative potential of IEL. The article concludes that environmental justice demands not merely incremental normative elaboration but a fundamental reconfiguration of international accountability structures.
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7203579758