The Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law

Prevention is recognized as a cornerstone of international environmental law, but this principle remains abstract and elusive in terms of exactly what is required of states to prevent environmental harm. In this illuminating work, Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli addresses this issue by offering a systematic, comprehensive assessment in which she clarifies the rationale, content, and scope of the prevention principle while also placing it in a wider legal context. The book offers a detailed analysis of treaty law, custom codification works, and case law before culminating in a conceptualization of prevention based on three definitional traits: 1. Its anticipatory rationale; 2. Its due diligence content; and 3. Its wide spatial scope to protect the environment as a whole. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the evolving principle of prevention in international environmental law, and how it increasingly shares common ground with reparation in the arena of compliance control.

'In the most convincing way, this book provides a systematic and comprehensive assessment of the state of international environmental law with regard to the principle of prevention through the analysis of its historical, present, and potential evolutions. The result provides an indispensable tool for practitioners as well as scholars.'

Pierre-Marie Dupuy - Emeritus Professor, University of Paris II, Panthéon-Assas, and The Graduate Institute, Geneva

'A rich and illuminating study of the principle of prevention, which is the building block of international environmental law and the least analyzed of all environmental principles. This work fills the gap and provides readers with an excellent, in-depth analysis of all its aspects, including its historical evolution.'

Malgosia Fitzmaurice - Queen Mary University of London

'Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli's comprehensive monograph on the prevention principle makes a major, much needed and convincing contribution to international environmental law, and judiciously contrasts the prevention and curative approaches in international law.'

Eibe Riedel - Emeritus Chair of German and Comparative Public Law and European and International Law, University of Mannheim, Germany, and former member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

'Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli’s thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned exposition of the importance of the prevention principle as a guiding force in international environmental law is as timely as it is convincing.'

John Dugard - Universiteit Leiden and Judge ad hoc International Court of Justice