China’s Ban on Plastic Waste Imports – What it Means for the US

For years, the United States sold millions of tons of all kinds of plastic trash to China to be recycled into new products.[1] During the 2010s, China has introduced multiple restrictions and limitations on the influx of recyclables into the country.[2] In the summer of 2017, Chinese leaders formally announced their import intentions in a … Read more

The Right to a Healthy Environment

The basic premise is that everyone deserves to live in an environment that does not harm their well-being and provides an adequate standard of living. Currently, the right to a healthy environment is not one that is internationally recognized as a human right. There are skeptics that claim that the environment and human rights are … Read more

Chinese Perspectives Part 3: Sovereignty

The Great Wall of China

“In the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the principle of sovereignty ranks first.  It is the main principle to which the other four principles are related.  It is linked to territorial integrity and supplemented by the principles of non-intervention and non-aggression.  Equality and mutual benefit is the concrete expression of the sovereignty of a State, … Read more

InforMEA

InforMEA Logo

This summer, the United Nations launched a website with important implications for the future of international environmental law.  InforMEA, the United Nations Portal on Multilateral Environmental Agreements brings together information relating to 17 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) from 12 Secretariats hosted by three UN organizations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).  It … Read more

26 Reasons for Environmental Optimism in Haiti

Haiti

For many Haiti evokes images of absolute poverty, environmental devastation and desperate emigrants. When I think of Haiti, I see 26 young leaders dedicated to serving others and the environment. I was invited by the State Department’s Fulbright Program for the Western Hemisphere to co-lead a course in Environmental Leadership and train 26 Haitian students … Read more

26 Reasons for Environmental Optimism in Haiti

Haiti

For many Haiti evokes images of absolute poverty, environmental devastation and desperate emigrants. When I think of Haiti, I see 26 young leaders dedicated to serving others and the environment. I was invited by the State Department’s Fulbright Program for the Western Hemisphere to co-lead a course in Environmental Leadership and train 26 Haitian students … Read more