Environmental law practice questions.

A national law requires that the likely environmental effects of a large infrastructure project be assessed, published and opened to public comment before consent is given. The developer completes the assessment, but the authority grants consent two days later without publishing it. Which requirement has been breached?

• The substantive requirement that the project cause no net environmental harm
• The procedural requirement that the assessment be disclosed before consent
• The requirement that a neighbouring state be notified of the project
• The requirement that the developer pay for any damage the project causes

Answer: The procedural requirement that the assessment be disclosed before consent

An environmental impact assessment imposes a procedural duty: the law requires that the assessment be produced, published and taken into account, not that the project turn out to be harmless. Consenting before publication removes the public's opportunity to comment, which is the step that gives the duty its effect.

Ecuador's 2008 constitution grants nature itself enforceable rights. In strictly legal terms, the most significant change compared with a conventional conservation statute is that

• penalties for damaging a protected habitat become substantially higher
• the state gains power to create new protected areas by decree
• any citizen may bring a case on nature's behalf without showing personal loss
• international biodiversity treaties become directly binding in the national courts

Answer: any citizen may bring a case on nature's behalf without showing personal loss

A conventional statute requires the claimant to show harm to a human interest, and that requirement is usually what stops a case from being heard. Granting nature rights changes standing: whoever brings the action no longer has to prove a personal injury, so the protection can be enforced by anyone.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, in force since 2017, phases out mercury in products and processes and controls emissions from coal burning and small-scale gold mining. Which property of mercury pollution best explains why a treaty was needed rather than national legislation alone?

• Mercury travels through the atmosphere far from where it is released
• Mercury is toxic to human beings at very low concentrations in food
• Mercury is used in a great many different industrial products
• Mercury becomes more concentrated in predatory fish at each step of the food chain

Answer: Mercury travels through the atmosphere far from where it is released

Mercury emitted in one state is carried through the atmosphere and deposited in others, so a country that regulates alone still receives the pollution. That transboundary character is the standard reason a pollutant is handled by treaty rather than by domestic law.

A research team plans to release a genetically engineered rodent on an island lying 20 km off a neighbouring state's coast. Which international instrument most directly governs the transboundary movement and release of a living modified organism of this kind?

• The Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity
• The Cartagena Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
• The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species

Answer: The Cartagena Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety governs the transboundary movement, handling and release of living modified organisms, and requires advance informed agreement from any state that might receive them. Nagoya covers the sharing of benefits from genetic resources, which is a separate question.

A refrigeration firm replaced CFCs with HCFCs during the 1990s and HCFCs with HFCs during the 2000s. HFCs do not deplete stratospheric ozone at all, yet from 2019 the firm was required to reduce its use of them as well. Which instrument created that last obligation?

• The Kigali Amendment of 2016, which added HFCs to the Montreal Protocol phase-down schedule
• The Paris Agreement of 2015, under which each party chooses its own nationally determined contribution covering the whole basket of greenhouse gases
• The Stockholm Convention of 2001, which restricts persistent organic pollutants that accumulate along food chains
• The Basel Convention of 1989, which controls exports of hazardous waste between states

Answer: The Kigali Amendment of 2016, which added HFCs to the Montreal Protocol phase-down schedule

HFCs were adopted as the ozone-safe substitute, but they are potent greenhouse gases, so the Kigali Amendment brought them under an ozone treaty for a climate reason. Ozone depletion and the enhanced greenhouse effect remain two separate problems; Kigali links the instruments, not the mechanisms.

A distant-water fleet takes tuna on the high seas, well beyond any exclusive economic zone. A coastal state whose own catches are falling cannot bring the vessels before any of its courts. Which feature of the law of the sea accounts for this?

• The high seas belong to no state at all, so no environmental rule of any kind can bind a vessel that is fishing there
• Beyond the exclusive economic zone a vessel answers only to the state whose flag it flies
• A coastal state's rights over migratory stocks stop at the low-water line of its own coast
• A fishing vessel loses the nationality of its owners on leaving port and is stateless in law

Answer: Beyond the exclusive economic zone a vessel answers only to the state whose flag it flies

On the high seas jurisdiction follows the flag, so an affected coastal state has no forum of its own in which to act. That gap is exactly why straddling and highly migratory stocks are handled through regional fisheries bodies and the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement rather than by national legislation.