Ethical foundations of international environmental law
The significance of the paper is explained by the growing environmental crisis and the urgent need to overcome it. One of the possible ways to improve the environmental situation is to balance the relationship between society and nature efficiently. For a long time the relationship was regulated by ethical, religious norms and economic constraints. Nowadays the society needs proper legal mechanisms. The paper analyzes the necessity of legally binding rules regulating the relationship between society and nature; proves that legal regulations can beneficially supplement ethical rules and sometimes initiate their development. At the same time, the linkage and interdependence of ethics and law are emphasized. The arguments for this include: the devastating nature of economic activities in the late twentieth century forced to initiate new methods and limits of these activities; the expanding knowledge about nature has made it possible to create rational norms and regulations; the failure to keep traditional moral values in the post-classical era is leading to the need of building new ways of regulation; the global social processes require the development of supranational norms. International environmental law focuses on regulating the relationship of society and nature according to two ethical positions. One is anthropocentrism with the whole set of related attributes: hierarchy, humanism, resource use, etc., which were establishing for centuries. The other is ecocentrism with its attempt to focus on the interests of natural communities which has been emerging for more than a hundred years. The paper examines trends in the development of modern environmental law: extension of the scope of legal regulation by recognizing the intrinsic value of animate and inanimate natural objects; protection of ecosystems consisting of natural objects and conditions ensuring their interaction, the cyclical and dynamic balance; increase of the number of stakeholders whose interests and values are taken into consideration in the legislation; uncertainty of some concepts of international environmental law leaving the opportunity to understand the context. It is concluded that the trends in the development of environmental law are certain attempts to solve the problems and contradictions of social and ethical issues. Moreover, international environmental law has the potential to be at the forefront of social development, affirming the value of ecocentrism and creating a new paradigm of society-nature relationship. The paper is based on research in the field of environmental ethics, ideas of Russian philosophers, materials of international environmental conferences and regulatory acts. In their study the authors used the method of structural analysis of legal texts and their content, the hermeneutical method to understand the "logic" of contemporary issues, as reflected in the law, the historical method to trace the development of environmental law and other methods.