Development vs Environment
DEVELOPMENT VERSUS ENVIRONMENT: THE CLASSIC DILEMMA
INTRODUCTION
“For the greenest of environmentalists, humans are of lesser importance than the abundant and diverse flora and fauna of the planet. Humans are defined as a recent addition to the livestock and are considered to have been a wholly disruptive influence on a world which was paradise before their arrival.”[1]
The condition of the environment today is well known to all and sundry. Deforestation, global warming, climate change, toxic pollution, and many more harmful phenomena, have spread all over the world at a pace so fast that the people of the world have had no time to react to it effectively. All over, the loss of greenery, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink is striking at the very heart of humanity.
Humans however, have only themselves to blame. Rapid industrial development, expansion of civilisations by eradicating more and more natural life and the basic callousness towards natural resources, have led the world to the current situations.
Various nations, which have finally realised the plight they are leading themselves to, have tried mitigating the damages. International conventions have been signed, domestic legislations enacted and safeguards put in place, yet in densely populated countries like India, these measures have proved to be not so effective because of the difficulty in their implementation and enforcement.
This paper seeks to analyse environmental law and the various safeguards in India, compare it to the international scenario, and examine the balance between development and the environment.
GLOBALISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Environmental law embraces a curious mixture of domestic pollution legislation and a plethora of multilateral environmental agreements that are administered and enforced through a complex and often ad hoc system of courts, tribunals, arbitral panels, and directives. It is not
INTRODUCTION
“For the greenest of environmentalists, humans are of lesser importance than the abundant and diverse flora and fauna of the planet. Humans are defined as a recent addition to the livestock and are considered to have been a wholly disruptive influence on a world which was paradise before their arrival.”[1]
The condition of the environment today is well known to all and sundry. Deforestation, global warming, climate change, toxic pollution, and many more harmful phenomena, have spread all over the world at a pace so fast that the people of the world have had no time to react to it effectively. All over, the loss of greenery, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink is striking at the very heart of humanity.
Humans however, have only themselves to blame. Rapid industrial development, expansion of civilisations by eradicating more and more natural life and the basic callousness towards natural resources, have led the world to the current situations.
Various nations, which have finally realised the plight they are leading themselves to, have tried mitigating the damages. International conventions have been signed, domestic legislations enacted and safeguards put in place, yet in densely populated countries like India, these measures have proved to be not so effective because of the difficulty in their implementation and enforcement.
This paper seeks to analyse environmental law and the various safeguards in India, compare it to the international scenario, and examine the balance between development and the environment.
GLOBALISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Environmental law embraces a curious mixture of domestic pollution legislation and a plethora of multilateral environmental agreements that are administered and enforced through a complex and often ad hoc system of courts, tribunals, arbitral panels, and directives. It is not