Louise Du Toit

University of Lincoln · College of Social Science

In this paper, we focus on the structural complicity of international environmental law (IEL) in causing and exacerbating climate injustices. We aim to show that although the intentions behind IEL may be well-meaning, it often inadvertently, but also deliberately at times, plays a role in creating, sustaining and exacerbating the many paradigms tha...

The planetary boundary of ‘stratospheric ozone depletion’ is closely related to climate change. Generally considered one of international environmental law’s few success stories, Louise du Toit analyses in Chapter 14 the extent to which the international environmental law regime for the protection of the ozone layer is enabling us to remain within...

Insights from Earth system science show us that we are crossing over into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Yet, environmental law has failed to integrate these insights and adopt an Earth system perspective, with the result that environmental law has arguably become incapable of responding to the numerous complex, interconnected, and non-l...

Concerns have been raised regarding the ability of international environmental law to respond to potentially irreversible earth system transformations in the Anthropocene. We argue that in order for international environmental law to have the capacity to respond to the socio-ecological challenges of the Anthropocene, it should embrace an earth syst...

Written by an international team of over sixty experts and drawing on over three thousand scientific studies, this is the first comprehensive global assessment of the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals, which were launched by the United Nations in 2015. It explores in detail the political steering effects of the Sustainable Devel...

In two recent South African cases, the applicants sought interim interdicts preventing the respondent companies – Shell and Searcher – from continuing with, or alternatively commencing, their seismic surveys along the eastern and the western/southwestern coasts of South Africa respectively. In both matters, rights in relation to searching for miner...

The insurance industry is especially vulnerable to climate change, which is expected to deeply impact insurers’ profitability and ultimately their viability. Despite this, most of the industry’s responses to climate change have been considered insufficient in light of the need to urgently mitigate greenhouse gas emissions; and there have been incre...

This chapter uses a desktop study to examine the insurance industry’s potential as a ‘fulcrum institution’ that can influence others to prevent and address environmental harms from climate change. As this chapter demonstrates, given insurance’s central economic role, the relationship between insurers and climate change is complicated and conflicted...

From bans in France, Bulgaria and Scotland to full-blown hydraulic fracturing in certain states and/or provinces in the United States of America, Canada and Australia, hydraulic fracturing is an emotive issue, which has sparked debate and public protest, prompted litigation and inspired the making of films and documentaries. With the recent approva...

Energy is crucial to all aspects of human life, including economic development. Nowhere is this more apparent than in South Africa where insufficient energy supply is costing the economy a great deal. Internationally and in South Africa energy is generated primarily from polluting and non-renewable fossil fuels. In light of concerns including over...

It has been seen that South Africa seriously lags behind other developing countries in terms of implementation of CDM projects. This paper looked briefly at the position in Brazil and identified a major difference between South Africa and Brazil as being the priority assigned to climate change in Brazil and the recognition of climate change general...