Shawkat Alam, Sumudu Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez and Jona Razzaque, International Environmental Law and the Global South, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015, 623 pp …

This new book, International Environmental Law and the Global South, is a timely, unique and significant contribution to the field of international and comparative environmental law, by four distinguished scholars.
The book is about the big issue in the transition to sustainability – the need to
forge greater co-operation between developed, industrialized and technologically advanced states (the ‘North’) and the developing, least developed and technologically impoverished states (the ‘South’), in order to effectively address global threats to the environment. No longer is it tolerable to develop environmental instruments and solutions that neglect ormarginalize the genuine realities, aspirations and needs of Southern countries, where many of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth live. As the United Nations Human Right Council recognized in its resolution 16/11 of 2011, ‘environmental damage is felt most acutely by those segments of the population already in vulnerable situations’.1 To be practical and effective, international environmental governance must emphasize the priorities and perspectives of the poor and vulnerable regions and nations. Despite the increased recognition of conflicts, divisions and gaps in international environmental governance that stifle the abilities of the global South to effectively take part in, and influence, environmental treaty negotiations, scholars, for many years, failed to offer a rigorous,book-length and in-depth exploration of the nature, historical causes and solutions to such gaps