Strengthening Indian Environmental Law: Addressing Transboundary Challenges
- IJLLR Journal
- Sep 9
- 2 min read
Monani Jutan Niraj, B.A LL.B. (Hons.), Christ (Deemed to be University), Bangalore
ABSTRACT
Today’s environmental challenges, including cross-border pollution, deforestation, climate change, and the unsustainable exploitation of shared natural resources, present significant hurdles for national legal frameworks. These frameworks often find it difficult to address the complex nature of environmental degradation that ignores national boundaries. This discussion shines a light on India, emphasizing its battle with ecological problems that transcend its geographical limits. This includes the protection of migratory species, the management of shared waterways, the mitigation of pollution impacting adjacent areas, and the conservation of biodiversity that spans several countries. “Shared natural resources” encompasses rivers, forests, and fauna that exist across borders. While India boasts an extensive array of environmental regulations, it faces challenges in enforcing these laws and ensuring adherence, particularly to international environmental treaties. This discrepancy between India's global commitments and its domestic execution undermines its capacity to confront cross-border environmental issues, possibly leading to conflicts with neighbouring countries and damaging ecosystems that are vital to multiple nations.
India has significantly advanced in creating a robust legal structure to tackle domestic environmental challenges. However, there is a pressing need to enhance its legal approaches for addressing environmental issues that extend beyond its borders. Given India's geographical position, which entails sharing key natural resources such as rivers, forests, and air with its neighbours, this need becomes even more critical. The effectiveness of managing these cross-border environmental concerns is hampered by several factors. These include the absence of specific legal provisions tailored to these issues, a lack of effective cooperation frameworks, inadequate initiatives for technology transfer and adaptation, non-compliance with international environmental norms, weak enforcement of existing mechanisms, minimal regional cooperation, no established methods for resolving disputes, poor integration of these efforts at the local level, and a deficit in cross-border monitoring, evaluation, and reporting mechanisms.
The paper underscores the need to strengthen national legal systems and increase international collaboration to secure India’s pivotal role in managing environmental challenges that extend beyond its own territory. It contends that resolving these issues is vital for the equitable management of cross-border natural resources and for advancing environmental justice outside of India. This approach is seen as a pathway to developing a more effective and cooperative global environmental legal structure.
Keywords: Environment, Transboundary, Challenges, Framework, Cooperation, Degradation, Law.
