Restitution and Compensation for Environmental Damage in International Law: towards an Ecological Approach?

This article focuses on the obligations of States to repair environmental damage caused by their internationally unlawful acts. Such obligations are crucial to effectively implement environmental values underlying many rules of international law; however, for many years, these obligations essentially remained on a theoretical plane. Since the beginning of the 21st century, international practice on environmental reparation has been developing. This article intends to investigate whether and to what extent such practice, when establishing reparation for environmental damage, relies on the princi- ples of modern system ecology and thus is able to effectively restore the injured values. To this end, it first addresses in general terms the obligations of restitution and com- pensation in international law, which are aimed at removing the unlawful injury. Then, it analyses the practice of adjudicating bodies with respect to environmental repara- tion, namely the UN Compensation Commission, the ICJ and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Finally, the article summarises the research findings on the relevance of an ecological approach for current environmental reparation practice and gives some insights into the interaction between reparation of environmental damage and primary rules on environmental protection.