Prevention, precaution and “the polluter pays”. These are the cornerstones of the “Global Pact for the Environment”, the Global Pact for the Environment that, two years after its drafting, at a decisive moment for its international process, finds in Italy a new body of support and diffusion. In fact, this morning at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, home of the first Italian degree course specifically dedicated to the Green Economy, the Italian Working Table for the Global Pact for the Environment was born. There are already five Italian universities involved in the work project (with the Suor Orsola there are the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” and the Universities of Foggia, Turin and Roma Tre).
“The commitment of the Universities to the Global Pact for the Environment must become increasingly intense and effective – explained the Rector of Suor Orsola, Lucio d'Alessandro, vice president of the Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities – because we are in a moment in which a new “vision of the world” is at stake, a paradigm shift that must found and support a different global model of governance of production processes, taken as a whole. A radical transformation in which the education of young people takes on a priority and certainly decisive role because the environmental issue and the green economy as a possible response are the true scientific, political and economic crossroads of our times”.
Launched in 2016 with an original text in six different languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) by an international network of experts from all over the world, the “Group of Experts for the Pact”, chaired by the President of the French Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius, and with the presence of three illustrious Italian scholars (Domenico Amirante, Tullio Scovazzi and Rosario Ferrara), the Global Pact for the Environment was presented for the first time in its final version on 24 June 2017, at the Sorbonne University in Paris, by French President Emmanuel Macron. Since then, a long battle has begun for its recognition as a set of binding rules. On 19 March 2018, the European Commission also asked the Council for a mandate to negotiate a Global Pact for the Environment on behalf of the European Union. Finally, on 10 May 2018, the United Nations General Assembly approved, with an overwhelming majority (but with the politically heavy votes against of Russia and the United States), a resolution entitled Towards a Global Pact for the Environment, marking the opening of international negotiations for the approval of the Pact.
"The environmental protection system conceived by the Pact - stressed Domenico Amirante, coordinator of the PhD in Comparative Law at the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" and member of the Group of Experts for the Pact - is based on the centrality of the principle of prevention, understood as an 'ordinary' mode of action in the environmental field and which must inform all moments of public action, but today also private action. The other two principles therefore perform both auxiliary and integrative functions, with respect to prevention. For example, the "polluter pays" principle represents not only a tool for the integration of prevention objectives in economic activities and in public and social policies (the internalization of environmental costs), but also a closing rule to be used in those cases definable as 'failure of prevention', and which, unfortunately, do not appear negligible at present. The precautionary principle, on the other hand, acts 'upstream', being called upon to intervene in cases where the preventive approach cannot be applied, acting as a regulatory philosophy relating to the management of uncertain or potential risks".
In order to try to stimulate an international debate that will finally transform the Pact into a set of binding rules, the newly formed Italian Working Table for the Global Pact for the Environment invites the academic, scientific and cultural institutions of the country and civil society as a whole to support the work project in every possible way. A support that has already received the support of the Giambattista Vico Foundation chaired by the jurist Vincenzo Pepe, professor of Italian and Comparative Environmental Law at the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" and author of the recent volume "Thinking about the future. Giving life to a new model of environmentalism". "To combine respect for the Earth and natural resources with development - Pepe highlighted - we first need a new cultural model that starts by making Environmentalism a compulsory school subject". In this sense, as Pepe announced, in the next few days a parliamentary bill will be presented (for the fifth consecutive legislature) with the support of all political parties. Full support for the Italian Working Table for the Global Pact for the Environment also from the Ministry of the Environment which has committed, through the intervention of its Chief of Staff Pier Luigi Petrillo, to host a next meeting of the Table at the Ministry headquarters to imagine a strengthening of the Italian commitment on environmental issues. "In recent international history, unfortunately, we have suffered too many defeats on the issues of environmental law - underlined Yann Aguila, Secretary General of the Global Pact for the Environment - and so now to win this vital battle for the future of the Planet it becomes of fundamental importance that every Nation works to involve public opinion and young people in universities as Italy is starting to do today with this meritorious academic initiative".
Info: www.pactenvironment.org
Article published on 29 October 2018 - 16:31
