Environment as a Common Good: Solidarity, Environmental Sustainability and the Intergenerational Dimension

This chapter seeks to examine whether the characterization of the environment – or of essential environmental resources, such as the climate or biodiversity – as a common good has relevance only at the conceptual level, or merely as a façon de parler, or whether it also possesses a normative quality capable of acquiring legal relevance under international law by imposing obligations on States to address environmental challenges and to advance environmental sustainability.