land reclamation
LAND RECLAMATION IN PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW: Its status and issues as an international legal concern in the Philippines
Introduction
Over the course of human history, man has manipulated his environment to further serve his material interests. For the sake of his survival, he has taken measures up to the extent of changing the natural state of environmental change with or without the consideration of the consequences brought about by these unordinary measures. It could be said that man has understood his environment well enough to be able to manipulate it in such unnatural ways. Other than this, the development of statehood in the international sphere has deeply complicated man’s relation with his environment now that his relation with other men has come into play. As a result, territoriality and jurisdiction over the physical natural environment has started to become important in the international sphere more specifically with the recognition of states and the establishment of the relation they have with each other.
As with the continuous natural change of the physical topography of the earth brought about by events such as earthquakes, shifting of the plates, and the rise and fall of sea levels, man has adopted well with these changes despite the somewhat stringent conditions created by the states themselves. These conditions are what we would pertain to as territorial jurisdiction over land, sea, and air in public international law. When it comes to natural changes in the environment, international law has been seemingly flexible and adaptable especially in cases such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. These events, in any way, had not been due to human intervention nor has it been in the position of human influence thus the innately flexible nature of international law concerning the aforementioned cases.
On the contrary, there has been very strict compliance when it comes to man-made environmental changes. Changing the natural state of the
Introduction
Over the course of human history, man has manipulated his environment to further serve his material interests. For the sake of his survival, he has taken measures up to the extent of changing the natural state of environmental change with or without the consideration of the consequences brought about by these unordinary measures. It could be said that man has understood his environment well enough to be able to manipulate it in such unnatural ways. Other than this, the development of statehood in the international sphere has deeply complicated man’s relation with his environment now that his relation with other men has come into play. As a result, territoriality and jurisdiction over the physical natural environment has started to become important in the international sphere more specifically with the recognition of states and the establishment of the relation they have with each other.
As with the continuous natural change of the physical topography of the earth brought about by events such as earthquakes, shifting of the plates, and the rise and fall of sea levels, man has adopted well with these changes despite the somewhat stringent conditions created by the states themselves. These conditions are what we would pertain to as territorial jurisdiction over land, sea, and air in public international law. When it comes to natural changes in the environment, international law has been seemingly flexible and adaptable especially in cases such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. These events, in any way, had not been due to human intervention nor has it been in the position of human influence thus the innately flexible nature of international law concerning the aforementioned cases.
On the contrary, there has been very strict compliance when it comes to man-made environmental changes. Changing the natural state of the
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