The Role of Norms as a Solution for the Legal Problems Caused by the Overlapping Subject Matters of the Provisions under Multilateral Environmental Treaties

Worapoj Suebprasertkul

doi:10.14456/gjl.2026.35

Authors

Worapoj Suebprasertkul Faculty of Law, Ramkhamhaeng University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14456/gjl.2026.35

Keywords:

Overlapping Subject-Matters under Multilateral Environmental Treaties, International Legal Norms, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969, Interactional Law, Internal Morality of Law

Abstract

Examining the problem of overlapping subject-matters of provisions under Multilateral Environmental Treaties (METs), this study posits that an international legal norm can serve as the mechanism to resolve the resulting conflicts of METs obligations. The study proceeds from the observation that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 (VCLT) does not provide adequate provisions to address all scenarios of substantive overlap due to the METs successively concluded at different times and regions but addressing the same subject-matters, eventually leaving states in a legal problem, namely, a condition of compliance uncertainty that risks treaty breach and undermines effective global environmental governance. The findings illustrate that the existing remedial efforts reliance on the norms of Common Heritage of Mankind and Common Concern of Humankind, and various modes of treaty interpretation prove either legally indeterminate or practically constrained. With the objectives of resolving the aforementioned problem despite there being no effective solutions available, this study employing a mixture of doctrinal and normative legal research methodologies – therefore draws on Lon Fuller's theory of the Internal Morality of Law, the theory of Interactional Law, Christine Korsgaard's theory of Practical Identity, and the normativity theories of David Hume and others in order to propose a formulation of a new international legal norm as a solution to the mentioned legal problem. The study proposes an intentional construction of a new international legal norm through a structured, multi-stage process of inter-state communication facilitated by United Nations bodies. With the relevant theories used in framing, the proposed international legal norm, built through the mechanisms described in this study would generate in states an internalised sense of obligation that leads states to comply not from fear of sanction but from a perception of legitimacy, thereby not only sustaining the feasibility and efficiency of the norm itself, but also securing effective and voluntary compliance of the states, so that the legal problem caused by the overlapping subject-matters under the METs can be resolved by the international legal norm. This also ultimately strengthens the architecture of global environmental governance.

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