National environmental policies: state sovereignity and state responsibility

Abstract

The relationship between humankind and nature has never been an easy one. As centuries went by, this relationship has not been characterized as one of reciprocal exchanges but as completely determined, influenced, and oriented by only one side: human beings. A French physiologist, Claude Bernard, recognized the complex relational character of environment a century and a half ago when he distinguished the milieu extérieur outside the human body from the milieu intérieur comprising the body and its interior organs. The milieu extérieur, thus, comprises the relations of the human body with all living—and not living things—which are continuingly interacting in the exterior environment.