Human population control and environmental law

Abstract

This paper will examine the link between population growth and environmental problems and also statistics concerning human numbers. The actual term Population Law will be discussed and definitions provided to assess its scope and relevance to environmental law. The development of human population growth as a topic and focus of international concern will be linked in with some of the principles derived from the major international conferences on population. A matter of importance to the subject of how or whether population growth can or should be a matter for legal restraint has implications for established principles in human rights. Discussion will close on some approaches to population control that make the subject unwelcome in its own right, let alone part of the discipline of environmental law, But coercive measures may become a reality should the current attempts to control population prove insufficient. To shy away from the distasteftilness of the radical options in population control may prove to be a disservice to future generations, where the failure to make choices today leaves no choice for tomorrow,