1. For a detailed examination of the evolution of international environmental law, see: Patricia Birnie and Alan Boyle, International Law and the Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) and Alexandre Kiss and Dinah Shelton, International Environmental Law, second edition (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 2000).
2. See: Lawrence Juda, "Considerations in Developing a Functional Approach to the Governance of Large Marine Ecosystems," 30 Ocean Development and International Law 89-125 (1999) for consideration of "politically defined space," referring to the geographic area encompassed by particular human governance systems, and "ecologically defined space," composed of the area over which natural ecosystems extend.
3. The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
4. Ibid., p. 39.
5. Rio Declaration, Principle 3. The importance of equity in the governance and management of the oceans is stressed in Independent World Commission on the Oceans, The Ocean Our Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 55-73. For an examination of the concept of equity in the context of Sustainable development, see: Edith Brown Weiss, "Environmental Equity and International Law," in Sun Lin (ed.), UNEP's New Way Forward: Environmental Law and Sustainable Development (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 1995), pp. 7-21.