Rethinking Environmental Law in the Age of Globalization: From National Regulation to Global Environmental Governance

globalization, environmental law, global environmental governance, environmental rule of law, sustainable development

Abstract

Globalization has fundamentally transformed the way environmental problems are regulated, interpreted, and governed. Environmental degradation is increasingly transboundary, involving climate change, biodiversity loss, marine pollution, deforestation, resource extraction, and global production chains that cannot be effectively addressed through state-centred regulation alone. This article examines the transformation of environmental law from predominantly national regulatory systems toward global environmental governance and evaluates its implications for national legal autonomy, institutional accountability, environmental justice, and enforcement. The research employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and international legal approaches, supported by comparative analysis of international environmental instruments and Indonesian environmental law scholarship. The study finds that globalization has produced four major transformations: the internationalization of environmental norms, the emergence of polycentric governance involving state and non-state actors, increasing interaction between global environmental commitments and domestic law, and the expansion of procedural and substantive environmental rights. Nevertheless, global environmental governance also generates problems of regulatory fragmentation, power asymmetry, implementation gaps, unequal institutional capacity, and tensions between economic development and environmental protection. Indonesia demonstrates that global norms are not simply transferred into domestic law but are negotiated, localized, and sometimes contested through national political and regulatory processes.