Drafting Legislation for Sustainable Soils: Judicative principles towards sustainable land use and protection of soil quality

The law relating to soil has been a poor cousin to broader environmental legislation in most countries. Almost 10 years ago, the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law established a Specialist Group on Sustainable Soils and Desertification in order to investigate both international and national legal regimes to promote the sustainable use of soil. Significantly, the push for such investigations into international and national soil law came from the soil science community. In recent times, there has been a realisation within environmental law circles that soil is an essential element of the conservation of biological diversity, and that soil bodies perform a wide range of ecological functions, over and above their direct utilisation for agriculture, grazing and human life-sustaining activities. Of particular importance at the present time is the need to focus more particularly on the function of soil as part of the bio-sequestration of carbon. This brief article focuses on the drafting of national legislation. However, it is pertinent to note that further research is being undertaken on the need for and form of an international legal instrument on sustainable soils.