This book offers recent insights into some of the burning issues of our times: climate change, exposure to chemicals, refugee issues and the ecological harm that accompanies conflict situations. It brings together a group of pioneering scholars, mostly legal experts but also thinkers from various scientific disciplines, to discuss concerns from around the globe - from Australia and New Zealand, to Canada and the United States, European countries including Germany, Italy, Britain and the Czech Republic, as well as the African continent. Presenting the latest climate and ecology-related case law, as well as analyses of the conceptual issues that underlie international problems, it covers the extinction of species, the basic role of women and Indigenous peoples in protecting the environment, the failure of today's states to protect the human right to a safe environment and public health, the harm arising from industrial food production, and the problems resulting from a growth-oriented economy. Lastly, the book examines various international legal principles and regulations that have been proposed to defend global ecological rights.

This book presents an important discussion on the implementation of sustainable soil management in Africa from a range of governance perspectives. It addresses aspects such as the general challenges in Africa with regard to soil management; the structural deficiencies in legal, organizational and institutional terms; and specific policies at the national level, including land cover policies and persistent organic pollutants. This fourth volume of the International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy is divided into four parts, the first of which deals with several aspects of the theme "sustainable soil management in Africa." In turn, the second part covers recent international developments, the third part presents regional and national reports (i.a. Mexico, USA and Germany), and the fourth discusses cross-cutting issues(i.a. on rural-urban interfaces). Given the range of key topics covered, the book offers an indispensible tool for all academics, legislators and policymakers working in this field. The "International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy" is a book series that discusses central questions in law and politics with regard to the protection and sustainable management of soil and land - at the international, national and regional level.

This book provides an in-depth assessment of the modern geopolitics of hydrocarbon resources in the territorial waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, highlighting the current conflicts and disputes in the maritime territories of Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Turkey. Further, these geopolitical aspects are analyzed within the broader context of the tensions between and competing interests of big powers such as the USA, Russia, and the European Union. To what extent can major powers influence regional actors and guide them toward rational outcomes? To what extent can economic self-interest contain nationalistic impulses? What are the most practical and sustainable ways of promoting win-win scenarios? This book focuses on such questions and presents a number of clear policy guidelines to help the conflict-laden Eastern Mediterranean region gain a more peaceful and sustainable footing for the greater benefit of the peoples living there.

This book presents an important discussion on future options for sustainable soil management in Africa from various perspectives, including national soil protection regulations, the role of tenure rights, the work of relevant international institutions such as the UNCCD and FAO, and regional and international cooperation. This first volume of the new subseries Regional Perspectives to the International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy includes contributions by African and international experts alike. Given the range of key topics covered, the book offers an indispensable tool for all academics, legislators and policymakers working in this field. The "International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy - Regional Perspectives" series discusses central questions in law and politics that concern the protection and sustainable management of soil and land in different regions of the world.

The potential conflict among economic and ecological goals has formed the central fault line of environmental politics in the United States and most other countries since the 1970s. The accepted view is that efforts to protect the environment will detract from economic growth, jobs, and global competitiveness. Conversely, much advocacy on behalf of the environment focuses on the need to control growth and avoid its more damaging effects. This offers a stark choice between prosperity and growth, on the one hand, and ecological degradation on the other. Stopping or reversing growth in most countries is unrealistic, economically risky, politically difficult, and is likely to harm the very groups that should be protected. At the same time, a strategy of unguided "growth above all" would cause ecological catastrophe. Over the last decade, the concept of green growth - the idea that the right mix of policies, investments, and technologies will lead to beneficial growth within ecological limits - has become central to global and national debates and policy due to the financial crisis and climate change. As Daniel J. Fiorino argues, in order for green growth to occur, ecological goals must be incorporated into the structure of the economic and political systems. In this book, he looks at green growth, a vast topic that has heretofore not been systematically covered in the literature on environmental policy and politics. Fiorino looks at its role in global, national, and local policy making; its relationship to sustainable development; controversies surrounding it (both from the left and right); its potential role in ameliorating inequality; and the policy strategies that are linked with it. The book also examines the political feasibility of green growth as a policy framework. While he focuses on the United States, Fiorino will draw comparisons to green growth policy in other countries, including Germany, China, and Brazil.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the European Sustainability Model which cannot be properly understood without taking into account the global governance trends surrounding the topic. The author offers a fresh analysis of both theory and praxis of sustainable development in the open-ended process of EU integration by shedding new light on the often-overlooked role that law and legal science should have within the educational and cultural domains. The monograph explores the necessity of new conceptual and methodological approaches in order to understand the emerging educational and cultural challenges when it comes to their integration and intersection with sustainability in today's society, which desperately claims systemic transformations.

At the time of the 1972 Stockholm UN Conference on the Human Environment, the concept of sustainable development and the subject of international environmental law were virtually unknown. Since then, the importance of the subject has burgeoned, as has the number and complexity of the legal instruments that seek to address the threats posed to the planet by humankind. Deforestation, marine pollution, climate change, loss of biodiversity and similar concerns are now familiar - and still unresolved - problems. This research review discusses a selection of key articles on the seminal issues of sustainable development and international environmental law, providing the reader with a solid understanding of the breadth and texture of the legal issues involved.

This book provides valuable insights into various contemporary issues in public and private maritime law, including interdisciplinary aspects. The public law topics addressed include public international law and law of the sea, while a variety of private law topics are explored, e.g. commercial maritime law, conflict of laws, and new developments in the application of advanced technologies to maritime law issues. In addition, the book highlights current and topical discussions at international maritime forums such as the International Maritime Organization on regulatory and private law matters within the domain of marine environmental law, the law respecting seafarers' affairs and maritime pedagogics, maritime security, comparative law in the maritime field, trade law, recent case law analysis, taxation law in the maritime context, maritime arbitration, carriage of passengers, port law, and limitation of liability.

This state-of-the-art Dictionary defines terms employed in international agreements, national legislation and scholarly legal studies related to comparative and international environmental law and the emerging law of climate change. In acknowledgement of China's growing role in this arena, each term also includes its pinyin translation in order to facilitate access to the Mandarin variants.The international community is developing increasingly complex environmental provisions and participating in a number of international treaties and agreements related to environmental law and regulation. The complicated and highly specific nature of environmental law has led to the development of localized terminology that is not easily understood outside its country of origin. Jointly prepared by scholars in China and the US, the Dictionary provides a linguistic bridge between English and Chinese speakers as well as an essential reference for those interpreting and applying international environmental law, multilateral environmental agreements, and domestic laws that implement these treaties. Students, scholars and practitioners in the area of environmental law will find this groundbreaking Dictionary an invaluable addition to their libraries.

This is the first book that critically examines the reform of the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in light of the current crisis resulting from the U.S. blocking of the appointment of its members. The reform of the AB is critical, as the appointment crisis could lead to the demise of "the jewel in the crown," which may even cause the dismantling of the WTO as a whole. This book covers various aspects of the crisis and its reform. Specifically, as the crisis cannot be fully understood without reviewing the role of the AB from the broader perspectives of the other functions of the WTO, the book examines the reform of the AB from the broader perspectives of the WTO governance. Additional focus is on the reform of the AB in relation to its specific functions. Available options are provided to address the AB crisis, as well as discussion of wider implications beyond the WTO. Contributed by world-renowned academics, experts, and practitioners in the field of international economic law, this volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the AB crisis and its solutions.

This book provides a broad understanding of whether law plays a role in influencing patterns of sustainable consumption and, if so, how. Bringing together legal scholars from the Global South and the Global North, it examines these questions in the context of national, transnational and international law, within single and plural legal systems, and across a range of sector-specific issue areas. The chapters identify how traditional legal disciplines (e.g. constitutional law, consumer law, public procurement, international public law), sector-related regulation (e.g. energy, water, waste), and legal rules in specific areas (e.g. eco-labelling and packing) engage with the concept of sustainable consumption. A number of the contributions describe this relationship by isolating a national legal system, while others approach it from the vantage point of legal pluralism, exploring the conflicts and convergences of rules between multiple international treaties (or guidelines) and those between the rules of international and transnational law (or both) vis-a-vis national legal systems. While sustainable consumption is recognised as an important field of interdisciplinary research linking virtually all social science disciplines, legal scholarship, in contrast, has neglected the importance of the field of sustainable consumption to the law. This book fills the gap.

This book analyses a selection of challenges in the implementation and application of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), focusing on several areas: international organizations, fisheries, security, preserving marine biodiversity, dispute settlement, and interaction with other areas of international law. UNCLOS has been described as the Constitution for the Oceans. It sets out the fundamental rights, obligations and jurisdictions of States regarding the access to, uses and management of the oceans and seas and their resources. It balances States' diverse and sometimes conflicting interests, such as conflicting uses of space, against navigational interests and the protection of the marine environment. UNCLOS is the first global treaty to include comprehensive obligations on the protection and preservation of the marine environment, including the conservation of living marine resources. These are often common or cross-border challenges, which can only be addressed through international cooperation. The book is divided into three thematic parts. The first concerns the role of international organizations in ocean governance. It includes twelve chapters covering a very diverse set of issues, both materially and geographically, that demonstrate the importance of coordinated actions on the part of multiple States for obtaining harmonized solutions regarding the pursuit of activities in maritime spaces (in connection with e.g. navigation, fisheries or maritime security). The second part concerns the relevance of dispute settlement mechanisms for understanding the international law of the sea and the international legal framework within which the actions of the great maritime powers take place. It is composed of three chapters, examining stakeholders' role in dispute settlement, the position taken by China and the Russian Federation regarding international litigation in maritime spaces, and how the South China Sea Award may be relevant to the debate on the international legal concepts of rock and island. In turn, the third part addresses current discussions on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. Its seven chapters report on the status quo of the ongoing negotiations for a new international legal regime of the high seas, and the establishment and operationalization of environmental regimes for international maritime spaces.

The modern era is facing unprecedented governance challenges in striving to achieve long-term sustainability goals and to limit human impacts on the Earth system. This volume synthesizes a decade of multidisciplinary research into how diverse actors exercise authority in environmental decision making, and their capacity to deliver effective, legitimate and equitable Earth system governance. Actors from the global to the local level are considered, including governments, international organizations and corporations. Chapters cover how state and non-state actors engage with decision-making processes, the relationship between agency and structure, and the variations in governance and agency across different spheres and tiers of society. Providing an overview of the major questions, issues and debates, as well as the theories and methods used in studies of agency in earth system governance, this book provides a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers, as well as practitioners and policy makers working in environmental governance. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.

Nearly everyone accepts as gospel two assumptions: compliance with environmental rules is high, and enforcement is responsible for making compliance happen. Both are wrong. In fact, serious violations of environmental regulations are widespread, and by far the most important driver of compliance results is not enforcement but the structure of the rule itself. In Next Generation Compliance, Cynthia Giles shows that well-designed regulations deploying creative strategies to make compliance the default can achieve excellent implementation outcomes. Poorly designed rules that create many opportunities to evade, obfuscate, or ignore will have dismal performance that no amount of enforcement will ever fix. Rampant violations have real consequences: unhealthy air, polluted water, contaminated drinking water, exposure to dangerous chemicals, and unrestrained climate-forcing pollution. They also land hardest on already overburdened communities - that's why Next Gen and environmental justice are tightly linked. The good news is there are tools to build much better compliance into regulations, including many tested strategies that can be the building blocks of programs that withstand the inevitable pressures of real life. Next Generation Compliance shows how regulators can avoid the compliance calamities that plague far too many environmental rules today, a lesson that is particularly urgent for regulations tackling climate change. It has an optimistic message: there are ways to ensure reliable results, if regulators jettison incorrect assumptions and design rules that are resilient to the mess and complexity of the real world.

The role of law in responding to global environmental problems and the interplay between different levels of regulation and governance is becoming increasingly relevant in the field of liability and reparation for environmental damage. This book examines the relationship and reciprocal influences between the EU and the international legal order in a multilevel and comparative perspective, in relation to the ongoing efforts to elaborate effective regimes of liability and reparation for environmental damage. It offers a comparative analysis of legal developments in the field of environmental liability within the EU and at the international law level and addresses questions concerning the impact of such interaction on the development, implementation and enforcement of appropriate responses to environmental damage within the respective legal orders and on a global level. Given the book’s focus and the transnational legal dimension of the issues covered, this volume will be of great interest to legal academics and researchers working in the environmental law field from an EU law and international law perspective, as well as more generally to scholars interested in the study of the relationship between EU and international law. Outside academia, the book will also be of great interest to practitioners wishing to get insights into the application of the law of environmental liability in the EU and at the international law level.

This book analyses the topical and contentious issue of the human rights impacts associated with carbon projects, especially in developing countries. It outlines a human rights-based approach to carbon finance as a functional framework for mainstreaming human rights into the design, approval, finance and implementation of carbon projects. It also describes the nature and scope of carbon projects, the available legal options for their financing and the key human rights issues at stake in their planning and execution. Written in a user-friendly style, the proposal for a rights-based due diligence framework through which human rights issues can be anticipated and addressed makes this book relevant to all stakeholders in carbon, energy, and environmental investments and projects.

The unprecedented degradation of the planet's vital ecosystems is among the most pressing issues confronting the international community. Despite the proliferation of legal instruments to combat environmental problems, conflicts between rich and poor nations (the North-South divide) have compromised international environmental law, leading to deadlocks in environmental treaty negotiations and noncompliance with existing agreements. This volume examines both the historical origins of the North-South divide in European colonialism as well as its contemporary manifestations in a range of issues including food justice, energy justice, indigenous rights, trade, investment, extractive industries, human rights, land grabs, hazardous waste, and climate change. Born out of the recognition that global inequality and profligate consumerism present threats to a sustainable planet, this book makes a unique contribution to international environmental law by emphasizing the priorities and perspectives of the global South.

This book is based on presentations from the Conference 'Arctic Marine Resource Governance' held in Reykjavik Iceland in October 2015. The book is divided into four main themes: 1. Global management and institutions for Arctic marine resources 2. Resource stewards and users: local and indigenous co-management 3. Governance gaps in Arctic marine resource management and 4. Multi-scale, ecosystem-based, Arctic marine resource management'. The ecosystem changes underway in the Arctic region are expected to have significant impacts on living resources in both the short and long run, and current actions and policies adopted over such resource governance will have serious and ultimately irreversible consequences in the near and long terms.

This book presents an important discussion on soil and sustainable agriculture from a range of perspectives, addressing key topics such as sustainable intensification, the FAO Voluntary Guidelines, and the crucial role of appropriate tenure rights. This second volume of the International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy is divided into four parts, the first of which deals with several aspects of the theme "soil and sustainable agriculture." In turn, the second part covers recent international developments, the third part presents regional and national reports, and the fourth discusses cross-cutting issues. Given the range of key topics covered, the book offers an indispensable tool for all academics, legislators and policymakers working in this field. The "International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy" is a book series that discusses central questions in law and politics with regard to the protection and sustainable management of soil and land - at the international, national and regional level. The Chapter "The Use of Property Law Tools for Soil Protection" by Jessica Owley is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

The fragmented state of global climate governance poses major challenges to policymakers and scholars alike. Through an in-depth examination of regime interactions between the international climate regime and three other regimes (on clean technology, biodiversity and international trade), this book provides novel and timely insights into the various consequences of regime interactions. It also offers a critical discussion of the potential for legal techniques and institutional coordination to foster synergies and mitigate conflicts between regimes in the area of climate change. Providing an in-depth examination of institutional fragmentation and regime interactions in global climate change governance, this unique book links the literature on institutional interactions and interplay management to the discussions on the fragmentation of international law. It contains the first comparison of different types of interactions and interaction management in the issue area of climate change, and addresses the important role of non-state actors. This volume will be of great value to students and scholars of global governance and international law.

This book addresses legal aspects of sustainable development and offers the latest thinking on a wide range of current themes. By taking a cross-cutting approach, it adds considerably to the exploration of this emerging scientific field. Twenty-nine original contributions present innovative thoughts and replicable ideas from this exciting, new area, which will be of value to practitioners and researchers alike.These contributions are allocated into a horizontal and sectorial part. The section covering horizontal policies has five sub-parts: 1) general aspects; 2) human and intellectual property rights; 3) communication and social enterprise governance; 4) public participation and 5) assessment tools. The second part on sectorial policies also has five sub-parts: 1) forest and water management; 2) renewable energy; 3) cities, waste and material management; 4) biodiversity, nature conservation, oceans and spatial planning and 5) agriculture and rural policy. It offers a multifaceted discussion of sustainable development and law by authors from five continents and from both the public and the private sectors. This selection guarantees a broad view that presents the more theoretical arguments from the academic as well as the practical perspective. Furthermore, the authorship includes senior, highly experienced academics and practitioners as well as those at the start of their career. This ensures thoughtful expansions of established theories as well as the emergence of innovative ideas. Moreover, the ten sub-parts bring together likeminded thoughts, resulting in an exchange of different viewpoints on a similar theme. This allows the readers to concentrate on individual chapters, while at the same time discovering a variety of thoughts and ideas.

As climate change and urban development are closely interlinked and often interact negatively, this edited volume takes Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam's first mega-urban region as a case study to analyse its vulnerability to climate change and to suggest measures towards a more sustainable urban development. The book offers an overview on land use planning regarding the aspects of urban flooding, urban climate, urban energy and urban mobility as well as spatial views from the angle of urban planning such as the metropolitan level, the city, the neighbourhood and building level. It shows that to a significant degree, measures dealing with climate change can be taken from the toolbox of sustainable urban development and reflects how institutional structures need to change to enhance chances for implementation given socio-cultural and economic constraints. This is merged and integrated into a holistic perspective of planning recommendations, supporting the municipal government to increase its adaptive capacity. The authors are members of a German government funded research project on how to support HCMC's municipal government to adapt to risks related to climate change.

This book offers a detailed account of the legal issues concerning the British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Islands) by leading experts in the field. It examines the broader significance of the ongoing Bancoult litigation in the UK Courts, the Chagos Islanders' petition to the European Court of Human Rights and Mauritius' successful challenge, under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, to the UK government's creation of a Marine Protected Area around the Chagos Archipelago. This book, produced in response to the 50th anniversary of the BIOT's founding, also assesses the impact of the decisions taken in respect of the Territory against a wider background of decolonization while addressing important questions about the lawfulness of maintaining Overseas Territories in the post-colonial era.The chapter 'Anachronistic As Colonial Remnants May Be...' - Locating the Rights of the Chagos Islanders As A Case Study of the Operation of Human Rights Law in Colonial Territories is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

This book explores the changing nature of international law and its ability to respond to the contemporary issues related to international environment, trade and information technology. The evolution of international law has reached a stage where we are witnessing diminishing power of the state and its capacity to deal with the economic matters challenging the existing notions of territory and sovereignty. Recent trends in international law and international relations show that states no longer have exclusive control over the decision-making process at the global level. Keeping this in mind, the book brings together the perspectives of various international and national scholars. The book considers diverse issues such as, sustainable development, climate change, global warming, Rio+20, technology transfer, agro-biodiversity and genetic resource, authority for protection of environment, human right to water, globalization, human rights, sui generis options in IP laws, impact of liberalization on higher education, regulation of international trade, intellectual property rights, collective administration of copyright, broadcast reproduction rights, implementation of copyright law, communication rights under copyright law, arbitration for IP disputes, doctrine of exhaustion of rights, trans-border reputation of trademark, information as an asset, cyber obscenity and pornography, e-governance, taxation of e-commerce, computer crime, information technology, domain names, research excellence in legal education, ideological perspective on legal education, challenges for law teachers, and clinical legal education. The topics, though diverse, are closely interrelated, with the common concern throughout being that the global environment, international trade, information technology and legal education need appropriate national normative and institutional responses as well as the global cooperation of members of the international community. Presenting reflections of a number of Asian, African and European scholars on these varied facets, the book is of great value to scholars, practitioners, teachers and students associated with contemporary international law.

This book focuses on understanding the characteristics of the marine environment; overall characteristic of the marine resources (especially the marine new energy) and their current utilization; important routes, channels, and ports; and the Maritime Silk Road from the perspective of international law. It also discusses the significance and opportunities of the Maritime Silk Road initiative, analyzes the challenges involved in the construction of the Maritime Silk Road and provides corresponding countermeasures. Based on the above research, this book also proposes to construct a comprehensive application platform for the Maritime Silk Road that will be a practical tool for decision-making. This book is one of the series publications on the 21st century Maritime Silk Road (shortened as "Maritime Silk Road"). This series publications cover the characteristics of the marine environment and marine new energy, remote islands and reefs construction, climate change, early warning of wave disasters, legal escort, marine environment and energy big data construction, etc. contributing to the safe and efficient construction of the Maritime Silk Road. It aims to improve our knowledge of the ocean, thus to improve the capacity for marine construction, enhance the viability of remote islands and reefs, ease the energy crisis and protect the ecological environment, improve the quality of life of residents along the Maritime Silk Road, and protect the rights, interests of the countries and regions participating in the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. It will be a valuable reference for decision-makers, researchers, and marine engineers working in the related fields.