This discerning book examines the challenges, opportunities and solutions for courts adjudicating on environmental cases. It offers a critical analysis of the practice and judgments of courts from various representative and influential jurisdictions. Through the analysis and comparison of court practices and case law across global domestic courts as varied as the National Green Tribunal in India, the Land and Environment Court in Australia, and the District Court of The Hague in the Netherlands, the expert contributors bring together a wealth of knowledge in order to enhance mutual learning and understanding towards an environmental rule of law. In doing so, they illustrate that courts play a vital role in the formation and crystallization of rulings and decisions to protect and conserve the environment. Ultimately, they prove that there are many lessons to be learnt from other legal systems in seeking to maintain and enhance the environmental rule of law. Contemporary and global in scope, Courts and the Environment is essential reading for scholars and students of environmental law, as well as judges, legal practitioners and policymakers interested in understanding the legal challenges to and the legal basis for protecting environmental values in courts. Contributors: A. Bengtsson, L. Butterly, O. Chornous, T. Daya-Winterbottom, Y.K. Dewi, G.E.K. Dzah, H.S. Ferreira, R. Guidone, D. Hodas, A. Jayadi, S. Jolly, H. Jonas, A. Kennedy, N. Kichigin, E. Lamprea, M.A. Leon Moreta, B Liu, Z. Makuch, P. Martin, R.L.M. Mendes, N.H.T. Nam, A.M. Paez, R. Pepper, B. Preston, N. Robinson, D.A. Serraglio, O. Spijkers, C. Voigt, Z. Zhang

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions of greenhouse gases from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is an important tool under the UNFCCC for incentivizing developing countries to adopt and scale up climate mitigation actions in the forest sector and for capturing and channeling the financial resources to do so.This handbook eloquently examines the methodological guidance and emerging governance arrangements for REDD+, analyzing how and to what extent it is embedded in the international legal framework. Organized coherently into five parts, contributions from legal experts, international relations scholars, climate change negotiators and activists explore the history and design of REDD+ in the UN climate regime, as well as linkages between REDD+ and other international agreements. The book also considers global governance for REDD+, its financial dimensions including markets and investment and future developments and legal challenges. Detailed analysis from a range of angles illustrates the interplay of international norms and institutions and maps out a legal research agenda for identifying best practice solutions. Shedding light on one of the most vibrant and fast-moving fields in international law, this comprehensive Handbook is essential reading for scholars of international law and international relations, policy makers in the area of climate change, REDD+ and land sector experts and NGOs. Contributors: R.R. Barrer, M.-C. Cordonier Segger, J. Costenbader, A. de Leon, F. Ferreira, M. Gehring, K. Gover, J. Gupta, K. Hite, P. Horne, S. Jodoin, P. Keenlyside, A.G.M. La Vina, A. Long, C.L. McDermott, E. Roessing Neto, C. Parker, A. Savaresi, M. Schwedeler, C. Streck, H. van Asselt, C. Voigt, A. Wardell, M.A. Young, O.R. Young

This discerning book examines the challenges, opportunities and solutions for courts adjudicating on environmental cases. It offers a critical analysis of the practice and judgments of courts from various representative and influential jurisdictions. Through the analysis and comparison of court practices and case law across global domestic courts as varied as the National Green Tribunal in India, the Land and Environment Court in Australia, and the District Court of The Hague in the Netherlands, the expert contributors bring together a wealth of knowledge in order to enhance mutual learning and understanding towards an environmental rule of law. In doing so, they illustrate that courts play a vital role in the formation and crystallization of rulings and decisions to protect and conserve the environment. Ultimately, they prove that there are many lessons to be learnt from other legal systems in seeking to maintain and enhance the environmental rule of law. Contemporary and global in scope, Courts and the Environment is essential reading for scholars and students of environmental law, as well as judges, legal practitioners and policymakers interested in understanding the legal challenges to and the legal basis for protecting environmental values in courts. Contributors: A. Bengtsson, L. Butterly, O. Chornous, T. Daya-Winterbottom, Y.K. Dewi, G.E.K. Dzah, H.S. Ferreira, R. Guidone, D. Hodas, A. Jayadi, S. Jolly, H. Jonas, A. Kennedy, N. Kichigin, E. Lamprea, M.A. Leon Moreta, B Liu, Z. Makuch, P. Martin, R.L.M. Mendes, N.H.T. Nam, A.M. Paez, R. Pepper, B. Preston, N. Robinson, D.A. Serraglio, O. Spijkers, C. Voigt, Z. Zhang

This book explores the best mechanisms for helping bring about compliance with international treaties. In recent years, many international treaties have included non-compliance mechanisms (NCMs) to facilitate implementation and promote parties' compliance with their obligations. These NCMs exist alongside the formal dispute resolution processes of international courts and tribunals. The authors bring together a wide legal and geographical spectrum of views from different parts of the world representing novel insights into NCMs' contribution to treaty implementation and compliance. The research has cast important light on how procedural innovations may help render NCMs more effective, as well as on the circumstances in which they may be needed, including particularly where nations share common interests, populations are interdependent, and implementation makes significant administrative, regulatory and political demands. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

'Human laws must be reformulated to keep human activities in harmony with the unchanging and universal laws of nature.' This 1987 statement by the World Commission on Environment and Development has never been more relevant and urgent than it is today. Despite the many legal responses to various environmental problems, more greenhouse gases than ever before are being released into the atmosphere, biological diversity is rapidly declining and fish stocks in the oceans are dwindling. This book challenges the doctrinal construction of environmental law and presents an innovative legal approach to ecological sustainability: a rule of law for nature which guides and transcends ordinary written laws and extends fundamental principles of respect, integrity and legal security to the non-human world.

More and more environmental cases are being heard and decided by international courts and tribunals which lack special environmental competence. This situation raises fundamental questions of legitimacy of the environmental practice of international courts. This book addresses inter alia questions of who has legal standing to bring an environmental claim before an international court, on which legal norms is the case decided and whether judges have the necessary expertise to adjudicate environmental cases of often complex nature. It analyses which challenges international courts face, which possibilities they have and which advances international judicial practice has been able to make in protecting the environment. Through the prism of legitimacy important insights emerge as to whether international courts and tribunals are fit for addressing some of the most pressing global challenges of our time.