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MEPIELAN Contributes to Environmental Democracy: New Publication by its Founding Director Circulated in November 2025

January 5, 2026

In November 2025, a major new scholarly contribution by the Founding Director of the MEPIELAN Centre, Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos, was circulated internationally. The book, Environmental Democracy and the Horizontality of International Law: Advancing the Mediterranean Accession Agenda to the Aarhus Convention, published by Edward Elgar Publishing, offers a challenging and forward-looking contribution to the promotion of participatory environmental democracy through a relational and horizontal approach to international law.

The book engages with fundamental questions at the heart of contemporary environmental governance and its participatory underpinnings, including how environmental democracy can be built in a knowledgeable, direct, intercultural, and genuinely citizen-centred manner at the national and international levels; how international law can once again function as both beacon and instrument for meaningful and inclusive public participation in environmental governance, moving beyond hollow democratic rhetoric and political self-interests; and how global environmental democracy can be strengthened through broader accession to the Aarhus Convention across the Mediterranean and beyond—and how can such accession be creatively and effectively negotiated.

Having its roots to an internationally authorized foundational study carried out by the author and the MEPIELAN research team, the book advances the agenda for environmental democracy by examining accession to the Aarhus Convention as a catalytic instrument for building, operationalizing and expanding participatory environmental governance in the Mediterranean and beyond. It highlights the creative potential of the often-overlooked horizontal normative dimension of international law and demonstrates how treaty interlinkages can unlock more accountable, inclusive and future-oriented governance frameworks.

More specifically, the book examines the universal value, institutional architecture and governance benefits of the Aarhus Convention, and analyses the legal and diplomatic pathways for the accession of non-UNECE Mediterranean States. Drawing on Article 3(7) of the Convention and the Almaty Guidelines, it highlights treaty interlinkages operationalized through strategic multilateral diplomacy and the establishment of Aarhus Centres. The book further explores the Convention’s interlinkages with global environmental, trade, economic, technological and human rights regimes, links it to the Sustainable Development Goals, and demonstrates how participatory decision-making, transboundary governance and creative negotiation processes can be effectively advanced across multiple levels.

The book ultimately proposes a structured and creative multilateral Pre-Accession/Preliminary Negotiation Phase aimed at supporting the effective integration of non-UNECE Mediterranean countries into the Aarhus Convention. Through multilateral cooperation, this approach facilitates Mediterranean accession to the Convention while opening a new avenue for collaborative engagement and strategic environmental diplomacy, thereby strengthening environmental democracy where it is most urgently needed.

The Aarhus Convention, with its cross-cutting impact on environmental treaty regimes and international and national decision-making processes, emerges as a legally robust and politically promising avenue for cultivating trusteeship-based approaches for promoting and implementing environmental democracy with a view to achieving sustainability throughout the Mediterranean and beyond – —an approach that speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Mediterranean societies.

For more information on the book, please visit the publisher’s website:

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/environmental-democracy-and-the-horizontality-of-international-law-9781035339303.html

 

About the author

MEPIELAN Centre
Author's Website

MEPIELAN Centre is an international research, training and educational centre established by Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos at the Panteion University of Athens in 2008.

Before its establishment as a University Centre, MEPIELAN operated as a successful international research, training and informational programme (2002-2007) under the scientific direction of Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos and the aegis of the Panteion University of Athens, supported by the Mediterranean Action Plan/UNEP and the Greek Ministry of the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works.

MEPIELAN Centre is an accredited UNEP/MAP PARTNER (since 2013), a Member of the Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development (MCSD) (since 2016), and a Member of the Steering Committee of the MCSD (since 2019).

On 22 May 2022, MEPIELAN Centre proceeded to the development of MEPIELAN as a Non- Profit Civil Organization (INGO) for the more effective and efficient advancement of its Goals and Missions and furtherance of its activities. MEPIELAN Centre as a Non- Profit Civil Organization (INGO) is registered in Greek Law (Hellenic Business Registry, Reg. No. 16477300100) in accordance with Laws 4072/2012 & 4919/2022 as applicable

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MEPIELAN E-Bulletin is a digital academic and practitioner newsletter of the MEPIELAN Centre, launched in 2010.  It features insight articles, reflective opinions, specially selected documents and cases, book reviews as well as news on thematic topics of direct interest of MEPIELAN Centre and on the activities and role of MEPIELAN Centre. Its content bridges theory and practice perspectives of relational international law, international environmental law and participatory governance , and international negotiating process, thus serving the primary goal of Centre: to develop an integrated, inter-disciplinary, relational, context-related and sustainably effective governance approach creating, protecting and advancing international common interest for the present and future generations. Providing a knowledge- and information-sharing platform and a scholarly forum, the Bulletin promotes innovative ideas and enlightened critical views, contributing to a broader scholarly debate on important issues of international common interest. The audience of the Bulletin includes academics, practitioners, researchers, university students, international lawyers, officials and personnel of international organizations and institutional arrangements, heads and personnel of national authorities at all levels (national, regional and local), and members of the civil society at large.