The Handbook of Global Climate and Environment Policy presents an authoritative and comprehensive overview of global policy on climate and the environment. It combines the strengths of an interdisciplinary team of experts from around the world to explore current debates and the latest thinking in the search for global environmental solutions.
Robert Faulkner | 2013 | 3 min read
The great seas contain immense resources and provide invaluable services to humankind, yet their environmental conditions are threatened worldwide. The authors of this comprehensive and interdisciplinary study provide a rich assessment of the seas and the efficacy of the international environmental regimes governing them, as well as suggestions for improving governance and protection.
Joseph F.C. DiMento and Alexis Jaclyn Hickman | 2013 | 4 min read
The notion of global governance is widely studied in academia and increasingly relevant to politics and policy making. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. This book offers a fresh perspective by analyzing global governance in terms of three major trends, as exemplified by developments in global sustainability governance.
Frank Biermann and Philipp Pattberg | 2012 | 3 min read
Elli Louka, in this timely written important book, skillfully presents, in a “realistic” language, a thorough and insightful examination of the nuclear non-proliferation order and the particularities of its governance in its various contexts. It is often argued that the nuclear non-proliferation order divides the world into nuclear-weapon-haves and have-nots creating a nuclear apartheid.
Elli Louka | 2012 | 4 min read
In this major book, edited by Davor Vidas and Peter Johan Schei, thirty-three experts on marine affairs and the law of the sea examine the emerging challenges for the World Ocean, inquiring into developments prompted by globalisation in central issue-areas of the law of the sea. These are explored systematically in sections on the key challenges and developments in the interface of science, economic uses and law (Part I); climate change and the oceans (Part II); sustainability of fisheries (Part III); challenges and responses related to global maritime transport (Part IV); and the regulatory responses to global challenges in seas surrounding Europe (Part V).
Davor Vidas and Peter Johan Schei | 2011 | 5 min read
In this major book, edited by Davor Vidas, thirty-four experts on marine affairs and the law of the sea, from six continents, examine the emerging challenges for our World Ocean. The accumulating consequences of human activities on the seas indicate that the Earth may already have entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene, dominated by the human impact. This volume analyses developments in the interface of law, technology and science in some central law-of-the-sea issue areas. These are explored systematically in sections on the World Ocean in the Anthropocene epoch (Part I); combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (Part II); combating illegal oil spills from ships (Part III); marine genetic resources and bio-prospecting (Part IV); and the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines (Part V).
Davor Vidas | 2011 | 5 min read
On 28 July 2022, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the landmark Resolution 76/300 “: “The Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment”. Resolution 76/300 was adopted with overwhelming support: 161 votes in favour, zero against, and 8 abstentions (Belarus, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Syria).
The process of “carving out” the international recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right at the interacting international and national orders was naturally long and imperceptibly, but steadily, embedded in international negotiating process.
Evangelos Raftopoulos | 2023 | 25 min read
Since the beginning of the space age, the outer space has been extensively used for communications, navigation, earth observation and climate monitoring. Communication satellites power telephony and the internet. Navigation satellites have provided us with the GPS, and other such systems, that make traversing the earth much easier. Reconnaissance or surveillance satellites observe the earth to detect changes alerting us about environmental deterioration, illegal activities or polluting emissions. Satellites, as evidenced by the war in Ukraine, can even warn us about the movements of enemy nations by detecting, for example, the accumulation of armies and weapons right on our borders ready for invasion. Satellites in the service of the World Meteorological Association have led to much more precise estimates about the anticipated magnitude of climate change. Satellites and the rockets that propel them to space have made possible the beginning of conquest of space, the much-touted final frontier of humanity.
Elli Louka | 2023 | 21 min read
The Caspian Sea has been shared for centuries between Russia/USSR and Persia/Iran. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the international legal status of the Caspian Sea was governed by the International Treaties of 1921 and 1940, in which no specific definition was given to the Caspian Sea and its sui generis status was not named, but it was de facto condominium. These Treaties were accepted and recognized by the international community.[1] Since 1991, the three newly formed littoral states, former Republics of the USSR – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, have expressed a need to establish the new legal regime of the Caspian Sea.
Marina Soilemezidou | 2023 | 24 min read
The European Union (EU) has set an ambitious goal to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, and is relying on the European Green Deal (EGD) to achieve it, along with the Renewable Gases and Hydrogen Directive. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has accelerated the EU's strategy for energy resilience and replacing fossil energy carriers. Within the 2019 EGD vision and framework, renewable, low-carbon, and net-zero gases will have a prominent role to play in decarbonizing the EU economy. Hydrogen as a clean, reliable and potentially sustainable energy vector is a rising enabler for a multisectoral transition towards a low-carbon economy based on renewable energy sources.
Georgios Raftopoulos | 2023 | 13 min read
Efforts to deal effectively with loss and damage (L&D) in the UN climate regime, and to provide for avenues to remedy associated harms, have so far failed. While these efforts are ongoing, it is becoming increasingly clear that a broad range of international regimes and domestic legal systems will be challenged to respond to calls for appropriate remedies for those harmed by L&D. L&D is not defined in the UN climate regime. It has been suggested in the literature, however, that the phrase ‘loss and damage’ recognizes two categories of harm. One category involves permanent harm, or irrecoverable ‘loss’, such as the loss of landmass from sea level rise. The second category involves reparable or recoverable ‘damage’, such as shoreline damage from storms.
Meinhard Doelle and Sara L. Seck | 2020 | 15 min read
Unimproved germplasm, the way found in nature, and landraces cultivated by farmers around the world for years, were, till the adoption of the Biodiversity Convention, a free access resource. Improved germplasm, by breeding or bio-engineering, on the other hand, is often protected by patents or other sui generis intellectual property rights (IPRs). The power of the seed industry, the industry that has acquired IPRs over most of the improved germplasm, has increased dramatically. Five big companies, Syngenta (owned by ChemChina), Bayer (Germany), Corteva (US, a spinoff of DowDuPont) and BASF (Germany) control a sizeable piece of the total seed market and 90 percent of the agrochemical market. The oligopolistic nature of the seed industry makes improved germplasm often prohibitively expensive for the farmers of the developing countries.
Elli Louka | 2020 | 15 min read
On 22 December 2011 the Republic of Nicaragua filed suit against the Republic of Costa Rica at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that Costa Rica’s plan for the construction of a road along the border area between the two countries violates its territorial integrity and has serious environmental consequences to the ecosystem.
Kyriaki Monezi | 2012 | 7 min read
April 2010 marked a catastrophe of an unprecedented scale in the Gulf of Mexico that was undoubtedly a turning point for the future of offshore drilling not only in the United States, but worldwide. On April 20, the Macondo well that was situated 50 miles offshore Louisiana blew out causing the sinking of the semi-submersible Deepwater Horizon rig which resulted in injuring 17 and costing the lives of 11 workers and in having devastating environmental and broader economic impacts. On January 2011, the “National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling”, appointed by President Obama on 22 May 2010, handed over its report after a six-month intense research period.
Theano Maneta | 2011 | 14 min read
The 15th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers Responsible for Spatial/Regional Planning (CoE/CEMAT) was held in Moscow (Russian Federation) on 8-9 July 2010 on the theme “Future Challenges: Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent in a Changing World”.
Maguelonne Dejeant-Pons | 2010 | 55 min read
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down on the 21st of April 2010 a very important judgment in the Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay).
Nikolaos Tsokanas | 2010 | 7 min read
The Handbook of Global Climate and Environment Policy presents an authoritative and comprehensive overview of global policy on climate and the environment. It combines the strengths of an interdisciplinary team of experts from around the world to explore current debates and the latest thinking in the search for global environmental solutions.
Robert Faulkner | 2013 | 3 min read
The great seas contain immense resources and provide invaluable services to humankind, yet their environmental conditions are threatened worldwide. The authors of this comprehensive and interdisciplinary study provide a rich assessment of the seas and the efficacy of the international environmental regimes governing them, as well as suggestions for improving governance and protection.
Joseph F.C. DiMento and Alexis Jaclyn Hickman | 2013 | 4 min read
The notion of global governance is widely studied in academia and increasingly relevant to politics and policy making. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. Yet many of its fundamental elements remain unclear in both theory and practice. This book offers a fresh perspective by analyzing global governance in terms of three major trends, as exemplified by developments in global sustainability governance.
Frank Biermann and Philipp Pattberg | 2012 | 3 min read
Elli Louka, in this timely written important book, skillfully presents, in a “realistic” language, a thorough and insightful examination of the nuclear non-proliferation order and the particularities of its governance in its various contexts. It is often argued that the nuclear non-proliferation order divides the world into nuclear-weapon-haves and have-nots creating a nuclear apartheid.
Elli Louka | 2012 | 4 min read
In this major book, edited by Davor Vidas and Peter Johan Schei, thirty-three experts on marine affairs and the law of the sea examine the emerging challenges for the World Ocean, inquiring into developments prompted by globalisation in central issue-areas of the law of the sea. These are explored systematically in sections on the key challenges and developments in the interface of science, economic uses and law (Part I); climate change and the oceans (Part II); sustainability of fisheries (Part III); challenges and responses related to global maritime transport (Part IV); and the regulatory responses to global challenges in seas surrounding Europe (Part V).
Davor Vidas and Peter Johan Schei | 2011 | 5 min read
In this major book, edited by Davor Vidas, thirty-four experts on marine affairs and the law of the sea, from six continents, examine the emerging challenges for our World Ocean. The accumulating consequences of human activities on the seas indicate that the Earth may already have entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene, dominated by the human impact. This volume analyses developments in the interface of law, technology and science in some central law-of-the-sea issue areas. These are explored systematically in sections on the World Ocean in the Anthropocene epoch (Part I); combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (Part II); combating illegal oil spills from ships (Part III); marine genetic resources and bio-prospecting (Part IV); and the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines (Part V).
Davor Vidas | 2011 | 5 min read
On November 29, 2022, Tunisia, under Decree No 2022/917, ratified the ICZM Protocol becoming the 13th Contracting Party bound by the relevant provisions. Signed in January 2008 in Madrid by 15 Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and entered into force on March 24, 2011, following the sixth ratification of the Protocol by the Syrian Arab Republic, the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Protocol constitutes the first regional, legally binding regulatory instrument concerning coastal zone management.
MEPIELAN Centre | 2023 | 4 min read
Convened from November 6 to November 18, 2022, in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, also known as the City of Peace, the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change hosted for the first time a Mediterranean Pavilion. This development reflects a joint initiative led by the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) together with UNEP/MAP and the PRIMA Foundation along with the participation of numerous scientific institutions dealing with the adoption of climate action in the region. The initiative has been co-sponsored by Plan Blue, UNEP/MAP’s Regional Activity Center with expertise in sustainable development, and MedWaves, the UNEP/MAP’s Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production, and the independent network of scientists MedECC (Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change).
MEPIELAN Centre | 2023 | 5 min read
On 30 September 2022, the Spanish Government approved the landmark Law 19/2022 “for the recognition of legal personality of the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin” which grants a new legal status to the Mar Menor coastal lagoon recognizing the rights of the Mar Menor lagoon ecosystem and its basin and allowing for its autonomous governance. The lagoon marine ecosystem of the Mar Menor, with an area of 135 km 2, is the largest coastal lagoon in the Spanish Mediterranean and one of the largest in the western Mediterranean, and, according to the WWF, the Europe’s largest salt-water lagoon. This innovative Law transforms the treatment of the lagoon given until now “from being a mere object of protection, recovery and development, to being an inseparably biological, environmental, cultural and spiritual subject.”
MEPIELAN Centre | 2023 | 4 min read
In the aftermath of the fifth United Nations Environmental Assembly, UNEP convened, on 3-4 March 2022, a special session called UNEP@50 to commemorate the 50 years since the establishment of the United Nations Environmental Programme in 1972, in Stockholm. The meeting was held under the theme “Strengthening UNEP for the implementation of the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, providing the opportunity for high-level officials, scientists, academia, and civil society to reflect on the organization’s five decades of engagement into environmental affairs. In this context, the meeting explored how to further strengthen UNEP in the entity’s endeavor to substantially implement the environmental dimension of the sustainable development, thus contributing to the battle against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
MEPIELAN Centre | 2023 | 5 min read
The annual session of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF 2020), convened, in a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council, was held from Tuesday 7 July, to Thursday, 16 July 2020 at the UN Headquarters in New York.
MEPIELAN Centre | 2020 | 5 min read
Ambitiously enough, the U.N Member States have begun negotiating a political declaration on the environment to be adopted in 2022 and coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.
MEPIELAN Centre | 2020 | 4 min read
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.