Welcome to the latest edition of MEPIELAN E-Bulletin.
We are gratified that the previous edition has been so well received by many readers. Nearly six months after the MEPIELAN E-Bulletin’s launch, there have been over 3.700 visits to the Bulletin’s website from 118 countries worldwide. Once again, I wish to express my gratitude to all those who provide us with continuous and valuable feedback and comments, an aspect that may emerge as a promising component of this Bulletin.
Each time we are striving to offer contributions from many perspectives, thus offering a dynamic forum for inter-disciplinary knowledge and discussion, and adequately serving the vision of this Bulletin and its critical as well as its theoretical undertaking. This edition is featured by several new articles, along with the steady stream of thematic news and the presentation of selected new, knowledge-advancing books. A Guest Article written by Professor Moira McConnell who perceptively explores the importance and special features of the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, in advancing an integrated approach to international environmental governance, as it covers the regime gap of the LOSC regime and complements the major IMO conventional maritime regimes, effectively injecting into them the human condition as distinct from human activities. Two new Insight Articles also feature this edition: Dr. Elli Louka, sheds light on the multifaceted aspects of management and disposal of nuclear materials that come out of weapons programs focusing on the regime of the Plutonium Disposition Agreement between the United States and Russia (2000) and its recent, more adapting, 2010 Protocol, addressing the context and the problems of the application of this regime in light of its unique technical characteristics and overtones and its distinct safety and environmental dimensions. Professor Dimitris Chryssochoou usefully theorizes on the new sovereignty discourse, bringing forward the individual-collective quality of sovereignty in a governance perspective thus providing more creative space for the challenging approach to consider global system as “an ordered plurality” – a critical point, in my view, to understand the nature and functioning of international (environmental) order as a process of governance of international common interest. Last, Ms. Theano Maneta provides an interesting presentation of the Final Report of the U.S. National Commission, appointed by President Obama, on the causes of the Gulf of Mexico disaster and the future of offshore drilling.
MEPIELAN E-Bulletin is a dynamic electronic newsletter of MEPIELAN Centre, Panteion University of Athens, Greece. It features guest articles, insights articles, critical forum textual contributions and reflections, specially selected documents and cases, book reviews as well as news on thematic topics of direct interest of MEPIELAN Centre, presented in a clear, insightful and attractive way whilst shedding light on topical issues of environmental law, governance and policy significance. Content bridges theory and practice perspectives of international law, international environmental law, sustainable development, and international negotiating process, and includes notifications of MEPIELAN cooperation updates and news. The Bulletin is an addition to our communication instruments which include an edited Series, the MEPIELAN Studies in International Environmental Law and Negotiation.
It is hoped that its content will contribute to a scholarly debate on important issues of current interest, providing an independent, open access forum for the promotion of innovative ideas and enlightened critical views of distinguished authors. The Bulletin further aims at offering a knowledge- and information-sharing platform for MEPIELAN audience, striving to serve a modern thinking and questing community, in the hope that it will stimulate constructive discussions on the issues presented. The audience includes academics, researchers, university students, international lawyers, officials and personnel of international organizations and institutional arrangements, heads and personnel of national authorities and administration at all levels (national, regional and local), members of Non-Governmental Organizations, as well as the relevant private sector.
My deepest appreciation goes to the authors of the articles and other contributions to this edition, to the members of the editorial team, and to our worldwide audience sharing with us the ideas and message of this Bulletin, who keep up its momentum.
About the author
Evangelos Raftopoulos
Professor of International Law, Panteion University, Athens, Greece, Fellow, C-EENRG, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
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