The MEPIELAN Centre, an international academic hub for research, education and training, as well as for institutional advocacy, continues, throughout all these years, to cultivate and promote forward-thinking in the fields of international environmental law and governance, policy, and international negotiation. From its establishment within Panteion University as a University Centre in 2002 to its evolving presence in important international roles and institutional settings, the Centre has, in my view, consistently pursued its mission with dedication and intellectual commitment. Today, operating as an International Non-Profit Civil Organization (INGO), it remains steadfast in advancing academic research, international training, and sustained institutional engagement.

Its academic soul has evolved continuously through its website since its establishment in 2002, while its academic “sword” has been embodied in the MEPIELAN E-Bulletin, launched in July 2010 and now marking fifteen years of circulation. Guided by an open-access philosophy and sustained entirely on a voluntary basis, the Bulletin offers authoritative insight articles, reflective opinions, selected documents and case analyses, book reviews, and news on thematic areas central to the Centre’s work. In doing so, it bridges theory and practice within international law as a system of public law, international environmental law and governance, and the international negotiating process.

At the heart of this long-standing endeavor lies a steadfast goal: to contribute to the development of an integrated, interdisciplinary, relational, context-sensitive, and sustainably effective conception of law as governance—an approach that creates, protects, and advances international common interest for present and future generations. This approach transpires that a strictly positivist or “objective” conception of international law does not merely simplify but distorts the complex and evolving realities of the international order, disorienting our understanding and judgement of its multiple functions, power dynamics, and, above all, the interpretation of its effectiveness – particularly when it is reductively measured against inappropriate analogies drawn from the private law order.

This is not a moment for celebratory rhetoric. MEPIELAN has always navigated its course through the dedication of academics, scholars, and emerging researchers bound by a shared voluntarist ethos. Over time, some have stepped aside while new intellectual forces have joined, strengthening the Centre’s academic and institutional journey. We consciously distance ourselves from superficial and performative forms of self-celebration. Instead, we remain committed to raising our voice at the highest level of scholarly engagement, particularly in an era marked by uncertainty and distortion—where international law is often undermined by reductive positivism and overshadowed by geopolitically driven narratives that dominate public discourse, frequently at the expense of rigorous knowledge and critical thinking.