Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 2050-0386

Issue Number

No. 32-3, November 2023

Latest documents

Issue Information
No abstract is available for this article.
Could a trade agreement strengthen the enforcement of domestic environmental laws? Envisioning the impacts of the US–Peru environmental submissions mechanism
Could a trade agreement strengthen the enforcement of domestic environmental laws? This article explores this question in the context of the US–Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA). The article examines, in particular, the potential role of the Secretariat for Submissions on Environmental Enforcement Matters (SEEM) of the TPA. The SEEM is an advisory mechanism to the parties to the TPA which allows citizens to bring direct submissions. This article considers the extent to which the SEEM can facilitate the enforcement of domestic Peruvian environmental law thus helping secure Peruvians' constitutional right to a healthy environment. Existing domestic mechanisms of administrative, civil or criminal law are already available to Peruvian citizens. These can apply to varied situations and provide a range of remedies, but often, they are also costly and lengthy. The SEEM began operating in 2018, and its first six submissions already hint at its potential to become a useful complement to domestic legal avenues. The SEEM could become increasingly used in the future due to Peru's prevalent institutional problems and its interest in maintaining good commercial relations with the United States. The mechanism also has the potential to provide a way to address the autonomous actions of the Peruvian Congress or its subnational governments that sometimes act in defiance of the environmental laws and regulations enforced by the executive branch of the national government. Importantly, however, citizens need to be aware of the limitations of the SEEM as a non‐adjudicatory mechanism and the fact that it is not a policymaking forum. Future research on the SEEM could provide a better understanding of how the process of increasingly mainstreaming the environment in international trade law is beginning to have concrete effects.
The unvirtuous cycle of loss and damage: Addressing systemic impacts of climate change in small islands from a vulnerability perspective
Historically, climate change vulnerability and loss and damage have been conceptualized as a narrow and linear pathway—with geographic and socioeconomic vulnerability leading to increasing incidents of loss and damage. However, this conceptualization falls short of considering how evolving and cumulative loss and damage affects the stability and economic security of island nations, contributes to development rollbacks and increases vulnerability to future climate impacts. We highlight the limitations of how relationships between vulnerability, loss and damage and development have been understood and applied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and consequently in the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to address these multi‐scalar, systemic and cumulative impacts. Other approaches consider relationships between climate change, vulnerability and larger developmental impacts, including the concept of a multidimensional vulnerability index (MVI). But experiences with MVI in other international forums have not been positive and may in fact put more pressure on developing countries to compete for limited financial resources. Introducing MVI into the UNFCCC system, may, therefore, be detrimental to Small Island Developing States and marginalize other developing countries. Instead, more pressure should be placed on developed countries to broaden their understanding of loss and damage and make more climate finance available to developing countries that are bearing the brunt of climate impacts. There may now be greater opportunity within the UNFCCC framework to address these cyclical and systemic aspects of loss and damage with new and enhanced financial arrangements for loss and damage, as well as the establishment of a loss and damage fund. We argue that these new institutional developments should include broader and cyclical concepts of loss and damage.
Support for young farmers in the European Union: How much discretion for Member States?
Generational renewal is at the heart of the European Union's (EU) agricultural priorities embedded in the Green Deal and Farm to Fark Strategy, since young farmers not only play a vital role in ensuring the competitiveness of European agriculture but also have significant potential in transitioning towards a sustainable agri‐food system. However, the number of young farmers across the EU has been rapidly decreasing over time. To address this issue and enable better access of young people to the farming profession, the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) lays down various mechanisms to support young farmers. In case C‐119/20, the Court of Justice of the EU took important steps to clarify the exact degree of discretion for Member States in terms of these support schemes, specifically on the definition of a ‘young farmer’, as well as the possibility to accumulate different types of financial support under the CAP. This case note presents the reasoning behind the Court's judgement, before discussing the judgements' impact on young (female) farmers in light of the goal of fostering generational renewal in rural areas and a transformation towards a sustainable agri‐food system. We conclude that the Court's decision might threaten to meet the goal of generational renewal, along with associated sustainability goals.
Financing for loss and damage under the UNFCCC: Have we come full circle?
The journey taken by the Alliance of Small Island States in its quest to address the existential threat of man‐made climate—from its original 1991 proposal for funding arrangements (an insurance pool) to address loss and damage associated with sea‐level rise to the establishment at the Sharm el‐Sheikh Climate Conference in 2022 of funding arrangements and a fund for addressing loss and damage—has been a long, sometimes invisible and often arduous one. This article traces that journey from its origin to the road‐building exercise toward establishing institutional arrangements for loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement and finally to the last step of establishing a loss and damage fund. Arriving at the final destination is just over the horizon.
Loss and damage from the perspective of vulnerable countries
The long and winding road towards the creation of climate clubs: Transatlantic negotiations, potential regulatory models and challenges ahead
Proposals for the establishment of plurilateral climate clubs have gained momentum, and both the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) will play a pivotal role in forthcoming negotiations. This article closely examines EU and US proposals to uncover distinctive features in their regulatory approaches and to critically assess different potential models for sectoral climate club arrangements. The article argues that a middle ground could be reached by combining the US policy‐neutral approach with the EU distinctive product‐based focus. A bottom‐up model involving average sectoral carbon intensity reduction targets, product standards and bans could provide an effective and practicable way forward. Recent declarations confirm that the negotiations of the Global Steel and Aluminium Arrangement are focusing on product standards. Nonetheless, several challenges lie ahead. These include the difficult coordination between plurilateral arrangements and the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism, and the US focus on non‐market economies and excess capacity.
The Lawful Forest: A Critical History of Property, Protest and Spatial Justice By Cristy Clark and John Page, Edinburgh University Press. 2022. 248 pp.
The COP27 decision and future directions for loss and damage finance: Addressing vulnerability and non‐economic loss and damage
This article discusses critical gaps in finance for loss and damage and analyses the decision on funding arrangements for loss and damage made at the Sharm el‐Sheikh climate conference (COP27) in 2022. The article first considers the history of various loss and damage finance proposals, including the loss and damage negotiations in the lead‐up to COP27. The article then considers in detail the agreed COP27 decision on loss and damage finance. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions in loss and damage finance. In particular, it discusses the importance of future loss and damage finance arrangements for addressing non‐economic loss and damage and also offers analysis of the criteria associated with ‘particularly vulnerable’ developing countries.
Global Regulatory Standards in Environmental and Health Disputes: Regulatory Coherence, Due Regard, and Due Diligence By Caroline E. Foster, Oxford University Press. 2021. xxx + 375 pp.