Editorial

• Author: Harro Asselt
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12024
• Published date: 01 April 2013
• Date: 01 April 2013

Editorial

What’s in a name? About one year ago, I suggested to

the publisher to change the name of the journal from

Review of European Community and International

Environmental Law to Review of European, Com-

parative and International Environmental Law. The

European Community as such had ceased to exist as a

result of changes put into place by the 2009 Treaty of

Lisbon, and even though the European Union – and EU

law and policy – will continue to be a key focal area for

the journal, it is important to keep up with the times.

So what does this name change mean? In my view, the

scope of the journal will not change. RECIEL will con-

tinue to distinguish itself from other environmental law

journals by approaching environmental law and policy

from an international perspective. One way to do so is

by adopting the lens of international environmental law

(e.g., how to enforce trade restrictions under the Mon-

treal Protocol). Another is to focus on legal develop-

ments in supranational organizations like the EU (e.g.,

how has the precautionary principle been applied in

case law by the Court of Justice of the EU?). A third way

is to explore how legal developments in different juris-

dictions compare (e.g., what are the similarities and

differences between emissions trading systems in the

EU and Australia?). The latter inevitably involves

examining the prevailing domestic legal frameworks.

Nonetheless, such a comparative analysis may yield

important insights for the international level (e.g., how

emissions trading systems can be linked; or how the

policy instrument of emissions trading is being diffused

across jurisdictions). But to be completely clear about

the scope: RECIEL’s focus is still squarely on the inter-

national aspects of developments in environmental law

and policy, and does not include legal issues that are

purely of interest to a domestic audience.

Neither will the name change affect the contents of the

journal. Indeed, RECIEL will continue to publish

cutting-edge contributions employing a variety of ana-

lytical approaches. The first issue under the new name

does exactly this. It starts with seven articles on the

theme of assessing progress in international environ-

mental law, guest edited by Jorge Viñuales of the

Graduate Institute in Geneva. Viñuales has assembled

an impressive group of distinguished authors to provide

new ideas and suggestions on how to improve the

implementation of international environmental law

and policy.

Viñuales’ own article kicks off the special issue in a

provocative fashion. He points to the paradox of the

‘sustainable development snake’: while the concept of

sustainable development was incredibly successful in

uniting countries in the late 1980s/early 1990s, with the

Earth Summit and a variety of new environmental trea-

ties as the most tangible results, it is equally unsuccess-

ful in ensuring that the commitments agreed upon in

these years are actually implemented. While Viñuales’

call to abandon the notion of sustainable development

in the implementation stage may sound radical to some,

it can also be seen as a much-needed fresh approach to

ensuring that the lofty goals of sustainable development

are realized in practice.

The issue proceeds with an article by Elisa Morgera and

Annalisa Savaresi documenting the conceptual and

legal history of the ‘green economy’ concept that gained

traction before and during the United Nations Confer-

ence on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in

2012 (Rio+20). Like sustainable development, the

concept can be viewed as an attempt to integrate envi-

ronmental and developmental concerns. Morgera and

Savaresi trace how it emerged out of the notion of

‘green growth’, and how the different perceptions of

countries were reflected in the compromise at Rio+20.

Moreover, they provide a first analysis of how the

outcome document of Rio+20 measures up against

legal yardsticks related to environmental integration,

human rights and corporate accountability.

The following two articles by Joost Pauwelyn and Dan

Farber provide a new – and likely to be contested –

injection into discussions on differentiation in interna-

tional environmental and climate change law. Pauwe-

lyn compares how differentiation has evolved in the

climate change and trade negotiations, arguing that the

static developing/developed countries distinction has

led to gridlocks in both fora. However, in recent years,

Pauwelyn argues, both regimes have moved away from

this North–South dichotomy in practice. He cautiously

welcomes this shift, but rather than suggesting as a

consequence that developed and developing countries

are to be treated on equal footing, he shows that

the dichotomy is being replaced by more differentia-

tion, taking into account the situation of, for instance,

least developed countries and economies in transition

depending on the specificities of a regime. Farber also

suggests a novel interpretation of differentiation, point-

ing to inequalities within emerging economies such as

Brazil, China, India and Mexico. He argues that, given

these inequalities, emerging economies should take

responsibility for funding the adaptation of vulnerable

and poorer communities within their countries to

climate change impacts, giving a new twist to the prin-

ciple of common but differentiated responsibilities in

the climate change context.

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Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

RECIEL 22 (1) 2013. ISSN 0962-8797

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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