Transnational Environmental Regulation and Governance: Purpose, Strategies and Principles by Veerle Heyvaert Published by Cambridge University Press, 2018, 266 pp., £80, hardback.

• Author: Edwin Alblas
• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12311
• Published date: 01 November 2019

356  

|

  RECIEL. 2019;28:356–362.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel

DOI: 10 .1111/reel .12311

BOOK REVIEWS

TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL

REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE:

PURPOSE, STRATEGIES AND PRINCIPLES by

Veerle Heyvaert

Published by Cambridge Uni versity Press, 2 018, 266 pp., £80, ha rdback.

For a long time, spe aking out on envir onmental issue s would not

have won you any popular ity contest s. As the impac ts of environ‐

mental degra dation acceler ate and become incr easingly visible ,

however, public engagement with environmental activism seems

to be evolving. Du ring the United Nat ions Climate Acti on Summit

in September 2019, teenage clim ate activist G reta Thunber g de‐

manded world le aders to stop takin g selfies with her and s tart taking

climate action i nstead. In the same month, m illions of young people

across the world t ook to the streets for a stu dent‐led climate strike,

demanding a fut ure safe from the wo rst effect s of climate change.

Fuelled by the urge ncy of the issue and polit ical inertia, env ironmen‐

tal activis m is entering the mainstre am.

While it would be a s tretch to describe Veerle Hey vaert's mono‐

graph on Transnational Environmental Regulation (TER) as ‘activist’,

it does act towar ds the same overar ching goal of contrib uting pos‐

itively to the envi ronmental issu es we are facing. T hrough careful

consideration a nd critical explo ration of the nature of TER , Heyvaert

provides reade rs with a framewo rk for evaluatin g TER in terms of

ways to best ‘harn ess its potential for good and mit igate its vulner‐

abilities’ (at xi). A ssessing in close detail th e purpose, strategies and

principles of TER , Heyvaert 's monograph will pr ove valuable for any‐

one working in th e field of environmental law a nd regulation.

Heyvaert starts her intellectual exercise by discussing the driv‐

ers and histori cal origins of TER , as well as laying out t he method‐

ological app roach that has bee n adopted. Hey vaert has chos en to

engage with a broa d range of TER regimes across dif ferent environ‐

mental polic y areas, with a core focus o n the climate change domain .

The risk here of cour se is that the case studies e xamined lose a cer‐

tain degree of de pth. Heyvaer t justifie s this approach by po inting

to her overarching a im of contributin g knowledge to what u nites

different TER regimes, for which such a wide‐angled approach is

unmistakab ly needed. The main ques tion guiding this journey, then ,

is whether ther e is sufficient cohesion in th e three pillars of her re‐

search – namely t he purpose, strategies and no rmative dimensions

of TER regimes – to be abl e to speak of TER as a mode of regulatio n

distinctive from national environmental regulation.

The setting of t he stage is contin ued in Chapter 2, wh ich looks

closely at the ter minology of and around TER, su ch as transnation‐

alism, regulati on and law. Transnationalis m, as the author ex plains,

occurs when regulation is ‘produced, rather than merely applied …

with the involvem ent of actors that are not st ate authorities’ (at 30).

Building on key liter atures in the field of regul ation and governance,

Heyvaert describes regulation as ‘the deliberate exercise of influ‐

ence on a target 's behaviour (designed either to s tabilise or modify

this behaviour) p erformed wi th a certain deg ree of authorit y and

persistence’ (at 3 4). While the task of defining the c oncept of regu‐

lation has alrea dy received a great deal of atte ntion in the literature,

Heyvaer t's focus on the de liberate nature of r egulation, as well a s

the possibilit y of using regulati on to stabilize rat her than alter be ‐

haviour, are valuable c ontributions to existin g scholarship.

After laying th e groundwork, t he author engage s with the firs t

of her three main pi llars. Echoing th e existing liter ature, Chapter 3

serves to highl ight the intentionalit y – or purpose – behind dif ferent

regimes, for ins tance in seeking to manage r isks of both non‐regula‐

tion and under‐regulation, enhancing existing regimes, and facilitat‐

ing trade. The key t akeaway here is that intention ality highly affect s

the design of a spec ific regulatory regi me, with the precauti on made

by Heyvaer t that such design is (too) often geared tow ards permis‐

sive or ‘lowest den ominator’ TER (at 89).

Of the three sub sequent chapter s on the second pil lar, regula‐

tory strategies, Chapter 4 on the development of an ‘activity‐based’

model of regulato ry strategie s has most potenti al to stretch (well)

beyond the environmental domain. This model essentially provides

a lens for study ing TER, enabling , as Heyvaert ex plains, a ‘more gran ‐

ular examination of the range and variety in environmental regula‐

tory strate gy’ (at 90). Five recur sive activity st ages are distinguis hed

within this model, namely: goal setting; normalization; engagement;

learning; and r esponse. In eac h of these stages , a regulator need s

to make strategic d ecisions regardi ng the approach to b e taken to

guide regulator y work, as well as t he instrument (s) used. As such,

the chapter provi des a framework that offers d escriptive space for

detecting an d understan ding the many (supp orting) feat ures in‐

volved in regulator y processes. In doi ng so, this chapter counter acts

key pitfalls that m ay emerge under br oad categorizat ions such as

‘market‐based’ or ‘command‐and‐control’ types of regulation.

In Chapter 5, Heyvaert enriches the activity‐based model by ap‐

plying it to five TER r egimes active wit hin the climate change d omain,

namely: the Paris Agreement, the Fuel Quality Directive, the Carbon

Neutral Protocol, the Compact of Mayors/Global Covenant of

Mayors for Climate a nd Energy and, fin ally, the Regional Green house

Gas Initiative. D espite the at times overtly te chnical descriptions of

these diffe rent TER regimes, su ch real‐life examp les provide clea r

and practic al illustrations of what th e different activiti es look like in

practice, an d how they may shape international e nvironmental pol‐

icy and regulation.

© 2019 John Wiley & Son s Ltd, 9600 Garsing ton Road, Oxford OX4 2D Q, UK and 350 Main Stre et, Malden, MA 02148, U SA.