• Energy Research

The aim of this piece is to assess whether and to what extent the European Union can be considered a world leader in stimulating the development of international climate change standards through a variety of international organizations and processes as a way of spurring necessary international cooperation. It will argue that given slow progress towards an effective global response to the climate change challenge through multilateral cooperation, the EU has been trying to develop climate change standards internally or in cooperation with third countries, arguably in order to promote the acceptance of such standards by the competent international organizations, or at least create a critical mass of countries engaging in climate action (minilateralism). The paper will conclude by considering the legitimacy issues arising from this multi-faceted strategy of the EU in promoting international climate change standards.

This article proposes a concept of 'fair and equitable benefit sharing' deriving from international biodiversity law, international human rights law, and the law of the sea. The concept identifies normative elements that are shared among the international treaties that refer to benefit sharing, comprising the act of sharing; the nature of the benefits to be shared; the activities from which benefit sharing arise; the beneficiaries; and fairness and equity as the rationale for benefit sharing in international law. The concept is not intended to provide a holistic or exhaustive notion of fair and equitable benefit sharing but, rather, to support comparison and generalization with a view to shifting the current investigation from sectoral/technical approaches to the perspective of general international law and the contribution to research in other areas of international law. The proposed conceptualization is thus geared towards the development of a research agenda targeting a variety of international and transnational legal materials, allowing for the appreciation of differences in the context of varying logics of different areas of law.

This contribution seeks to explain the innovations and broader implications of the EU Climate and Energy Package from the viewpoint of general EU law and international law. It provides an innovative analysis of the Package through the lenses of the principle of environmental integration, highlighting the complex web of internal and external legal tools that the EU uses to pursue its climate change objectives.

Abstract After over a decade of international efforts to include the ocean in the policy discussions at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) annual Conference of the Parties (COP), the ocean has finally been included by, inter alia, a reference to ‘ocean-based action’ in a series of COP outcomes, notable among which is the cover decisions known as the ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’. This article provides the necessary background to the inclusion of the ocean in COP26 outcomes, including the Pact, and examines key issues, impacts and shortfalls of the Pact and other COP26 outcomes, including mitigation, adaptation, finance and human rights. It concludes with suggestions for priority research areas moving forward.

This multi-authored piece conducts an interdisciplinary analysis of the fields and principles which could be relevant to securing access to climate change technologies, while at the same time encouraging the initial development of the technologies. The paper is the first part of a project funded by the British Academy, ‘Obtaining, protecting and using essential environmental technologies: a holistic analysis’.

This paper analyzes Article 37 (Environmental Protection) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights from the viewpoints of EU law and international environmental law. It explores the reasons for the lack of any individually justifiable environmental right of a substantive or procedural character under the Charter. The paper then investigates the potential of Article 37 to influence the interpretation and application of EU law and of other Charter provisions in the light of the EU Treaty requirement of environmental integration.

The present paper aims to map existing and future opportunities for utilizing EU bilateral agreements to promote the protection of environmental rights, as well as available legal avenues to address missed opportunities and possible risks that EU environmental action abroad may negatively impact on environmental rights in third countries. It starts with a brief overview of the external environmental policy of the EU, including constitutional requirements to couple human rights and environmental protection in external relations and an introduction to the practice of EU bilateral agreements. The chapter will then provide a snapshot of the environment-and-human-rights connection in EU law from an internal perspective, to demonstrate the political sensitivity of the issue. Against this background, the central part of the paper will identify six thematic areas in which entry points for the protection of environmental rights exist in the framework of EU bilateral agreements. The final section will offer a preliminary reflection of the human rights risks of current environmental external relations of the Union and possible avenues to tackle these risks in EU and international law.