Veerle Heyvaert

Governing Climate Change: Towards a New Paradigm for Risk Regulation

This article argues that the ascent of climate change on the EU regulatory agenda signals a new era of risk regulation and calls for the establishment of a new paradigm for risk regulation. Climate change is altering the EUs conception of environmental risks and its design of regulatory responses. In contrast to conventional risk regulation, climate change regulation must prioritise the risks of business-as-usual over the risks of change, must target systemic change instead of stability, and must favour the virtues of integration and orchestration over those of individualisation and compartmentalisation. There is an important role for risk regulation scholarship to analyse this shift and its consequences for regulation, such as the relocation of legitimacy needs and the emergence of new risks of regulatory failure. Such an enterprise would both reinvigorate risk regulation scholarship and offer a vital contribution to the European Union as it tackles the momentous challenge of climate change governance.

Globalizing regulation: reaching beyond the borders of chemical safety

This article argues that although globalization can benefit both exporters and importers of regulation in absolute terms, it may turn the globalization of regulation into a game with relative winners and losers. Using the EU REACH Regulation of chemicals as a case study, it explores the normative, social, economic, and strategic reasons that push the EU to promote the global adoption of REACH. Notwithstanding its attractions, rules globalization may result in a mismatch between global norms and local priorities, particularly for developing countries. It reduces regulatory diversity, and amplifies the strengths but equally the weaknesses of the dominant regulatory framework. While it can foster international trade through mutual recognition of regulatory decisions and the development of transnational regulatory frameworks, it increases the likelihood of conflict and trade flow desequilibria. The article calls for further careful consideration of rules globalization, so that harmonization does not come at the expense of local interests and values.

Regulating Chemical Risk: REACH in a Global Governance Perspective

This important contribution to the scientific understanding of chemical risk regulation offers a coherent, comprehensive and updated multidisciplinary analysis, written by leading experts in toxicology, ecotoxicology, risk analysis, media and communication, law, and political science. The text focuses in particular on the new European REACH regime and its nature, causes and consequences. It examines the regime in the context of the interplay between science and policy, the role of the media, human health, and the environment. Other regulatory systems at both domestic and international levels are also studied, including the UN’s Globally Harmonised System (GHS) for chemical labelling, as well as developments in the U.S. In addition, readers will find analyses of a number of new and still largely uncharted regulatory systems, along with in-depth assessments of their complexity and transnational nature.

Transnational Dimensions of Climate Governance

Climate Change as an Arena of Transnational Environmental Law it is fitting that the second issue of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) focuses on governance and climate change. Transnational environmental law views governance as an outgrowth of local, regional and transboundary communications and pressures. The challenges of transnational governance – and its necessity – are especially clear in the context of climate change. On the one hand, climate change is a global phenomenon with globally distributed causes, thus requiring a global response. On the other hand, emissions always take place from specific locations within particular jurisdictions, and the impacts of climate change will vary from place to place, requiring diverse adaptation measures. Thus, it is inherent in the nature of climate change that responses will be multi-scalar and multi-jurisdictional, raising profound issues of governance. Moreover, because of the ubiquity of climate and of the activities causing emissions, climate governance modifies rules that govern private control over resources – in other words, with the property system.

Transnational Environmental Law on the Threshold of the Trump Era

Since its inception Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) has focused on the complex web of interactions across national borders in addressing environmental issues, including but going beyond the traditional domain of international environmental law. The content of TEL has been diverse but has encompassed several pervasive themes: mutual influence between legal systems, multilevel integration, regime fragmentation and overlap, and the erosion of traditional hierarchies, as governance frameworks evolve against a backdrop of uncertainty, contestation and unpredictable change. The last of these factors, unpredictable change, is vividly illustrated by the historical context in which this issue will appear, with that change taking the form of Donald J. Trump’s ascension to the United States (US) presidency. Although the final shape of Trump’s policy agenda is not yet clear at the time of this writing, all indications suggest a sharply different US role in terms of international environmental law. As a candidate, Trump expressed disbelief in the reality of climate change and pledged to repudiate the Paris Agreement and to repeal the Obama Administration’s signature regulation of carbon emissions, the Clean Power Plan. Trump’s cabinet nominees have close connections with the fossil fuel industry, and nearly all have a history of denying the reality of climate change. Most strikingly, his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also expressed doubts about the reality of climate change and is best known for suing the EPA to halt climate and air pollution regulations. Thus, although Trump has proved

Norms, Networks, and Markets: Navigating New Frontiers in Transnational Environmental Law

True to its mission, the second issue in volume two of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) delves into the many and varied ways in which environmental governance is evolving beyond the state. The articles in this issue explore topics as diverse as: accountability in interpreting European Union (EU) framework norms; the role of third party actors in combatting transnational environmental crime; the rationales for socially responsible investing; the possibilities and pitfalls of using market-based tools to improve biodiversity conservation; and the need to develop a grundnorm premised on notions of planetary boundaries for our system of international environmental law. Yet, despite the range of topics and the depth of each of the individual articles, together they reveal an increasingly dominant set of questions in transnational environmental law. These questions concern the role that the market and market-based mechanisms can and should play in environmental protection and the varied ways in which non-state actors, whether in conjunction with or outside the parameters of the state, influence efforts to further environmental conservation and sustainability efforts. Secondary questions that arise within the context of exploring the influence of markets and non-state actors on environmental protection centre on questions of legitimacy and accountability. All of these inquires, however, are framed by two larger background questions: what is the underlying goal of international environmental law and concomitant systems of transnational environmental governance, and how can we go about creating governance systems that are more unified in their understanding of the baseline objectives and thus more symbiotic in their implementation? By engaging with questions about international environmental norms, the evolution of regional legal systems, and more overtly transnational governance challenges, this issue reminds us of the value of transnational environmental law as a framing mechanism for exploring the ways in which traditional and novel systems for environmental protection emerge, evolve, and intersect. In a world increasingly characterized by globalization and global environmental problems such as climate change, these intersections have become both more frequent and more intense, making it all the more important to find ways to conceptualize and respond to these challenges. The articles in this issue, in their individual and collective forms,

By All Available Means: New Takes on Established Principles, Actions and Institutions to Address Today’s Environmental Challenges

With international negotiations under way to promulgate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a post-2020 climate change agreement anticipated by the end of this year, 2015 promises to be a milestone for environmental governance. The process to develop the SDGs, which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the broader United Nations (UN) post-2015 development agenda, was launched at the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), better known as Rio+20. Thus far, the process has been an exemplary model of public participation. The UN has conducted the largest consultation programme in its history and has used a range of mechanisms, including traditional working groups, national consultations, and an online global survey to ascertain what the SDGs should include. The SDGs comprise 17 goals, within which are a proposed 169 targets. They are expected to be finalized and adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015. At the same time, the negotiations for the 21 session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to be held in Paris in December 2015, have been proceeding apace. At the sixth Petersberg Climate Dialogue in May 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized that climate finance will be a decisive factor in whether the Paris COP-21 is a success or a failure. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the Green Climate Fund became operational on 21May 2015; it can now begin to select and fund projects, which, it is hoped, will bolster the confidence and trust of developing countries ahead of

No data, no market. The future of EU chemicals control under the REACH Regulation

1 June 2007 marks the entry into effect of the REACH Regulation, the new EU-wide scheme for the control and circulation of chemicals on the European market. More precisely, it is the starting point for the introduction of a range of chemicals reporting, assessment and management measures which will gradually be enforced across the EU over a time span of 11 years. REACH, an acronym for the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals, lays down a comprehensive framework to achieve three pivotal targets for European market regulation: to offer a high level of health and environmental protection from chemical risks; to facilitate market integration; and to foster innovation in the chemicals sector. In this sense, REACH is an embodiment of three overarching programmes that currently drive policy developments within the Community Pillar of the European Union. With regard to its health and environmental protection aspirations, REACH could arguably serve as a calling card for the EU’s interpretation and practical application of the precautionary principle within a broad policy context. After a post-1992 lull, completing the internal market is again at the forefront of Community activity, with the Commission currently undertaking a large-scale review of the Single Market in order to produce a ‘Report on the Single Market for the 21st Century’, in which the Commission will seek to convey its vision on the future of market integration and map out the policies necessary to achieve it. Finally, the goal of fostering innovation and competitiveness reflects a key consideration of the 2000 Lisbon Strategy, which aspires for Europe to be ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’ by 2010.

European environmental law

EU Environmental Law is a critical, comprehensive and engaging account of the essential and emerging issues in European environmental law and regulation today. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, the book delivers a thematic and contextual treatment of the subject for those taking courses in environmental law, environmental studies, regulation and public policy, and government and international relations. Placing the key issues in context, EU Environmental Law takes an interdisciplinary and thematic approach to help students to better understand the implementation and enforcement of environmental law and policy across Europe. It offers an accessible overview, and links theory with practical applications that will allow students to contextualise the outcomes of legal rules and their impact on public and private behaviours. It provides a definitive account of the subject, examining traditional topics such as nature conservation law, waste law and water law, alongside increasingly important fields such as the law of climate change, environmental human rights law, and regulation of GMOs and nanotechnology.

A Celebration of the Fifth Anniversary of Transnational Environmental Law

It gives us tremendous pleasure to introduce the Fifth Anniversary Issue of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL). To mark the occasion, last year the TEL Editorial Board launched a competition for innovative scholarship on the theme of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDRs) in the era of transnational law. It was hotly contested: over 25 abstracts were submitted which, after careful selection and full peer review, resulted in the eight top quality articles that make up this very special issue. Each of the eight anniversary issue articles makes a strong contribution to the burgeoning field of transnational environmental law. A competition, however, obviously needs a winner. We are delighted to announce that the Transnational Environmental Law Fifth Anniversary Prize winners are Sébastien Jodoin and Sarah Mason-Case with their article ‘What Difference Does CBDR Make? A Socio-Legal Analysis of the Role of Differentiation in the Transnational Legal Process for REDD+’. We extend them our warmest congratulations. As winners of the competition, Dr Jodoin and Ms Mason-Case have been invited to deliver the TEL Fifth Anniversary Public Lecture, which will take place in Cambridge (United Kingdom) in February 2017. We refer our readers to the TEL website at http://journals.cambridge.org/jid_TEL for further details of the time and venue. Reviewing and choosing between eight diverse and compelling scholarly contributions is no easy task. The TEL Editorial Board is therefore extremely grateful to Professor Jacqueline Peel for her willingness to adjudicate the competition. As one of the world’s leading scholars in international and transnational environmental law, and an experienced TEL author herself, we could not have wished for a scholar more suited to the task. Her decision was reached based on an assessment of anonymized versions of the articles. Immediately following this brief Editorial is a Foreword by Professor Peel, in which she frames the CBDR theme in the rapidly evolving context of transnational climate change law, discusses the contribution of each anniversary article to the theme, and conveys the reasons for