Dear Colleague, The global environmental scene witnessed a flurry of global conferences during the year 2022. As a global journal, it became natural for the EPL to take the lead in highlighting the historical significance of commemorating the 50th anniversary of 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment as well as the 30th anniversary of 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the COP27 meeting of the UNFCCC in Sharm el-Shaikh. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) also adopted a landmark resolution 76/300 on July 28, 2022 on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. It has emphatically declared that “all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated”. The UNGA has raised the bar while “Recognizing that sustainable development, in its three dimensions (social, economic and environmental), and the protection of the environment” as well as recalled “all Human Rights Council resolutions on human rights and the environment” including the identical resolution 48/13 of October 08, 2021 and 50/9 of July 07, 2022 (human rights and climate change). As a corollary, the EPL/IOS Press organized two webinars on December 10, 2022 (Part – II) and September 20, 2022 (Part – I) to make sense of the global significance of the advent of this normative development. It is in this backdrop that special issue EPL 53(2,3) covers articles in two parts: PART - I: The Human Right to Sustainable Environment: The Conceptual Framework and PART - II: The Human Right to Sustainable Environment: Emerging Trends.
We can only hope that the UNGA’s emphatic normative recognition of the human right to sustainable environment would provide a big push in the realms of policy, law and institutional frameworks both globally as well as within domestic jurisdiction of the states. It presents an ideational and implementation challenge for the scholars as well as the decision-makers to realize the essentiality. All papers are free to read, because EPL has transitioned to a Subscribe to Open model. With warm regards, Bharat H. Desai
Editor-in-Chief |
All the article are Open Access Preface
The Essentiality of Human Rights for the Sustainable Environment
Desai, Bharat H. PART I: The Human Right to Sustainable Environment: The Conceptual Framework RESEARCH ARTICLES
The Judiciary: Breathing Life into the Human Right to Life
Robinson, Nicholas A. The Need for a New Covenant on the Right to a Healthy Environment
Aguila, Yann | Lichet, Victoria The Human Right to Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making: Some Legal Reflections
Ruppel, Oliver C. | Houston, Larissa Jane H. Biosphere Defenders Leveraging the Human Right to Healthy Environment for Transformative Change
Ituarte-Lima, Claudia The Rights of the Indigenous People and the Amazon: A Road Ahead
Antunes, Paulo de Bessa PART II: The Human Right to Sustainable Environment: Emerging Trends The End-of-Waste for the Transition to Circular Economy: A Legal Review of the European Union Waste Framework Directive
Johansson, Oskar Environmentally Sound Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation in BRICS Countries: A Comparative Policy and Legal Perspective
Tripathi, Mahima | Bhattacharya, Niharika Sahoo The Inaction in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Policy and Legal Issues
Kooffreh, B.E. | Anyatang, Brian F.I. | Aminone, Voke Tonia The Environmental Fund Management Model in Indonesia: Some Lessons in Legal Regulation and Practice
Abubakar, Lastuti | Handayani, Tri |
New book: Regulating Global Climate Change For some years now, growing scientific warnings have continued to strengthen the belief that an unprecedented global warming is underway, and that only an urgent system-wide transformation can avoid climate disaster. In his June 2, 2022 address to the Stockholm+50 Conference, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres construed “climate emergency” as one of the key drivers of the “triple planetary crisis”. Despite this, the overriding impression left by COP27, held in Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2022, was of a divided institution, floundering and nowhere close to realizing its stated aim of “stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system”. While prognoses and projections set the stage for a climate change emergency, the legally ordained platform for institutionalized cooperation to deal with the problem seems to be achieving too little too late. This book, edited by Prof. Bharat H. Desai, presents articles from the special climate change issue of EPL (vol. 52 (5-6), 2022), published to mark the 30th year of the UNFCCC. The book provides a sequel to two previously published IOS Press books: Our Earth Matters (2021) and Envisioning Our Environmental Future (2022), and the contributions included here seek to make sense of the marathon climate-change regulatory process. The book is organized into 5 parts: climate normativity; regime at the crossroads; climate justice; factoring gender; and the Paris conundrum. Urging scholars and decision-makers to consider the approach, process, tools and techniques used to address the primary objective of the UNFCCC as well as strongly calling for a decisive new normative push from “common concern” to “planetary concern”, the book will be of interest to all those involved in the process of tackling, and dealing with the adverse effects of global climate change. |
New blog: The Audacity of Hope for People and Planet Rescue Plan for 2030 Sustainable Development Goals The President of the UN General Assembly has convened a meeting of the Heads of State and Government in New York during 18-19 September 2023. It is called the 2023 SDG Summit. It is extraordinary in view of the perilous state of implementation of SDGs. Prof. Bharat H. Desai shares his thoughts on this meeting. |
Webinar The Triple Planetary Crisis
The latest webinar was scheduled on 5 June 2023, the occasion of the World Environment Day. It was led by the EPL Editor-in-Chief Bharat H. Desai, PhD, who was joined by a panel of experts. | In an address of June 2, 2022 at the Stockholm+50 Conference, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that we have not kept our promises on the environment since our consumption is “at the rate of 1.7 planets a year” and the “global well-being is in jeopardy”. Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, also underscored that “If we do not change, the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste will only accelerate." The alarm bells rung by the UN decision-makers have been based upon the findings of several scientific reports in 2022 (including IPCC6; UNEP and WMO). Thus, the gathering storms indicate a planetary-level environmental crisis. Do they cast shadows of the coming events before in the 21st century? Humankind seems to be sleepwalking into an existential ‘triple planetary crisis’ almost akin to some of the catastrophic events that devastated the world in the 20th century. |
Subscribe To Open EPL has transitioned to a Subscribe to Open (S2O) model for 2023, which means that articles published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023 are open access and fully accessible. Another benefit is that there are no author fees or article processing charges (APCs) associated with this open access model.
S2O is an alternative sustainable subscription model that converts scholarly subscription journals to open access one year at a time. Under this model, institutions continue to subscribe to journals of value to their community, and if sufficient revenue is generated, the entire year's content will be published open access. Read more about S2O. |
EPL publishes content that facilitates an understanding of environmental policy and environmental law issues. It is a global journal that seeks to publish cutting-edge scholarly works that have global significance. EPL provides a platform to facilitate an ideational understanding of international environmental policy, law, and institutional issues. Why submit to our EPL journal? Benefits for contributing authors include:
* All articles are published OA
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* Hassle free submission process via Editorial Manager (see here)
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Most Read EPL Articles in Q1 and Q2 of 2023 Listing articles published in the IOS Press Content Libary in 2021 & 2022 The Responsibility of the Indonesian Government to Fulfill the Rights to Water During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Some Legal Issues (Research Article in Vol.51, Iss.5, 2021) – Openly Available
Astriani, Nadia | Rubiati, Betty | Adharani, Yulinda | Afifah, Siti Sarah | Salsabila, Rewita | Diffa, Rizkia Role of Climate Change in Exacerbating Sexual and Gender-Based Violence against Women: A New Challenge for International Law (Research Article in Vol.51, Iss.3, 2021) – Openly Available
Desai, Bharat H. | Mandal, Moumita State Sovereignty in the Planetary Management of Natural Resources (Research Article in Vol.51, Iss.1/2, 2021) – Open Access
Schrijver, Nico J. Environmental Terrorism: Not Yet an International Crime (Research Article in Vol.52, Iss.2, 2022) – Open Access
Rose, Gregory |
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