Sustainable development has become a central objective in national and international policy of development and the environment. Increasingly it also marks international and national law. In this book scholars in environmental law treat legal theories on sustainable development and how it may be operationalized, and topics related to its development in international law, European law, international trade and investment law, and within the climate regime.

The book marks the 20th anniversary of ...

As fish stocks continue to decline worldwide, coastal states seem to have largely failed in managing fisheries in their EEZs effectively. This study examines the international legal principles for effective EEZ fisheries management, and undertakes to assess their domestic implementation in a comparative perspective.The 1982 UNCLOS as well as general international law provide a useful range of norms for sustainable EEZ fisheries management, if carefully interpreted. These include the coastal s...

This volume addresses the future of political control and accountability in a European and comparative perspective. It is based on the contributions to an international conference hosted by the Montesquieu Institute (Centre of European Parliamentary History and Constitutional Development) at Maastricht in March 2008. The conference concluded a larger research project that was devoted to identifying features of domestic constitutional law that could help develop a system of effective accountab...

Administrative Law has been the object of thorough reforms in the various European jurisdictions. This process of transformation has considerable impacts on administrative legal scholarship in the respective countries. Profound changes in administrative activity have established new forms of administrative institutions which raise issues of legitimacy. Besides the consensus that administrative law, administrative activities and administrative institutions have to be legitimate, the concept of...

Direct effect, consistent interpretation and state liability are instruments developed by the CJEU for national courts to remedy conflicts between national and EU law (and may also be used in some jurisdictions to resolve national law and international law). This book will look at the `remedial capacity of these doctrines/tools from the perspective of the national court applying them. In short: what are their strengths, weaknesses, unexplored opportunities at grassroot level, and what can we ...

This book addresses the conflict between climate change, other environmental concerns such as biodiversity, and international trade, focussing on the relationship between climate change mitigation and biodiversity protection in the bioenergy sector, taking into account the specific situation for imports from developing countries. The focal point is the sustainability criteria enacted by Directive 2009/28/EC (the so-called Renewable Energy Directive - RED). The document is divided into 6 parts...

The Law of Succession, which has been traditionally confined to domestic limits, is becoming a frequent topic of discussion in international forums, due to the increasing mobility of people and assets. Freedom of testation is in the centre of all initiatives tending to harmonize or at least approximate legislations in this field, even if, to date, efforts in this direction have focused on international private law. In April 2010, an international conference was held in Barcelona, where the sc...

Over recent decades, globalisation has stirred up a number of positive and negative developments in national and international environments. An important feature of globalisation is the rise of the economic, social, cultural and political power of corporations. While corporate activities may positively contribute to the livelihoods of individuals, communities and societies, a number of allegations have been made that corporations have been involved in systematically violating human rights. In...

The effectiveness of European Community law is probably the most distinguishing feature of this unique legal order in contrast with classic international law. By contrast, the effectiveness of European Economic Area law (EEA Law), the way this other even more sui generis legal system provides comparable rights for EFTA-EEA citizens, is a silent revolution brought by the EFTA Court that has not been properly researched and exposed in the field of European law.

This book addresses first the rel...

The background to this collection of papers is formed by the changes in contemporary society. In modern-day western societies it is thought that individualism trumps collectivism. There is change from the paradigm of hierarchy to a paradigm of cooperation. This affects administrative law, which is traditionally top-down, but is slowly accepting and incorporating mechanisms of negotiation and bottom-up involvement of stakeholders and concerned individuals.

The contributors to this volume inves...