At the dawn of 2026, this Preface Article to the EPL Special Issue 56 (1–2) provides a brief stocktaking since the “global wellbeing is in jeopardy” as the humankind's consumption is “at the rate of 1.7 planets a year”. The UN Charter originally did not contain any reference to the word ‘environment’ or ‘sustainability.’ Yet it's spirit can be traced to some Charter provisions and words embedded therein. Over the years, the UN has played the vanguard role for the global environment protection, global commons and sustainable development. Over the last 65 years [after the 1960 UNGA resolution 1514 (1960)], the UN has tried best to navigate between global developmental requirements and environmental imperatives. Upon the UN attaining historic milestone of 80-years in 2025, the new global headwinds brought intense pressures, humanitarian crises, persistent violent conflicts (affecting two billion people) geopolitical divisions and non-payment of UN's ‘assessed contributions’ reducing it to the “brink of bankruptcy”. The year of 2026 has arrived in the backdrop of 50-years (1975–2025) of UN processes for “revitalization” to make it fit for remaining part of the twenty-first Century. The future trajectory of the UN in the protection of the global environment need to be seen in this context. This preface-cum-article seeks to briefly provide a stocktaking and a look ahead for the UN's future role amid funding crunch, withdrawals from environmental entities and sidelining of the UN from its core function of maintenance of peace and security. 2026 has brought a renewed hope in the election process of the 10 th UNSG to lead the UN in 2027 to vindicate the solemn dedication to “We, the Peoples”. The article modestly urges for an audacity of hope and invites balanced ideational scholarly contributions to lead the way for securing our common planetary future in the UN-led world order.
The United Nations (UN) Charter has attained 81 years on June 26, 2026. At this remarkable milestone and at a time of perplexity, this preface article to the EPL Special Issue 56 (3-4) provides a brief peep into the UN-led processes that have been at work for the global protection of the environment and commons over the past 66 years (1960-2026). This aspect has been one of the most important contributions of the UN-led world order even as the world organization faces member driven bankruptcy. Pushed to the corner, the UN's funding crisis has reached a new record level with arrears of $1.6 billion at the end of 2025 as well as overall arrears exceeding $6.5 billion across the regular budget, peacekeeping and two international tribunals. Solemnly adopted on June 26, 1945 in the name of “We the Peoples”, the UN Charter has remained the only consistent promise in the last 81 years to the humanity and the planet Earth. Though not infallible like the peacemakers who designed the UN (1941-45), in the words of the 9 th UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, it is “irreplaceable.” In view of the faltering responses of the UN member states in addressing the varied global environmental challenges, the role of the UN remains most crucial to lead the way on the bedrock of scientific evidence, prudence and larger interests of humankind. As described by the UNSG at the London Climate Action Week [June 23, 2026], the UN has a role cut out in view of “Tale of Two Crises” comprising climate change induced higher temperatures reaching catastrophic tipping points as well as simmering global energy crisis destabilizing the lives, peace and stability of the world as vividly seen [since February 28, 2026] in the use of Strait of Hormuz as a weapon of war. In view of these global flashpoints and somber UN Charter Day [June 26, 2026], this preface article seeks to nudge ideational views both on the instrumentalities invoked such as UN80 Initiative , Pact for the Future and the 81 st anniversary call for Better together. One Charter. One future . Within the scholarly remit, it calls for thinking aloud and ahead for the UN's role in providing an institutionalized platform for 193-member states for a decisive course correction from “outdated model of development”, alluded to by the UNSG at the UNGA's informal commemorative meeting [June 26, 2026]. It shows, the choices made today by the peoples and nations in the UN-led world order would possibly help in overcoming the agonizing predicament of humankind by providing the pathway for securing the common planetary future.
The growing threat to environmental human rights underscores the urgency of enhancing criminal law mechanisms for the protection of the natural environment, prompting scholars and legislators to seek more effective legal responses. The examination of foreign legislative experience and best practices emerges as a critical strategy for adapting national legal frameworks to contemporary environmental challenges. Recent developments within the European Union position its regulatory model as one of the most progressive globally, offering a benchmark for jurisdictions seeking to reform their environmental legislation. This study conducts a comparative legal analysis of current criminal law provisions on environmental offences in the EU, Kazakhstan, and the Russian Federation. The objective is to identify differences, strengths, and limitations across these jurisdictions. EU legislation has undergone significant advancement in recent years, notably through the expansion and clarification of environmental crime categories, the specification of penalties, and the broadening of the scope of liability. These reforms have been codified in newly adopted supranational legal instruments, such as Directive (EU) 2024/1203. In contrast, Kazakhstan and Russia, despite possessing foundational legal frameworks, require substantial modernization. This analysis may be of interest to policymakers, environmental NGOs, and legal practitioners working at the intersection of criminal and environmental law.
In July 03, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) recognized for the first time a right to a healthy climate in its Advisory Opinion No. 32 (2025) on the “Climate Emergency and Human Rights”. The IACtHR derived the standalone right to a healthy climate from the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, which the International Court of Justice in its 2025 Advisory Opinion on “Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change” considered “a precondition for the enjoyment of many human rights, such as the right to life, the right to health and the right to an adequate standard of living, including access to water, food and housing.” Based on these developments, authors trace the emergence of the right to a safe climate within and outside the Inter-American Human Rights System, both in scholarly works and domestic case law. We then examine the nature and content of the right to a safe climate, including new right holders, duty bearers and corresponding obligations that stem from this right. In this sense, the authors depart from the IACtHR's proposition and detect lacunae and corresponding opportunities for the right's further development in theory and practice. Finally, the authors analyse how this rights revolution sparked by the IACtHR Opinion may boost rights-based climate litigation, as it moves from aspiration to enforceable law.
The European Union's asylum and international protection framework remains largely silent on displacement caused by environmental factors. Despite the growing reality of environmentally induced displacement, no binding legal instrument within EU law recognises or protects those forced to move due to environmental harm. Drawing on an analysis of the Common European Asylum System, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, EU founding treaties, and international environmental and human rights law, this article addresses the resulting protection gap and argues that this omission runs counter to the EU's Treaty principles, its human rights obligations, and its environmental commitments. The article demonstrates that the exclusion of environmentally displaced persons stems not from isolated omissions but from the structural fragmentation of EU legal regimes and the resulting policy inertia, the persistent inability to translate normative commitments into operational protection. The absence of legal recognition leaves affected individuals in a position of extreme vulnerability, with no access to territory, asylum procedures, or protection from refoulement . Moreover, this gap undermines the EU's legal consistency, violates the principle of solidarity among Member States, and diminishes the Union's credibility on the international stage. The article concludes that the EU faces a fundamental normative choice: either to establish a binding rights-based framework for environmentally displaced persons or to perpetuate a structural protection gap that excludes those most severely affected by environmental degradation from the scope of legal protection.
A doctrinal and critical analysis of France's Climate and Resilience Law (August 22, 2021) is presented, examining its legal innovations and implications for climate governance. The law, emerging from an unprecedented consultative process, marks a significant evolution in French climate policy and environmental law. It introduces new legal provisions, such as the recognition of ecocide, and aims to align France with ambitious European and international climate objectives. The article situates the law within the broader context of French and EU environmental frameworks, discusses its main features, and critically assesses its challenges, including institutional complexities and implementation gaps.
This article explores how legal interpretivism offers a robust framework for addressing intergenerational equity in contemporary jurisprudence. Drawing on sophisticated accounts of interpretivist theory, particularly the distinction between hybrid and pure interpretivism, this article argues that pure interpretivism's emphasis on moral principles determining how institutional practice affects legal rights provides courts with the theoretical foundation needed to consider the interests of future generations. Through analysis of evolving case law, particularly in climate litigation, this article demonstrates how judges are already engaging in interpretivist reasoning when addressing intergenerational equity concerns. The article contributes to ongoing debates about the grounds of law and judicial methodology in addressing long-term, global challenges like sustainability and climate change, arguing that pure interpretivist approaches offer both theoretical coherence and practical solutions for protecting future generations’ interests while maintaining legal legitimacy.
This article seeks to answer the question of how legal education can contribute to the creation and strengthening of environmental citizenship. In this context, it first examines the concept of environmental citizenship. It then focuses on establishing a system of environmental rights and duties that not only enables citizens to play important roles in environmental issues but also, as a further step, requires the reevaluation of non-human entities within a community of all inhabitants of the Earth. Finally, it investigates street law programs to understand their possible effects (including their potential benefits and challenges) on the creation and promotion of environmental citizenship, considering that legal education through street law programs can play an important role in this foundation.
This paper explores the legal standards governing environmentally impactful administrative decisions through a comparative legal analysis. It focuses on how different jurisdictions—namely Egypt, the UAE, India, and France—incorporate environmental considerations into administrative decision-making. The research emphasizes the procedural safeguards required to ensure transparency, legality, and environmental responsibility, such as environmental impact assessments and public participation mechanisms. The study also examines the influence of international legal instruments, including the Rio Declaration and the Aarhus Convention, on domestic administrative practices. It reveals that while France and India demonstrate advanced judicial oversight in enforcing environmental obligations, Egypt and the UAE adopt more centralized models with varying degrees of public involvement. Drawing from judicial rulings and international norms, the paper concludes with recommendations to enhance environmental governance through clearer regulatory standards, increased judicial scrutiny, and integration of international environmental principles into national legal frameworks.
This article explores the potential of UNESCO's Statutory Framework of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves as an effective adaptive legal instrument for enhancing environmental governance. It examines the framework of Biosphere Reserves (BRs), focusing on interactions with local communities to explore place-based outcomes in sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. The flexibility of soft law frameworks associated with BRs enables an adaptive response to local contexts. It fosters community collaboration in environmental management, contrasting with rigid conventional frameworks that often struggle with adaptability and local relevance. BRs emphasise collaboration between stakeholders and demonstrate a pathway for achieving sustainable development and biodiversity conservation effectively. This study contributes to the discourse within international environmental law by highlighting the importance of integrating more adaptive legal mechanisms, such as the BR Framework, alongside typical hard law instruments. As the global community faces increasingly complex environmental and climate challenges, findings underscore the need for approaches that leverage adaptability, indicating that BRs serve as models for enhancing local governance in sustainability and resilience. This research suggests that the effectiveness of international environmental governance depends on embracing flexible, adaptive, and community-oriented frameworks, thereby prompting a re-evaluation of existing hard law in the pursuit of comprehensive environmental governance.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its landmark Advisory Opinion of 23 July 2025, has established a clear connection between human rights, climate action and due diligence obligations of States under treaty and customary international law. The Court appears to have elevated the concept of due diligence from a relatively soft principle to a powerful standard, against which to assess compliance of international obligations by states. In their turn, States are likely to pass on these obligations to business organisations too through various human rights and environmental due diligence schemes. There are various reporting requirements of the European Union for business organisations through several schemes that already point to a move in this direction. Thus, the impact of this ICJ Advisory Opinion is not limited to States per se . It has the potential to require business organisations to adhere to an international human rights and environmental due diligence standard, against which their own policies and practices can be evaluated. The paper seeks to examine this perspective.
The global environmental crisis exacerbates Indonesia's ecological vulnerability, marked by deforestation, pollution, and agrarian conflicts, with marginalized groups—particularly Indigenous communities—bearing a disproportionate burden. This study aims to integrate the evolution of utilitarianism with environmental justice principles (distributive, recognition, procedural) within Indonesia's socio-cultural context. Using a theoretical framework analysis and case-based policy review , the research identifies the limitations of pure utilitarianism, which often neglects minority rights. A hybrid approach combining Amartya Sen's Capability Approach , John Rawls's Justice as Fairness , and sustainable utilitarianism demonstrates potential to balance collective benefits, individual capabilities, and ecosystem integrity. Analysis of resource access, agrarian conflicts, and law enforcement reveals structural inequities impeding environmental justice. The study concludes that this integrative conceptual framework offers a normative foundation for inclusive, transparent, and sustainable policy-making. Its novelty lies in synthesizing classical ethics and contemporary justice theories for a developing country context, a perspective rarely explored. The urgency calls for governance reforms ensuring that economic growth does not compromise rights and ecological sustainability. Practical implications include mainstreaming meaningful participation, strengthening cross-sectoral coordination, and enforcing environmental law through the polluter pays principle.
On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice provided its Advisory Opinion on “The Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change.” Requested by the UN General Assembly in 2023 ( vide Resolution 77/276), the unanimous ruling is a landmark that will guide decision-making under International Law for decades to come as States cope with the impact's environmental degradation amidst rapidly warming temperatures. The Court characterized this growing crisis as “an existential problem of planetary proportions.” The Opinion for the first time makes clear that International Law addressed the entirety of the plant, and is a holistic body of treaty obligations and customary law duties. The Human Right to the environment girds these duties. A stringent duty of due diligence is required to fulfill theses substantive duties. While States will vary as they apply principles of law, including sustainable development, to observe their due diligence, none are exempt from doing their utmost to protect. Failures to do so have legal consequences under customary laws of State Responsibility. The Advisory Opinion applies to, and will guide decision-making under all multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). To fulfill stringent due diligence, States are to implement national and international laws for environmental impact assessment (EIA), and other laws requiring use of Nature Based Solutions that protect biodiversity. The Opinion makes clear that States must discontinue reliance of fossil fuels. The Court's Opinion reflects the law set forth in the submissions of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). As States apply stringent due diligence, and national courts address legal claims regarding climate change, the Opinion will drive the progressive development of international climate law, from the lex lata expressed in the Opinion to the lex ferenda needed to protect all States and the planet.
The global implementation of climate measures has generated complex legal challenges at the intersection of climate change mitigation and international investment law. While governments increasingly adopt regulatory measures to address their climate concerns, these policies have caused a rise in investor-state disputes. This article examines the legal challenges emerging from investor-state arbitration mechanism when states implement climate-related regulatory policies. It investigates the tension between state sovereignty in climate policy and international investment protection obligations. The analysis identifies systemic obstacles in the current arbitration practice and proposes approaches to reconcile the competing imperatives of climate action and investor protection. By analysing the legal implications of climate change regulatory measures, this article advances the scholarly discourse on climate governance and international investment law.
The Nile River Basin, the longest river in the world, has long been both a source of prosperity and a trigger for political tensions. Despite its strategic and positional importance, Nile River suffers from controversial and conflicting positions. The absence of an inclusive and a legally binding agreement among its eleven riparian states aggravates an already unstable situation, with significant implications for regional peace and security. Recent disputes, particularly the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), have intensified divisions and further challenged the region's fragile status quo. This article aims to examine the case of the Nile River Basin through the framework of international water law. It not only outlines its political dynamics but also critically analyses the principles of international water law with a particular focus on water justice and water security. These principles are closely linked to the principles of equitable and reasonable utilisation and the obligation not to cause significant harm. This examination is further supported by relevant case law. The article also explores how the pursuit of a solution that guarantees the interests of co-riparian states can achieve a benefit-sharing pathway toward more sustainable and equitable regional governance. The paper contributes to ongoing debates on transboundary water governance by advocating for a comprehensive basin-wide agreement and effective river water management that assures the regional power balance while ensuring equitable and reasonable utilisation of the basin's resources in conformity with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This Preface to the EPL Special Issue 55 (6) 2025 on the Advisory Opinions (2024-2025) of the International Courts and Tribunals (ICTs) on Climate Change seeks to provide an overview and serves as a lead research article to introduce the legal trajectory adopted for seeking an authoritative view on the “obligations of the States” under international law and “legal consequences under these obligations for States” (worded differently before each ICT) in relation to climate change from the three ICTs. The three marathon processes for seeking Advisory Opinions (AOs) took place before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). The fourth one is pending (since May 02, 2025) before the African Court of Human & Peoples’ Rights. The respective ‘requests’ were presented to these ICTs on May 29, 2023 (ICJ), January 9, 2023 (IACtHR) and December 12, 2022 (ITLOS). After going through their procedural craft of formal requests, written statements, oral presentations and specially arranged meetings (by the ICJ) with some stakeholders such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the three ICTs delivered their respective AOs on July 23, 2025 (ICJ, The Hague), July 03, 2025 (IACtHR, San Jose) and May 21, 2024 (ITLOS, Hamburg). Thus, the AOs of these three ICTs provide a unique legal corpus ostensibly for strengthening legal basis of the State-centric consensual regime (1992 UNFCCC, 1997 Kyoto Protocol and 2015 Paris Agreement) on climate change. These AOs have brought to the fore role of the ICTs as ‘sentinels’ even as entire climate change global regulatory process (1992-2025) seem to be floundering after 33 years in spite of grim scientific projections about the “climate emergency”. It is in this backdrop that this preface-cum-research article provides the context, a preliminary overview of the outcomes of the three ICT AOs and possible future trajectory to resolve the “climate conundrum”, beyond the three AOs.
The Advisory Opinion (OC-32/25) delivered on July 03, 2025 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) on “climate emergency and human rights” (CEHR) constitutes a groundbreaking development in the field of international environmental and human rights law. Building on OC-23/17, the Opinion explicitly recognizes the human right to a healthy and stable climate, as well as Nature as a subject of rights, marking a decisive shift toward an ecocentric paradigm within the Inter-American System. This article analyzes the Opinion's legal reasoning, its articulation of substantive, procedural, and intersectional State obligations, and its contribution to consolidating an “Inter-American ecological constitutionalism.” Through a comparative and normative approach, it examines the Opinion's implications for the progressive realization of environmental and climate rights, the emergence of environmental jus cogens , and the advancement of global climate justice. Ultimately, the CEHR AO is argued to be both a regional and universal milestone, positioning Latin America as a normative innovator in the protection of human and ecological integrity in the face of the climate emergency.
This contribution examines how the International Court of Justice (ICJ) approached the principle of sustainable development in its 2025 Advisory Opinion on Obligations of states in respect of climate change . The principle requires states to balance environmental, social and economic considerations so that both present and future generations can satisfy their basic needs. Yet, it offers little guidance on how this should be done. The Court was thus in a unique position to clarify how the balancing exercise should be conducted in the context of one of the international community's most pressing challenges, namely the fight against climate change. Although the Court did not engage with the principle in detail, this contribution argues that sustainable development underpins core determinations in the Advisory Opinion.
The International Court of Justice's (ICJ) 23 July 2025 Advisory Opinion (AO) on climate change marks a turning point in international law, clarifying that environmental protection is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. This contribution situates that AO within a neglected but indispensable domain: the governance of soils. It argues that the court's articulation of states’ obligations to safeguard the climate and human rights necessarily extends to the protection of soils – the terrestrial foundation of food, water, and ecological stability. Reframing soil as a living system rather than an inert substrate, this contribution argues for recognising an emerging human right to healthy soil as integral to human and ecological security. It interprets the ICJ's AO as a legal foundation for soil-related obligations, encompassing prevention, regulation, remediation, and cooperation, within existing frameworks of international human rights and the environment. Through an ecocentric lens, it explores how soil can evolve from property object to rights-bearing entity and examines pathways for institutional innovation, including a global soil convention and a specialised environmental chamber under the ICJ. In doing so, this contribution aligns ethical insight with legal necessity, contending that justice for both people and the planet depends on securing the dignity of the Earth's most fundamental yet least protected resource – its living soil.
