The concept of environmental rule of law plays a pivotal role in enhancing the effectiveness of environmental governance by integrating principles of the rule of law into environmental legislation with a nuanced application. Emerging from the recognition of the distinctiveness of environmental law and the stark implementation gap, it seeks to move environmental laws beyond mere legislation to their effective implementation, compliance, and enforcement. Formally acknowledged within the UN system in 2013, the roots of the principles of the rule of law, albeit sporadic, trace back to the 1970s within the realm of environmental law. Gradually, the concept has significantly evolved, gaining global prominence, institutionalization, and ultimately becoming a fundamental guiding pillar in the 2019 Fifth Montevideo Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law. This chapter chronicles the evolution of the concept, delineating its journey from scattered elements to a robust holistic framework. Cognizant that the concept continues to evolve, the chapter underscores critical issues that demand further research to maximize the benefits of the environmental rule of law.

Human rights were not absent in the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference). The Stockholm Conference’s preparatory works, the participants’ statements, and the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment all exhibit elements of a human rights-based approach. However, the legal arrangements on chemicals and wastes concluded in the decades that followed did not articulate principles of transparency, participation, and accountability for the realization of the right of every person to a non-toxic environment. Despite the progress that these agreements signify, they have not reversed the grave toxification of the planet and its people, nor have they achieved the global goals on chemicals and wastes management. Moving forward, international environmental law should change trajectory and embrace the human rights-based approach already apparent in the principles of the Stockholm Conference in order to secure the full realization of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

One of the targets related to Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production is to achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources. Minerals are an important one of these resources. The demand for mining on land and in frontier territories, such as the deep seabed and outer space, presents vast challenges for international regulation. Mining faces local opposition, and its entire chain of production increases the material footprint on the environment. This chapter examines how the international regulation of mining has evolved in the 50 years since the 1972 Stockholm Conference and the extent to which international policy and law have reduced the environmental and other impacts of mining in a broad sense. This examination of the difficulties associated with the international regulation of mining provides an illustrative case of the legal complexities related to achieving sustainable production and consumption.

International environmental law was founded at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment on the idea of the different contributions of ‘Northern’ and ‘Southern’ states to environmental damage and their differentiated responsibilities to address those harms. Nevertheless, the history of development of international environmental law, and especially of international climate governance, has often reflected a Northern bias. The 2015 Paris Agreement arguably brought a more balanced perspective, while also introducing a new ‘hybrid’ architecture based on parties’ nationally determined contributions to the global climate response, that opened up space for the scrutiny of domestic climate policies including through climate litigation. While originally a ‘Northern’ phenomenon, climate litigation since the Paris Agreement negotiations has grown quickly in many Southern jurisdictions. This chapter reflects on this evolution in international climate governance – from the initial mentions of climate concerns in the Stockholm outcomes to modern-day climate litigation in the global South – as a way of understanding changing South-North dynamics in international environmental law.

This chapter reviews the historical development of the regulation of waste and chemicals in both international law and European Union (EU) law after the 1972 Stockholm Conference as well as some of the subsequent trends and themes. It also highlights the relevant interactions between EU and international law on these issues. The chapter ends with a discussion of how the regulatory frameworks related to waste, chemicals, and products must be coordinated – both in international law and EU law – if we are to realize the vision of a toxic-free circular economy.

Although criminal trials are primarily designed to repress individual acts, a new role has emerged with the third generation of jihadist trials. They have become a ‘forum’, giving voice to different actors in order to reconstruct a socio-historical phenomenon in all its complexity, as we have seen with truth commissions in post-conflict countries. These trials have become a space where the defendants recount their path to radicalization, the victims relate their trauma and expectations, the experts situate the phenomenon in a political, social and medical context, and the police and security services expose their work and their difficulties. The rich narratives exposed by the different stakeholders, and most notably by hundreds of victims, are at the center of this organic process, which is being constantly developed by the actors themselves. Obviously, the trial was strictly framed by criminal law procedure, but this framework was partly circumvented, enriched, and even subverted during the trial. This chapter discusses the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan trials and the emergence of a hybrid procedure, which introduced important elements of restorative justice.

The process of treaty interpretation focuses on the reading of texts and so provides limited scope to understand fully how instruments like the 1972 Stockholm Declaration can inform the content of specific legal obligations. However, this is not the whole picture. A review of the genealogy of key law-of-the-sea instruments reveals the varying influence of Stockholm on the contemporary law of the sea. Beyond its more obvious influence on the protection of the marine environment, subtle yet important sematic and cultural influences can be detected in areas such as the human/environment nexus, differential commitments, stewardship, and integrated planning. As the integration of the law of the sea with other fields of law deepens, it is harder to ignore these influences. Understanding these influences gives us an important sense of trajectory in the development of legal norms and the longer-term value of including progressive ideas within legal instruments.

The 1972 Stockholm Conference marked the emergence of transnational environmental law, with states agreeing on commitments towards a healthy environment. While the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment may have been progressive and innovative at that time, it made no explicit mention of women, girls, or gender equality. Instead, women and girls were subsumed within the category of ‘man’. Through legal interpretation and analysis of policy documents, this chapter maps important progress made in the last 50 years. The article uncovers the untold story of women international lawmakers from the global South not only in advances on women’s rights but also in international law relevant to healthy social-ecological systems more broadly. The article finds that decoupling the notion of vulnerability from weakness and powerlessness and coupling it with agency and solidarity is needed if international law is going to tackle head on the biodiversity, climate change, pollution and water crises and effectively enable Earth stewardship.

This chapter opens the doors and allows readers to enter French courtrooms. It examines the architecture and dynamics of French terror courtrooms, focusing on the spatial layout and the positioning of actors within the courtroom setting. By analyzing the physical structure, we reflect how space and reinforces the roles of participants, from judges and prosecutors to defendants and victims. In addition, the chapter outlines the methodology developed during our research, our immersive approach within the courthouse. This immersion includes participatory observation beyond the courtroom itself to include the cafeteria, the courts’ corridors, security lines and the courtyard. These seemingly mundane settings reveal significant insights into the routines, relationships, and informal exchanges that frame the broader judicial process. By bridging architectural analysis and ethnographic observation, this chapter provides a presentation of the French terror trial setting as both a physical space and a site of social interaction.

Despite the growing number of multilateral environmental treaties since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the inter-link between the legal regimes governing the protection of the marine environment (marine regimes) and those governing the protection of international watercourses (freshwater regimes) has attracted only limited attention. The absence of an inter-link between these legal regimes is problematic particularly in the context of the prevention of marine plastic pollution via international watercourses. While marine and freshwater regimes have been developed as distinct disciplines of international law, one can find some common principles/obligations, such as the no-harm principle, the obligation to protect the environment, the obligation to conduct an environmental impact assessment, and the obligation to cooperate. On the basis of these common principles/obligations, this chapter explores the inter-link between the marine and freshwater regimes in the prevention of land-based marine plastic pollution.