In alignment with the vision for the future of the European Union (EU) put forth by the European Green Deal in 2020, and EU efforts to tackle global deforestation and forest degradation, the EU Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) was adopted in June 2023. The EUDR is designed specifically as a unilateral, yet transnational, intervention to limit access to the EU market or the exports from the EU of seven key forest-risk commodities whenever they are linked with deforestation, forest degradation, or illegality. Drawing on decolonial and critical food systems scholarship, this article critically examines the EU’s position in combating global deforestation and forest degradation by positioning the EUDR in historically shaped and unequally constructed agri-food chains. Whereas the EU’s plan to decrease deforestation and forest degradation linked with its substantive consumption of products from the global south is an innovative step from the point of view of transnational governance of environmental degradation, we find that the historical amnesia, the emphasis on global trade, and the push for ‘green value chains’ fail to address the root causes of deforestation. Moreover, we contend that the EU legislator overlooked the potential of using transnational governance to rethink agri-food systems, including by promoting re-regionalization in the name of food sovereignty and the right to food.

The regulation of groundwater remains underdeveloped globally and often lags behind the domestic governance of surface water. As a result, groundwater is often subject to unfettered extraction, uses, and contamination. A clear understanding of ownership is central to the success of domestic regulations. However, the types of ownership regime in place in nations around the world are poorly documented in the academic literature. This study addresses that gap through a comparative analysis of domestic groundwater ownership regimes across ten jurisdictions in nine countries spanning five continents. It identifies three dominant models of groundwater ownership: private ownership, public ownership, and non-ownership with public oversight. It then examines how these ownership doctrines impact key dimensions of groundwater governance, including the nature and transferability of the ownership right, the level of government at which regulation takes place, implications for rights of use, and interactions with customary and Indigenous rights. Doing so offers unique insight into how nations with different legal traditions, governance structures, and customary practices address the ownership of groundwater resources. It also suggests that different ownership (and non-ownership) models can have distinct implications for other aspects of groundwater governance.

This article is about state responsibility and its unique interaction with environmental law. While remedies in the main are reparative in nature, the ‘guarantees of non-repetition’ are qualitatively distinct, intended to prevent recurrence of a breach and, as such, this remedy brings added value to environmental law. Utilizing the Montara oil spill as a conceptual testing ground, this article argues that the future-oriented guarantees of non-repetition create an untapped opportunity for an injured state. Benefiting from the leverage attached to receiving guarantees of non-repetition, an injured state may evoke the International Law Commission’s Articles on Prevention of Transboundary Harm to negotiate future prevention and, where it sees fit, to seek to institutionalize future oversight by various joint-monitoring mechanisms, going so far as to call for a bilateral intergovernmental organization.

The European Union (EU) is implementing unilateral trade restrictions on imports that contain residues of pesticides banned for use within its borders. Several Latin American (LA) countries, among other EU trading partners, have criticized these measures, leading to a contentious debate that could escalate into a trade dispute before the World Trade Organization (WTO). This article aims to unpack this seemingly polarized debate by re-evaluating the trade concerns raised by LA WTO delegates through a human rights lens. It highlights the disconnect between trade policy positions and human rights commitments concerning pesticides, revealing a bias among WTO delegates in favour of commercial interests, often at the expense of broader societal and ecological concerns raised by human rights-holders in both LA and the EU. The article suggests procedural innovations at both the national and WTO levels that could broaden the trade policy discussion on pesticides, aligning it with human rights standards and urgent collective action for biodiversity stewardship.

In the 1990s, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emerged as the primary international forum for managing the interface between biodiversity and biotechnology. Three legally binding protocols to the Convention were concluded, all aiming to regulate bio-innovation. Despite the rapid pace of biotechnological innovation, however, and its implications for biodiversity and equity, CBD policy outcomes have recently shifted towards lower stringency in substance and weaker institutionalization in process. To confirm this trend, we examine decisions adopted by the CBD Conferences of the Parties in 2022 and 2024. We focus on outcomes on three key agenda items: (i) digital sequence information on genetic resources, (ii) risk assessment of living modified organisms, and (iii) synthetic biology. We analyze shifts towards lower stringency in the light of scholarship on legalization and de-legalization, including the softening of international law. We conclude by assessing the implications for the CBD, and for global biotechnology governance more generally.