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.

Our task was not helped by the fact that the civil service had been prevented by the Cameron government from making any preparations for a leave vote. In fact, the civil service and No. 10 generally were still in a state of shock. The only real European policy experts all came from the ‘Remain’ side of the fence. While their professionalism was not in doubt, it was clearly going to be a huge task for them to pivot to embrace the new reality of the UK’s changed status with the EU. It wasn’t long before the UK’s long-serving Ambassador to the EU, Ivan Rogers, was moved on. His expertise was never in question, but in the weekly meetings with the Prime Minister in her study behind the Cabinet Room, he barely sought to disguise his dismay at the UK’s decision. Treating Brexit as a problem to be managed rather than an opportunity to be seized was never going to go down well with the Brexiteers still drunk on their own success. What Ivan saw as pragmatism, the Brexiteers saw as pessimism. He quickly became public enemy number one and was swiftly replaced.

The promise to hold a referendum on EU membership looked like politicking to the top of the German government. By the end of 2012 debate about the UK’s future in Europe was cresting. But, as often happens, the moment of peak interest passed. At the start of 2013, however, Cameron resurrected the topic. Merkel was bemused, and then nettled when it seemed that the speech to launch the referendum idea would clash with celebrations in Berlin to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Élysée Treaty. No. 10 responded to German lobbying: the speech was delivered at breakfast time on 23 January in Bloomberg’s offices in the City of London, German and French legislators having gathered in the Reichstag building the day before. The speech was twenty minutes of Euro-boilerplate followed by five minutes that grabbed the headlines. Cameron was confident that the referendum could be won; confidence that was so pronounced that the Chancellery wondered why the referendum was necessary. It seemed to Merkel’s advisers that the Prime Minister had created a bargaining chip to discard in coalition negotiations with the Lib Dems after the next general election.

Perhaps the greatest turning point for Parliamentary involvement in the Brexit process was the 2017 general election. Having won an unlikely majority in 2015, Cameron bequeathed to May a relatively functional dynamic in Parliament. But, tempted by artificial sentiment in polling, May and her team decided to call the 2017 election in an attempt to secure a greater popular mandate for her administration. That decision was fatal. The prior polling was erroneous, or at the very least misread the public appetite for an election, and the campaign May ran was self-defeating. The loss of the Conservative majority at the election left May in the treacherous position of needing a confidence and supply deal with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Even in normal times, the instability of such an arrangement creates complications and often disaster for the ruling party. When you add in the unique circumstances of Brexit, plus the fact that the Northern Irish questions in Brexit were the most difficult and contentious elements of the negotiations, May’s dependence on the DUP was fatal.

This chapter focuses on implementing organizational design through a structured, dynamic, project-based approach. Using the policy deployment model, it outlines how to define change tasks, assign responsibilities, set milestones, and ensure progress via feedback and follow-up. Implementation is not a one-time event but must integrate with ongoing operations. A time-aware, information-processing perspective helps balance change with daily work, using critical events and capacity to guide timing. The model applies across various organizational types, including agile, hybrid, and decentralized forms, all requiring clarity on roles and timing. The drill-down and policy deployment logic offer a flexible yet structured path to support coherent, adaptive, and sustainable transformation.

Exploring the use of our methods has highlighted the importance of defining the boundaries of the system being studied and attending to features of underlying systems that afford causal processes. We note that our limited application of our methods cannot confirm that all the implementation actions were necessary, though our examination of L shows how this might be shown by broader study. We note that, while our methods may seem daunting, they’re no more detailed than statistical methods used in quantitative research and have practical advantages in supplying more detailed qualitative evaluations. They may also be used for ex ante appraisal. We stress the importance of understanding mechanisms in practical research and note that actual research involves back-and-forth between evidence and theories of change, even though we detail the former first in our evaluation. We note the value of such evaluations in combatting problems such as, relevantly, costly failed reforms.

As a further example of our approach, we offer a detailed post-hoc case study of the implementation of the Signs of Safety practice approach in child protection. This is chosen because it has been deployed in multiple places but evidence suggests it is often only partially implemented. Our case study is of a child protection agency M which evidence shows achieved a high standard of implementation. In this case study we had a rich evidence base to work with, both of background research on child protection implementations able to provide evidence from afar of systemic factors that might be causally important and of local evidence available from extensive contemporaneous documentation in M. Our method helps to illustrate and explain the range of changes needed to support Signs of Safety as the organisational practice approach in M.

This chapter examines how international relations (IR) scholarship has approached two central questions concerning international law and legalisation: why do states create international law, and what makes a particular norm ‘legal’ in nature? It then outlines the concept of legalisation as described in Abbott et al.’s well-known article of the same name. Under the classic legalisation framework, legalisation has three components: obligation, precision and delegation. The chapter argues that the classic OPD framework cannot fully capture the expanding role of non-state actors or conceptualise law as a process. It therefore proposes an adapted model for the transnational legal system that incorporates a crucial omitted dimension – implementation. Implementation refers to the concrete actions taken by agents to translate legal or law-like principles into practical, workable instructions for courts, governments, companies, and other non-state actors.

This chapter describes the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) and the mhGAP-Intervention Guide (mhGAP-IG) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), aimed at scaling up suicide prevention and management services to bridge unmet need.The mhGAP-IG is an evidence-based tool for mental disorders with structured and operationalised guidelines for clinical decision-making targeting non-specialist community and primary care workers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s key findings, methodology and structure. It also introduces the principal questions the book seeks to address. How have agents, operating at national, international and transnational levels, attempted to institutionalise the norm of corporate accountability for human rights violations linked to transnational corporate activity? What do these initiatives reveal about the nature of transnational legalisation, and how legalisation should be framed or conceptualised in the twenty-first century? Finally, could a revised framework of legalisation help explain when transnational litigation and soft law initiatives are more likely to succeed in the future?

Suicide prevention requires a systematic approach to develop a framework that brings together different elements of a prevention strategy, including surveillance, mental health service access, restriction of lethal means, and public awareness campaigns. Originating with Finland's pioneering efforts in the 1980s, such strategies have since expanded worldwide, driven by the World Health Organization's call for action and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals. It is imperative that these programmes/strategies are evidence-based, informed by local research, continuously monitored and regularly evaluated for effectiveness. By developing suicide prevention programmes/strategies, governments around the world show their commitment to mitigating preventable deaths, underscoring the need for sustained funding, leadership, and research-driven implementation.

Abstract: This chapter examines post-judgment procedures in international law that aim at (or can be used for) compliance adjudication and the applicable remedies. Specific procedures for compliance adjudication exist in regional trade agreements as well as in some multilateral treaties establishing adjudication mechanisms. Additionally, ad hoc agreements to submit disputes to adjudication sometimes permit adjudication on implementation or compliance. States have occasionally resorted to these provisions. A few ICs, and in particular the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, have themselves established the permissibility of compliance adjudication. In a few cases, states have sought to employ requests for interpretation to obtain rulings on compliance. The chapter concludes by considering the permissible scope of review and the remedies applicable at the compliance stage, including the lawfulness of remedy repetition and remedy escalation.

This chapter analyses efforts within the United Nations to develop legal and normative frameworks for transnational corporations (TNCs) and human rights, beginning in the 1970s. It first considers the UN Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations and explains why this initiative failed to materialise despite many years of negotiation. It then examines the Global Compact, which reflects emerging trends in legalisation through its emphasis on implementation, participation by non-state actors, and reliance on consensus-building and norm promotion. The chapter next reviews the rise and fall of the Draft Norms, before turning to the development of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This section highlights the innovative nature of Ruggie’s constructivist approach to generating new legal and social norms. A new treaty process, initiated in 2014, remains ongoing and suggests that traditional legalisation strategies continue to retain relevance in certain contexts.

This chapter assesses the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional project as an international regime. Although ASEAN’s regime is underpinned by unique features, certain characteristics of other regional integrations are still evident. Accordingly, ASEAN’s regime is devoid of complete synchrony of state parties’ normative interests and the surrender to implementing institutions of the regional project. Although ASEAN has been lauded as a successful regional integration project, its normative beliefs have been constructed around its identity as a regional project. Indeed, ASEAN member states might have taken inspiration from the EU, but they continue to be highly cautious about institutional arrangements that centralise decision-making and dilute state sovereignty. Hence, the gains of prosperity recorded so far are largely driven by individual countries’ efforts rather than a collective outcome of normative interests and obeisance to the implementing institutions.