25 August 2020
[Author: Carmel McNamara, IOS Press]
Amsterdam, NL – We are pleased to announce that the first issue of Volume 50 of Environmental Policy and Law (EPL) has now been published online. Yes, the journal looks different – this is the first issue to feature a new cover design – though, rest assured, the contents of EPL continue to be high-quality, covering legal and regulatory developments in the environmental field.
As of 2020, the coverage of EPL has been broadened and there are a wider variety of article types available (more of that explained here). The results of these changes will not be immediately evident as any such new submissions must first make their way through the production process. What we do see in this issue is a moment of reflection as we look to the future. Tomme Young, EPL’s long-serving Managing Editor, summarises this excellentally in this issue's Editorial, in which she concludes: “With nearly a half century of experience, EPL will continue to grow, evolve and prepare to fill an enduring role in a new future of environmental law and policy around the world.”
The introduction to this issue also bears witness to the ongoing global pandemic with the publication of the "Open Letter" to the World Health Organization and the UN Environmental Programme. This, as the Editorial notes, is "the most rational and credible writing on the environmental impacts that the pandemic will have on global and national environmental policy." Read the openly available letter in full here.
New issue online
The layout of this issue is much the same as those of issues gone before. We maintain the key sections of the journal, under the headings:
- Global Law and Policy Developments
- Environmental Compliance Processes
- Regional Law and Policy Developments
- National Law and Policy Developments
In total, we have one meeting report and one news report, plus five research articles and five review articles.
The four articles in global developments section opens with an examination of the role of international courts and tribunals as important agents for the peaceful settlement of international disputes through the instrumentality of law, and closes with an article looking at the global biodiversity framework for the post-2020 era.
The article in this issue that covers environmental compliance is the meeting report of the Montreal Protocol: Implementation Committee, and there is one article covering regional developments that reviews environmental legislation in Central Asia.
The final section on national developments has six articles that look at wide-ranging topics from Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Russian Federation, USA and Viet Nam. As an extra feature now that we have the new EPL website, this content is also featured on our Country Focus section (see here), which allows readers to jump directly to content focused at a national law and policy level of a certain country – just pick your country of choice from the drop-down menu at the top of this page.
Find out all about this new website here
