[by Carmel McNamara, IOS Press]

Amsterdam, NL – We are pleased to announce that the final content has been published in our Environmental Policy and Law special issue – Our Earth Matters. Expert scholars and decision makers were invited to contribute to reexamine the current global approaches, as well as to explore the future trajectory with new ideas, tools, techniques, processes, ecological frameworks, and institutional innovations for international environmental governance in the 21st century and beyond. Discover all about the articles that appear in the final two sections of the special issue here.

Special Issue Parts III & IV

Following the publication of the first articles in our special issue earlier this month (see here), we are now pleased you can read the articles focused on problems and prospects. The content has been curated by EPL's Editor-in-Chief Bharat H. Desai, PhD, and the invited authors were tasked with reexamining the current global approaches, as well as to explore the future trajectory with new ideas, tools, techniques, processes, ecological frameworks, and new institutional innovations. 

The contributions in this EPL special issue explore answers to the environmental crisis will cover four sections that cover predictions, processes, problems, and prospects. The content is published across two issues of the journal, with the first two parts in EPL Volume 50, Issue 6 and the remaining content appearing in EPL Volume 51, Issue 1/2 (detailed below).

Part III: Problematique

The content of this issue raises pertinent questions about how we might move ahead to forge those pathways to a better environmental future – what have the last 50 years taught us and what are the next steps and priorities?. Dr. Desai asks: “Has it brought about changes in human mindsets, jettisoning of greed and defining our needs? What could be the new ideas, approaches, processes, regulatory tools, and institutional structures to address the ‘world problematique’? The third part of the special issue focuses on that topic. The articles in the “Problematique” section look at the crucial problems that humanity faces – and that need solving – in terms of the environment.

Climate Law and Its Skeptics: Whither Protection of the Atmosphere?

Peter H. Sand (University of Munich, Germany) | View online

State Sovereignty in the Planetary Management of Natural Resources – Open Access

Nico J. Schrijver (Leiden University, the Netherlands) | View online

Protecting the Natural Environment in Armed Conflict

Peter Maurer (International Committee of the Red Cross, Switzerland) | View online

Towards the New Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Canada) | View online

Can We Save the Blue Half of Our Planet?

David Freestone (George Washington University, USA) | View online

New Approaches for International Water Resources

Owen McIntyre (University College Cork, Ireland) | View online

Soil Protection and the Right to Food for a Better Common Future

Oliver C. Ruppel (Stellenbosch University, South Africa) | View online

Time for a Protocol on Transnational Environmental Crime?

Gregory L. Rose (University of Wollongong, Australia) | View online

Part IV: Propsects

The final part is all about looking towards our environmental future in relation to the “Prospects” for our planet Earth. Where are we in terms of vision, governance, implementation, and international courts and tribunals?

Looking Through Palme’s Vision for the Global Environment

Anna Sundström (Olof Palme International Centre, Sweden) | View online

Peacebuilding Functions of International Environmental Governance

Ole Kristian Fauchald (University of Oslo, Norway) | View online

A New Mandate for the Revived UN Trusteeship Council

Bharat H. Desai (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) | View online

A UN Specialized Agency for the Environment

Said Mahmoudi (University of Stockholm, Sweden) | View online

ICTs as the New Environmental Sentinels

Bharat H. Desai (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) | View online

You can view the abstracts of all the above articles on the Our Earth Matters page and go here to access the above journal issue.