In the three years since last surveyed in the Quarterly,1 EU environmental law has continued to justify its reputation as one of the most fast-moving fields of EU law, with a large number of highly significant legislative and jurisprudential developments. This review selects some of the most important areas of development in the field in recent years: in particular, the EU's new environmental action programme for 2013–20, EU climate and energy law, environmental governance and enforcement, and integration of environmental concerns into other EU policy areas.

This article analyses the contribution made to the effective implementation of international environmental law in the EU by the ECJ invoking direct application and effect of international treaties. It considers the requirements of these doctrines in international law, distinguishing them from related doctrines in EU law. It reviews jurisprudence and literature and evaluates future potential. Implications for direct application and effect from the EU doctrine of primacy and for the principle of effective judicial protection are examined, and alternatives to full transposition, implementation and enforcement explored, including non-compliance procedures.

Over the course of the last hundred and fifty years or so the general trend in the laws of Western European countries has been, first, to make provision for judicial divorce and, second, to make it easier for parties to a marriage which has broken down to obtain such a divorce. This coupled with increased mobility has added to the significance of the law relating to the recognition of foreign divorces. The law's essential task is to strike the right balance between, on the one hand, being too restrictive, thereby creating “limping” marriages (i.e., marriages which are valid in one or more countries, but not others) and, on the other, being too generous, thereby sanctioning “quickie” divorces or divorces of convenience.1

The UK Supreme Court's decision in Belhaj v Straw defined foreign affairs non-justiciability and unearthed its constitutional foundations. However, two decisions since Belhaj—High Commissioner for Pakistan v Prince Muffakham Jah and The Law Debenture Trust Corpn plc v Ukraine—have called Belhaj into doubt, narrowing non-justiciability to give effect to ordinary private law rights. This article analyses these decisions and argues that their general approach of subjecting issues involving transactions between sovereign States to private international law's framework is desirable, because the constitutional foundations of non-justiciability identified in Belhaj are shaky. Yet, it is suggested that private international law itself may require courts to exercise judicial restraint on these issues, given its goal of upholding the efficient resolution of international disputes in appropriate fora.

The negotiation of the free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia and the United Kingdom promised to integrate trade and climate policies. As a leader of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Glasgow, the UK seemed well-placed to exert pressure on Australia, a country that was yet to embrace a target of net zero emissions by 2050. This article asks whether the FTA achieves this aim. It explains the link between trade liberalisation and climate change, referring to the scale and composition of economic activity and drawing upon examples from energy, agriculture, building and transportation sectors, as well as strategic factors. It provides an original analytical framework to assess the FTA's contributions to climate change goals, pointing to: (1) provisions to strengthen climate commitments, including net zero targets; (2) provisions to facilitate trade and investment in climate-related areas; and (3) provisions relating to enforcement and cooperation. It compares selected initiatives of other FTAs, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the European Union–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the UK–New Zealand FTA and the Singapore–Australia Green Economy Agreement. It reviews the FTA's negotiating process and its aftermath, including complaints about public participation. The article's conclusion that the FTA makes minimal contribution to climate change mitigation has implications for the broader quest for mutually supportive trade and climate policies, and, now that a net zero target has been legislated by the newly elected Australian Parliament, for the FTA's future implementation.

Lord Goff formulated the first stage of his classic test in the Spiliada in the following terms: ‘the basic principle is that a stay will only be granted on the ground of forum non conveniens where the court is satisfied that there is some available forum, having competent jurisdiction, which is the appropriate forum for the trial of the action’ (emphasis added).

This article explores the procedural environmental rights practice of regional human rights and environmental protection systems through a comparative lens in order to identify the ways in which existing developments and current trends can inform and enrich the procedural dimension of the right to water. The study suggests that enhanced levels of transparency, public engagement and justiciability in water-related decisions are significant steps towards the achievement of the substantive dimension of the right to water and highlights the potential for cross-fertilization between such regimes towards good water governance.

International sanctions have grown in use significantly since they were deployed in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.1 In the decade since the Kuwait crisis, economic and other measures not involving the use of force have been deployed by the international community against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro),2 Libya3 Rwanda4 Haiti5 Liberia,6 Somalia,7 Sudan,8 Sierra Leone,9 Angola,10 Eritrea and Ethiopia11 and, most recently, Afghanistan.12 International sanctions today derive—principally13—from a single source: the Security Council acting on the powers delegated to it by Member States under Article 41 of the UN Charter. However, while the sanctions contemplated by Article 41 have proved to be of continuing relevance in an increasingly interdependent world, the circumstances which enhance the potency of economic sanctions as a means of responding to an international crisis also increase the risk of loss by innocent States. The increased willingness of the Security Council to use its binding authority to impose economic sanctions has raised important questions both as to the cost of economic sanctions to implementing States, and the limits on the Council's powers.

That question remains open following Case C–99/96 Mietz v. Intership Yachting Sneek BV16 a more recent decision that raises some similar issues but continues to confine its attention to interim payments. The applicant was appealing against a German order for enforcement of a Dutch judgment ordering interim payment in kort geding proceedings. The applicant argued that the underlying contract was covered by the special provisions on consumer contracts in Articles 13 et seq. of the Brussels Convention. Therefore failure to observe the rules of jurisdiction in Articles 13 et seq. was a ground for non-recognition of the Dutch judgment. The contract was for the sale of a luxury yacht, to be paid for in five instalments during its period of construction and trial. A written contract was signed in the Netherlands, but the applicant alleged for the first time in the German proceedings that the contract was negotiated at a boat show in Germany and an oral contract was made there.

This short article considers the two primary legal frameworks that can operate to control decisions by a State, in this case the UK, to deploy troops to conflict or post-conflict zones—British constitutional law and international law, and how they have both been thrown into sharp relief by the continuing debate about the possible adoption by the House of Commons of a non-statutory war powers resolution.