Juridical protection of the rights of nature is steadily emerging in several legal systems and in public discourse. Building on a recent publication in Transnational Environmental Law in which we interrogated Ecuador’s constitutional experiment with the rights of nature, we critically reflect in this contribution on Bolivia’s legal regime providing for the rights of Mother Earth. We do so, first, by sketching the juridical-political context within which these statutes were drafted and adopted, and then by analyzing the relevant constitutional provisions that provide the basis for the laws of Mother Earth. The third part forms the bulk of the discussion and details the background and the most relevant provisions of Bolivian statutes with a view to enabling a deeper critique in Part 4, in which we critically evaluate both the symbolic and the theoretical significance of the statutes as well as concerns related to their practical implementation. Insofar as the rights of nature paradigm has now become a truly global debate and a consideration in transnational comparative legal borrowing practices, our analysis aims to reveal the Bolivian experience, which could be instructive for civil society groups, academics, politicians and legislatures in a transnational setting.

This article assesses current and proposed European Union (EU) climate and environmental law, and the legal instruments associated with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), to see whether soil carbon sequestration is sufficiently promoted as a promising example of ‘climate-smart agriculture’. The assessment shows that current and proposed policies and instruments are inadequate to stimulate large-scale adoption of soil carbon projects across Europe. Given the identified structural flaws, it is likely that this is true for all climate-smart agricultural practices. An alternative approach needs to be developed. Under EU climate policy, agriculture should be included in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) by allowing regulated industries to buy offsets from the agricultural sector, following the examples set by Australia and others. The second element of a new approach is aimed at the CAP, which needs to be far more focused on the specific requirements of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet, such stronger focus does not take away the need to explore new income streams for farmers from offsets under the ETS, as the CAP will never have sufficient funds for the deep and full transition of Europe’s agriculture sector that is needed.

In 2015, a Pakistani court in the case of Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan made history by accepting arguments that governmental failures to address climate change adequately violated petitioners’ rights. This case forms part of an emerging body of pending or decided climate change-related lawsuits that incorporate rights-based arguments in several countries, including the Netherlands, the Philippines, Austria, South Africa, and the United States (US). These decisions align with efforts to recognize the human rights dimensions of climate change, which received important endorsement in the Paris Agreement. The decisions also represent a significant milestone in climate change litigation. Although there have been hundreds of climate-based cases around the world over the past two decades – especially in the US – past and much of the ongoing litigation focuses primarily on statutory interpretation avenues. Previous efforts to bring human rights cases have also failed to achieve formal success. The new cases demonstrate an increasing trend for petitioners to employ rights claims in climate change lawsuits, as well as a growing receptivity of courts to this framing. This ‘rights turn’ could serve as a model or inspiration for rights-based litigation in other jurisdictions, especially those with similarly structured law and court access.

This article argues that the rise of transnational regulation has a transformative impact on law. It examines the field of transnational environmental regulation to show that its proliferation challenges the continued appropriateness of representations of law as (i) territorial, (ii) emanating from the state, (iii) composed of a public and private sphere, (iv) constitutive and regulatory in function, and (v) cohesive and regimented. Instead, law is increasingly perceived as (i) delocalized, (ii) flowing from a plurality of sources, (iii) organizationally inchoate, (iv) reflexive and coordinating in function, and (v) polycentric. Together, these shifts in perception amount to a transformation that the article identifies as the transnationalization of law. The article then explores three responses to the transnationalization of law. It distinguishes responses motivated by a desire to reclaim the traditional conception of law from those that seek to reconstruct law at the transnational level and responses that advocate a context-responsive reconceptualization of law. Each response, it will be shown, creates a different set of opportunities for, and challenges to, the relevance of law for transnational regulation.

This article argues that the involvement of technical experts in decision making promotes better environmental results while simultaneously recognizing the uncertainty in science. India’s record as a progressive jurisdiction in environmental matters through its proactive judiciary is internationally recognized. The neoteric National Green Tribunal of India (NGT) – officially described as a ‘specialised body equipped with necessary expertise to handle environmental disputes involving multi-disciplinary issues’ – is a forum which offers greater plurality for environmental justice. The NGT, in exercising wide powers, is staffed by judicial and technical expert members who decide cases in an open forum. The experts are ‘central’, rather than ‘marginal’, to the NGT’s decision-making process.

This article draws on theoretical insights developed by Lorna Schrefler and Peter Haas to analyze the role of scientific experts as decision makers within the NGT. Unprecedented interview access provides data that grants an insight into the internal decision-making processes of the five benches of the NGT. Reported cases, supported by additional comments of bench members, illustrate the wider policy impact of scientific knowledge and its contribution to the NGT’s decision-making process.

Meat production and the transport sector contribute almost equally to global warming. However, unlike the transport sector, in terms of climate change policies meat production is relatively unregulated. Many scientists have called for a meat tax as a means of reducing consumption but governments and politicians have not responded. Has the law been an obstacle to the acceptance of a meat tax? To address that question, this article analyzes three examples of European Union (EU) taxes that could be imposed on the consumption of domestic and imported meat, and examines them in relation to the international climate change regime, human rights law, and the legal regimes of the World Trade Organization and the EU. It shows that, if carefully designed, an EU meat tax is consistent with these bodies of law. To address adequately the industrial sectors that give rise to global warming, governments will need to overcome the taboo relating to the concept of a meat tax.

There is no definitive approach to assessing the effectiveness of international environmental regimes. In order to explore the regime established by the 1979 Geneva Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution this article broadly integrates the approach to effectiveness taken by Peter H. Sand in The Effectiveness of International Environmental Agreements, and Daniel Bodansky in The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law. The article finds that compliance, institutional, and normative effectiveness can be evaluated relatively confidently. An effectiveness assessment of the long-range transboundary air pollution (LRTAP) regime indicates that, on the whole, it has helped states to reach agreement on contentious issues and achieve results in air pollution reduction. However, it faces significant challenges with regard to participation, implementation procedures, empowerment of domestic stakeholders, and funding. The article provides an in-depth and up-to-date look at the LRTAP regime, including the most recent amendments and its relationship with European Union and international law.

There is a compelling argument for developing a low carbon emissions trajectory to mitigate climate change and for doing so urgently. What is needed is a transformation of the energy sector and an ‘energy revolution’. Such a revolution can only be achieved through effective energy governance nationally, regionally, and globally. But frequently such governance is constrained by the tensions between energy security, climate change mitigation and energy poverty. At national level, there is a chasm between what is needed and what governments do ‘on the ground’, while regionally and globally, collective action challenges have often presented insurmountable obstacles. The article examines what forms of energy law, regulation and governance are most needed to overcome these challenges and whether answers are most likely to be found in hierarchy, markets, or networks.