Författarna till boken diskuterar och analyserar intressekonflikter, incitament, restriktioner, riskbedömningar och flernivåstyrning i kemikaliekontrollen. Syftet är inte bara att erbjuda en lättillgänglig presentation av regelverken, utan också att kritiskt granska den rättsliga kontrollen av kemikalier. Hur effektiv är den? Hur beaktas naturvetenskaplig och samhällsvetenskaplig riskinformation i kemikaliebeslut och rättstillämpning? Vilka intressen gynnas och vilka motverkas eller negligeras? Vilka möjligheter - rättigheter - har andra än tillverkare, importörer och användare att ta del av kemikalieinformation och medverka när beslut om kemikalier fattas?

Planetary and legal boundaries can only be effective if they are observed, respected and complied with. In Chapter 10, Jonas Ebbesson addresses the critical issue of compliance with planetary boundaries in international law. He shows that although the planetary boundaries have no formal status in international law, they are legally relevant. Therefore, if they obtained a more robust status in international law, though planetary boundaries would not per se create legal standards, and it would still be problematic to hold States’ performance or compliance directly against them; they would amount to objectives to be achieved and operationalised through other norms, whether rules set out in treaty law with examinable criteria for compliance, or principles of customary law. Alternatively, the planetary boundaries could influence legal concepts, principles and obligations more subtly through jurisprudence and doctrine. The chapter shows that compliance with international environmental law involves a broad range of considerations, including practical reasons for failure to comply, the legal implications of non-compliance, the institutional procedures for compliance control, and the effectiveness of compliance reviews. The main concern in this respect is whether the planetary boundaries as such can be complied with in the first place, and if not, how can compliance in relation to planetary boundaries be meaningfully examined in legal terms?

Environmental justice tends to halt at national boundaries, ignoring the correlation between environmental harm and other social factors such as race, gender and class. A more cosmopolitan notion of justice is required that considers the situation of individuals in cross-border and international contexts, argues Jonas Ebbesson.

Enligt Europadomstolens praxis kan alltför snäva preskriptionstider, som i praktiken gör det omöjligt för skadelidande att hävda sina anspråk på ersättning för hälsoskada, strida mot Europakonventionens krav på rätt till rättvis rättegång. Denna praxis påverkar svensk rätt och tolkningen av preskriptionslagen. Efter att först kort ha beskrivit utvecklingen av Europadomstolens praxis på miljöområdet och analyserat dess praxis med avseende på preskription, belyser jag vilka konsekvenser Europadomstolens avgöranden får för svensk rätt. 

This chapter outlines key concepts and contexts in relation to public participation. Few areas of international law have developed so rapidly as that on public participation in environmental matters. With some exceptions, this notion hardly existed in international law until the early 1990s. The development since then stems from two disciplines of international law: environmental law and human rights law. It pertains to public participation in decision-making at the national as well as international level, and involves important elements of multilevel governance. One important feature for this legal development, and also for the continuing vitality of the discourse, is the possibility in some environmental and human rights regimes for members of the public to access independent international review mechanisms. These bodies take the form of courts, committees, or commissions, with the mandate of examining whether state parties live up to their international obligations of ensuring participatory rights in their national jurisdictions. 

In using the Aarhus Convention as a reference, this article examines the tension between two developments of environmental governance in the last decades: (i) the strengthening of participatory rights of members of the public in environmental decision-making; and (ii) the privatisation and outsourcing of resources, services and functions related to natural resources and the environment. It observes that privatisation may significantly affect the scope of participatory rights in environmental matters, including the right to access to information. Yet, the broad conception of ‘public authority’ in the Aarhus Convention implies a right to access to information also when corporations, as a result of privatisation, perform public administrative functions or have public responsibilities or functions in relation to the environment. The right to participate in decision-making also remains when resources and services are privatised. The Aarhus Convention does not exclude the possibility of delegating certain responsibilities in decision-making procedures to different bodies and private actors, but only to the extent that sufficient impartiality is ensured to guarantee proper conduct during the public participation procedure. In such situations, all standards for public participation apply in full. Finally, the Aarhus Convention precludes almost all attempts to privatise any function relating to access to justice. The article concludes that the effectiveness of participatory rights in case of privatisation not only depends on formal compliance with the Aarhus Convention standards, but also on the general domestic legal setting surrounding privatisation.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Agenda 2030, and international law interact in multifaceted and complex ways. On the one hand, neither Agenda 2030 nor the SDGs fundamentally question the role of the international economic system, which is entrenched in international law and supportive of activities that do not necessarily further sustainable development. On the other hand, Agenda 2030 aims to transform our world, by evoking a bold cosmopolitan understanding of sustainable development, so that no one is left behind. This cosmopolitan understanding of sustainable development should inspire the application and development of international law, if indeed no one is to be left behind. International law offers ample opportunities for implementing such an approach to sustainable development.

Humanity has emerged as a major force in the operation of the biosphere, with a significant imprint on the Earth System, challenging social-ecological resilience. This new situation calls for a fundamental shift in perspectives, world views, and institutions. Human development and progress must be reconnected to the capacity of the biosphere and essential ecosystem services to be sustained. Governance challenges include a highly interconnected and faster world, cascading social-ecological interactions and planetary boundaries that create vulnerabilities but also opportunities for social-ecological change and transformation. Tipping points and thresholds highlight the importance of understanding and managing resilience. New modes of flexible governance are emerging. A central challenge is to reconnect these efforts to the changing preconditions for societal development as active stewards of the Earth System. We suggest that the Millennium Development Goals need to be reframed in such a planetary stewardship context combined with a call for a new social contract on global sustainability. The ongoing mind shift in human relations with Earth and its boundaries provides exciting opportunities for societal development in collaboration with the biosphere-a global sustainability agenda for humanity.

This chapter addresses environmental damage as a consequence of unsustainable business and identifies ways to use insurance to support business to become more sustainable. In the European Union (EU), environmental damage is regulated through the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) through a public law approach. Specific regard is given to the ELD preamble, with the purpose of illustrating that the ELD has both the objectives and the potential to support EU environmental policy and make business in the EU more sustainable and to show how insurance could be used. After discussing the traditional role of insurance as a means to cover the cost of remediation and prevention of the imminent threat of environmental damage, the chapter focuses on the use of insurance to assist in altering business behaviour. It is assumed that insurance can cover the cost of financial liability on the basis of the polluter pays principle, and ensure remediation of occurred environmental damage and prevention of the imminent threat.

To reach the Paris Agreement targets, the remaining carbon budget is about 2.3 tons of CO2e per person per year. However, current per capita emissions exceed the target, with a global average carbon footprint of 4.81 tons. PCAs provide a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions of private individuals. The thesis explores the compatibility of PCAs with existing legal regulations, the legal challenges of implementing and governing PCAs, and the potential human rights and equity implications of such schemes from a de lege lata and a de lege ferenda perspective. The findings highlight various regulatory and design deficiencies in current PCA proposals and emphasize the need to address data protection, privacy concerns, and the protection of individual rights. Additionally, the governance dimension of PCAs, including participation rights, transparency, and enforcement mechanisms, needs further development. The thesis concludes that while PCAs can be effective in achieving climate goals, careful consideration of legal requirements and individual rights is essential for their successful implementation. It emphasizes the necessity of comprehensive designs that go beyond technical and economic aspects and take into account legal requirements, individual rights, and equitable distribution. 

This study approaches participatory rights regime that includes Access to Environmental Information, Public Participation in decision making and Access to Justice in relation to environmental matters. It explores the Honduran law with the purpose of verifying if the regulations that control and manage the renewable energy sector are compatible with the participatory rights regime that International Environmental Law and Human Rights Law states. Renewable energy specifically hydropower generation has marked the development of the entire energy system in Honduras, however it is going to be explain how a hydropower energy dominated system became a thermal energy dominated system. The purpose of this thesis follows the idea that, to change this thermo- energy policy it is vital the application of a participatory rights regime, this is why it is going to identify the participatory rights provision inside its national law.The conclusion of this study is that Honduran law recognizes basic environmental rights and participatory rights provisions in the broad hydropower framework, primarily due to its international commitments. But fails to accomplish the norm objectives due to the fact that the law itself doesn’t establish a procedural framework, on the foundation of respect (requires states to refrain from interfering with the enjoyment of the right), protection (requires states to prevent others from interfering with the enjoyment of the right), fulfillment (requires states to adopt appropriate measures to ensure the full realization of the right).