Editorial
by
Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos,
Editor and Director of MEPIELAN Centre,
Panteion University of Athens, Greece
Welcome to the 2012 fall edition of MEPIELAN E-Bulletin.
My gratitude and thanks go to all those who have been instrumental in
the continuing success of this Bulletin. According to the latest
figures, there have been over 10.500 visits to the Bulletin’s website
from 143 countries worldwide.
The vision of the Bulletin to provide a dynamic scholarly forum for
inter-disciplinary knowledge and discussion and advocate the need to
understand environmental governance, its law and policy aspects, in
terms of establishing, protecting and promoting international common
interest, is realized through the invaluable engagement of distinguished
academic experts and scholars as well as of promising young
researchers. This edition features several new articles discussing
innovative ideas and hotly debated issues of international law and
policy, environment and development. While continuing the unending flow
of topical thematic news, this edition also presents a new international
case of interest, the Yasuni Park Trust Fund as an innovative global
experiment reflecting environmental trust governance contributing to
sustainability. Moreover, this edition, serving as a showcase for new
knowledge-advancing books, presents a new important book “Global
Environmental Governance Reconsidered”, an excellent collection edited
by Frank Biermann and Philipp Pattberg, which contains insightful
articles providing theoretical underpinnings and perspectives of global
environmental governance as perceived and researched in the framework of
the well-known Clobal Environmental Governance Project.
A Guest Article written by
Philipp Pattberg, Associate Professor
of Transnational Governance, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU
University Amsterdam, The Netherlands, eloquently takes an insightful
and well-balanced view on the outcome of the Rio+20 Summit, highlighting
the weaknesses reflected in the official summit declaration “The Future
We Want” – evidently defeating the widespread expectations for
achieving “a transformative shift” in international environmental
governance – but also denoting its few positive results. As he rightly
concludes, “while we certainly should search for additional approaches
to global environmental governance beyond mega-conferences, what is most
needed now is a critical reflection on how the summit results can be
used to revive global sustainability governance.”
Two Insight Articles also feature this edition:
In an article entitled “The Barcelona Convention System as an
International Trust Regime: The Public Participation Aspect” I resurface
my older argument – based on the public trust approach and enriched
with new theoritical perspectives – that the Barcelona Convention and
its seven Protocols, along with all regional or global conventional
environmental regimes (improperly labeled as “Multilateral Environmental
Agreements” – MEAs), should be viewed as conventionally determined
international trust regimes. After explaining the fiduciary legal
language and structure of trust environmental governance in the
Barcelona Convention System, the argument is focused on the public
participation aspect, exploring the issues and challenges for the
public-as-beneficiaries or inter-generational beneficiaries underlining
the relational impact of the Aarhus Convention.
Dr. Elli Louka, Founder of Alphabetics Development &
Investment (ADI), USA, meticulously and critically examines the complex
system of conventional regimes governing the safety and security of
nuclear materials, offering a well-balanced and concise presentation of
the evolution of nuclear governance of such intricate and crucial issues
as nuclear safety, physical protection of nuclear material, safety of
irradiated nuclear fuel cargo and liability for nuclear accidents.
Finally, a Critical Forum Article by
Socrates Zachos, a Ph.D
Candidate and Researcher at MEPIELAN Centre, usefully unfolds the
complex pattern of Local Authorities participation in the Rio+20
process, presenting their contribution to the two main themes of the
Conference (green economy and institutional reform), as well as to the
negotiating process of the Zero Draft of the Outcome Document, and he
highlights their assessment of the achievements, failures and
perspectives of the outcome of Rio+20.
MEPIELAN E-Bulletin
is a dynamic electronic newsletter of MEPIELAN
Centre, Panteion University of Athens, Greece. It features guest
articles, insights articles, critical forum textual contributions and
reflections, specially selected documents and cases, book reviews as
well as news on thematic topics of direct interest of MEPIELAN Centre,
presented in a clear, insightful and attractive way whilst shedding
light on topical issues of environmental law, governance and policy
significance. Content bridges theory and practice perspectives of
international law, international environmental law, sustainable
development, and international negotiating process, and includes
notifications of MEPIELAN cooperation updates and news. The Bulletin is
an addition to our communication instruments which include an edited
Series, the MEPIELAN Studies in International Environmental Law and Negotiation.
It is hoped that its content will contribute to a scholarly debate on
important issues of current interest, providing an independent, open
access forum for the promotion of innovative ideas and enlightened
critical views of distinguished authors. The Bulletin further aims at
offering a knowledge- and information-sharing platform for MEPIELAN
audience, striving to serve a modern thinking and questing community, in
the hope that it will stimulate constructive discussions on the issues
presented. The audience includes academics, researchers, university
students, international lawyers, officials and personnel of
international organizations and institutional arrangements, heads and
personnel of national authorities and administration at all levels
(national, regional and local), members of Non-Governmental
Organizations, as well as the relevant private sector.
In a time of utmost crisis, in an epoch where we come to realize that
the boldest measures are the safest, words fail to express my deepest
appreciation to all the contributors to this edition and to our faithful
worldwide audience sharing with us the progressing ideas, knowledge and
message of this Bulletin.