Editorial
by
Professor Evangelos Raftopoulos,
Editor and Director of MEPIELAN Centre,
Panteion University of Athens, Greece
Approaching the end of an eventful year, I would like to welcome you to
the new edition of MEPIELAN E-Bulletin and to express my deepest thanks
and appreciation for your interest in reading and sharing with us the
informative and thought-provoking material of this Bulletin. Retaining
its high level of visibility and attendance, the Bulletin receives
visitors from 163 countries. Its articles and elaborated news are quoted
in academic articles, research papers and international reports, while
authorizations are granted for their appearance in other international
websites. It is our hope that the Bulletin, being already in operation
for five years, continues to serve its fundamental purpose: to shed
light on the importance of orienting our understanding of international
environmental law and governance and their sustainability perspective
towards the multifarious process of constructing and unfailingly
developing international common interest. A global conception of justice
can be adequately and substantially performed as common interest
justice and it would be more than useful, in this respect, to recall a
passage from Aristotle’s
Nickomachean Ethics: “The political
association”, he writes, “was originally formed and continues to be
maintained for the interest of its members; and the lawgivers
contemplate about it and postulate that
justice is the common interest” (translation mine).
In a Guest Article of this edition,
Dr. Maguelonne Déjeant-Pons,
Executive Secretary of the Steering Committee for Culture, Heritage and
Landscape, and European Landscape Convention, Council of Europe,
provides an authoritative insight into the application of the
comprehensive and contextual “landscape approach”, encapsulated in the
innovative European Landscape Convention, to generating integrated
spatial planning and management for coastal zones and marine areas.
Underlining the important public interest role and function of landscape
viewed in all its constituent parts (ecological, environmental, social,
cultural and economic) and their inter-relationships, as contemplated
by the Convention, the author clearly and most usefully pinpoints the
elements of a common interest governance associated with the “landscape
approach”: the appropriate balancing of landscape protection, management
and planning activities; the pursuance of a dynamic preservation and
enhancement of diversity and quality of the landscapes recognizing the
fundamental role of knowledge; and the utmost importance of public
awareness and active public participation. And as the author concludes,
the European Landscape Convention serves as “benchmark by some
countries” either “to initiate a process of profound changes in their
landscape policies” or to “define their policy”. Relatedly, it would be
of great interest, in our view, to envisage the European Landscape
Convention as the subject of a more deliberation-based cooperative
strategy between its Secretariat and the Barcelona Convention
Secretariat. This would be a very promising institutional step to the
right direction, in view of the complementary function of the Convention
with the equally innovative Mediterranean Protocol of Integrated
Coastal Zone Management, developed in the framework of the Barcelona
Convention system, and the pertinent need to build a clustering in the
governance of these two interrelated international instruments. Hence,
both instruments could become more “visible” and their implementation
could be performed more effectively and more efficiently in advancing
international common interest.
Two Insight Articles also feature this edition:
Dr. Atila Uras, Programme Officer, UNEP/Barcelona Convention
Secretariat/MAP, provides a thorough and comprehensive presentation of
the process of reviewing the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable
Development (MSSD) as an “informed” regional response to global
contextual developments, that is, the global sustainable development
agenda and the Millennium Development Goals. In doing so, he highlights
the institutional steps for its re-negotiation within the Barcelona
Convention/MAP system, where science, economy, society and law have
their say and the Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development
(MCSD) thematically governs the production of the final outcome.
Mr. Alexandros Kailis, a Ph. D. Candidate and a Researcher at the
MEPIELAN Centre, offers an insightful analysis of the stages of
development of an integrated marine litter management regime in the
framework of the Barcelona Convention system. He usefully highlights the
multi-dimensionality inherent in the Mediterranean governance of marine
litter, notably: the need to apprehend the multifaceted implications of
the marine litter pollution (ecological, human health and safety, and
economic effects); the effective identification of its international
context of development; the existing Protocol-approach to the
regulation of marine litter in the Barcelona Convention system; and the
current two-stage evolution of an integrated management approach decided
by the latest Meetings of the Contracting Parties, the Strategic
Framework for Marine Litter Management (2012) and the Mediterranean
Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management (2013). Indeed, multi-level
implementation (local, national, regional), progress in the development
of the relevant knowledge and increasing public awareness and
participation lie at the heart of the operation of such governance, as
he pointedly concludes.
In the Cases & Documents section,
Dr. Ilias Mavroidis,
Scientific Expert, Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change,
Greece, Collaborator, MEPIELAN Centre, makes his own contribution to
this edition by opening a fresh window into the latest developments in
the process of building Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as a
structured international participatory process of cardinal importance.
In doing so, he presents the Report of the innovative Open Working Group
containing its proposals for the SDG which mark an essential step to
the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda in the framework of the
United Nations.
Finally, this edition, thanks to the consistent work of the research
editorial team of the Bulletin, usefully punctuates the ongoing flow of
selected and elaborated topical thematic news. It, also, presents a
stimulating interdisciplinary book of current importance, entitled
Post-Treaty Politics: Secretariat Influence in Global Environmental Governance,
authored by Dr. Sikina Jinnah, which explores the multifarious and
influential role of the Secretariats of international conventional
regimes in the development of international environmental governance,
providing a theoretical and analytical framework armored with specific
cases.
Expressing my warmest thanks and gratitude to my distinguished
colleagues and the researchers of MEPIELAN Centre for their important
contribution to this edition of the Bulletin, I would like to take this
opportunity to extend to you Season’s Greetings and best wishes for 2015.
The Editor
MEPIELAN E-Bulletin is a dynamic electronic newsletter of MEPIELANCentre, 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 and on the cooperative activities and role of MEPIELAN Centre. Its content bridges theory and practice perspectives of international law,international environmental law, sustainable development, and international negotiating process, thus serving the primary goal of Centre: to develop an integrated, inter-disciplinary, context-related and sustainably effective governance approach creating, protecting and advancing international common interest in the fields above. Providing a knowledge- and information-sharing platform and a scholarly forum for the promotion of innovative ideas and enlightened critical views, the Bulletin aims at contributing to a broader scholarly debate on, and to a more stimulating learning process of, important issues of international common interest. The audience of the Bulletin includes academics,researchers, university students, international lawyers, officials and personnel of international organizations and institutional arrangements,heads and personnel of national authorities at all levels (national,regional and local), and members of the civil society at large.