In this project, Ecologic Institute provides legal expertise and support to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety on current issues of international environmental law. Ecologic’s input includes legal opinions and drafting as well as developing and assessing options for and during international negotiations. The project’s objective is to enhance the implementation of the Ministry’s positions at the multilateral and bilateral level.
International environmental law is currently in a phase of consolidation. In recent years the adoption of new treaties became less relevant, while implementing and further developing the existing provisions moved to the forefront. Today this is accomplished mainly by conferences of the parties to multilateral environmental agreements (MEA), so-called “regimes” with their own institutional framework. Implementing the rules within such regimes has generated new legal problems requiring fast and flexible positioning. The growing breadth and depth of the various MEA can lead also to legal conflicts between environmental regimes. The project aims at addressing insufficient implementation and enforcement of international environmental law as well as gaps and the relation to other areas of international law. Ecologic Institute provides legal expertise and support at the national level and at international negotiations through legal opinions, assessing third parties’ positions and proposals as well as developing and drafting legal text.