This book presents a broad overview of the many intersections between health and the environment that lie at the basis of the most crucial environmental health issues, focusing on the responses provided by international and EU law. Consistent with the One Health approach and moving from the relevant international and EU legal frameworks, the book addresses some of the most important issues of environmental health including the traditional, such as pollution of air, water and soil and related food safety issues, as well as new and emerging challenges, like those linked to climate change, antimicrobial resistance and electromagnetic fields. Applying an intersectoral and interdisciplinary approach, it also investigates other branches of international and EU law including human rights law, investment law, trade law, energy law and disaster law. The work also discusses ethics and intergenerational equity. Ultimately, the book assesses the degree of effectiveness of the international and EU normative framework, and the extent to which the relevant legal instruments contribute to the protection of public health from major environmental hazards. The book will be a valuable resource for students, academics and policy makers working in the areas of Environmental Health law, Global Health law, International law and EU law.

Biolaw and International Criminal Law: Towards Interdisciplinary Synergies investigates the foundational, conceptual and interdisciplinary aspects of an emerging field: International Criminal Biolaw.

This book analyses over 20 years of rights-based litigation in the areas of climate change and plastic pollution in order to assess the value of rights in confronting and overcoming planetary crises. We live in an age of planetary crises such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution, which take a huge toll on communities all around the world, endangering their fundamental interests. But can the lack of government action on these crises – or action that worsens them – amount to violations of human rights? Many courts are grappling with this question, as rights-based litigation becomes increasingly common. By focusing on climate change and plastic pollution as case studies, this book examines the viability of rights claims when confronting planetary crises in courts. From early attempts to pursue rights claims in response to planetary crises in the first decade of the 2000s to high-profile court wins in such cases in the 2010s and the spread of such cases across dozens of jurisdictions by the 2020s, rights claims in climate change and plastic pollution litigation have become a truly global phenomenon. Through a systematic and in-depth analysis of such litigation in more than thirty jurisdictions, this book identifies factors that determine the viability of rights claims when confronting planetary crises. It reveals that, even though not all litigation forums are equally favourable to such claims, human rights can indeed be successfully invoked in different types of legal action. This book will be of considerable interest to policymakers and legal scholars and practitioners, as well as students, who work in or study environmental and climate change law, human rights law, constitutional law, and international and comparative law.

Global risks present formidable challenges to international law. Although they have long been identified in many other scientific disciplines, they are currently only considered on a sectoral basis in international law in the absence of a legal definition. The aim of this book is threefold: to identify the main elements that characterise global risks in a legal perspective, to determine the characteristics that make them a new category of risk, and to analyse the changes they bring about in the main mechanisms of international law. Drawing on the relationship between international law and other legal systems, and in particular national law, this book highlights possible responses to the challenges posed by global risks. The study is based on extensive practice related to the examples of climate change and pandemics, but opens up perspectives on conclusions that could be common to other global risks, such as financial risks or cyber risks.

The fourth edition of this market-leading textbook offers students a clear framework for understanding the practice and logic of International Organizations Law. It is structured around the three defining relationships IOs engage in – namely, with their member states, with their organs and staff, and with the outside world. These different dynamics give rise to different concerns, which each help to explain the logic behind international institutional law. The text also discusses the essential topics of the law of IOs, including powers and finances, privileges and immunities, institutional structures, and accountability. By demonstrating how the theory works in practice, with recent examples, students will observe the impact and significance of International Organizations Law. Updated with the latest case law and literature, this new edition also contains discussions of the withdrawal of Israel and the US from UNESCO, Brexit, and the Covid-19 pandemic, and how these affect the law of international organizations.

This book offers an authentic and original perspective on the principles of solidarity and rule of law that are variously interconnected and increasingly invoked in international relations and affairs, especially in the context of the European Union, where they are among the founding values common to all Member States. The innovative approach the authors adopt consists in the joint reading of these two principles within the broader framework of EU security, thus offering a new interpretation and fertile ground for further research. Divided into four parts, the authors consider EU security to be linked to the implementation of both these principles, particularly with regard to EU stabilization and enlargement to the Western Balkans, cross-border security, migration and asylum management, criminal justice and human rights, and police and judicial cooperation The contributions of eminent scholars, international experts, and practitioners are the book’s greatest strength. In addition, it offers a valuable new perspective on the study of contemporary issues affecting the Western Balkans, but also all Member States and the Union itself. Therefore, the book is an essential resource for students and scholars of EU law, but also for lawyers and professionals involved in criminal proceedings or working in the field of human rights.