Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) requirements are quasi-universal. Praised as the core of the international legal response to ensure environmental protection, this procedure is an information tool for better public decision-making, which can contribute to empowering individuals and civic groups. Based on the historical background of the relevant norms and on case studies, Interstitial Law-Making in International Law: A Study of Environmental Impact Assessments verifies whether the role of procedure in secreting substantive law may be fulfilled in the distinctive legal system of public international law, while appraising how EIA requirements have been conceived and implemented as regards encouraging all international actors to behave in an environmentally conscious way, in a world of heterogeneous political regimes. This book is based on the author’s award winning doctoral dissertation which received the Yale Law School’s Ambrose Gherini Prize for best paper in the field of international law (2018).

International Law is both an introduction to the subject and a critical consideration of its central themes and debates. The opening chapters of the book explain how international law underpins the international political and economic system by establishing the basic principle of the independence of States, and their right to choose their own political, economic, and cultural systems. Subsequent chapters then focus on considerations that limit national freedom of choice (e.g. human rights, the interconnected global economy, the environment). Through the organizing concepts of territory, sovereignty, and jurisdiction the book shows how international law seeks to achieve an established set of principles according to which the power to make and enforce policies is distributed among States.

In Regional Cooperation in Amazonia: A Comparative Environmental Law Analysis, Maria Antonia Tigre provides a broad overview of the international, regional and national law applied to the Amazon rainforest and investigates efforts at regional cooperation for the protection of the Amazonian ecosystem. For the last four decades, cooperation among the eight countries in which the rainforest lies was primarily induced by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT). Originally adopted to ensure national sovereignty, the ACT gradually evolved towards a framework for sustainable development. Based on the challenges faced by the treaty and its subsequent instruments, Maria Antonia Tigre analyzes ways in which the ACT can be more effectively applied, leading to practical results that reduce deforestation. These specifically relate to the enforceability of the right to the environment, the implementation of protected areas, and the development of financial mechanisms to fund initiatives.

While its importance in domestic law has long been acknowledged, transparency has until now remained largely unexplored in international law. This study of transparency issues in key areas such as international economic law, environmental law, human rights law and humanitarian law brings together new and important insights on this pressing issue. Contributors explore the framing and content of transparency in their respective fields with regard to proceedings, institutions, law-making processes and legal culture, and a selection of cross-cutting essays completes the study by examining transparency in international law-making and adjudication.

1. Introduction 2. Participants in International Law-making 3. Multilateral Law-making Processes 4. Codification and Progressive Development of International law 5. Law-making Instruments 6. The Role of Courts.

The important new 1999 Supplement to this widely-used sourcebook contains the text of 48 major treaties and other legal instruments completed between 1991 and 1998. These instruments represent the important developments in international environmental law since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. Both volumes are ideally suited for adoption in international environmental law courses. Special classroom prices are available. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.