Projects

Environmental law began to emerge as an important field of international law in the second half of the 20th century, with the growing realisation that environmental problems were of global concern and that coordinated action was urgently needed to tackle them. The negotiation of environmental treaties and other international instruments intensified significantly after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. However, the ...

Instead of treating nature as an object, Rights of Nature presupposes the express bestowal of rights upon nature. On the surface, this novel legal approach stands at odds with the anthropocentric foundations of the international legal system. Even more recently emerged sustainability principles and environmental treaties reflect a predominantly instrumentalist approach towards nature. This research aims to delve deeper into the ambivalent ...

The current paradigm for democracy and environmental justice rests heavily on the principles of transparency and public participation. Access to information is a precondition for the effective exercise of public participation mechanisms, and when it comes to environmental matters, one can hardly be conceived without the other. Regarding environmental data held by the private sector, companies are increasingly faced with demands for access to ...

Considering the natural link between water, wetlands and biodiversity, together with the degradation of transboundary watercourse ecosystems and water scarcity, this research aims to clarify the applicable legal framework for the protection of transboundary watercourse ecosystems, with a focus on the global and regional water agreements, the Convention on Biodiversity and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

After the transition to a more digitalised world, cybersecurity incidents have skyrocketed. In the absence of legal responsibilities, undertakings are unlikely to deploy effective cybersecurity measures. This problem is caused by the undertakings' unwillingness to consider the expenses borne by society and other undertakings in the event of a cybersecurity incident. In response to this problem, the EU legislative framework imposes various ...

Buildings have an enormous impact on our environment and are responsible for a large share of the primary energy use and CO2-emissions. Not only do buildings use a lot of energy during operation (e.g. for heating) but there is also a large amount of embedded energy in the buildings materials. As the energy performance of buildings increases, the environmental impact of the building materials that are used becomes more important. A large ...