IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: THE CASE OF FORESTS

The protection of forests is recognised to be of utmost importance in the agenda of the United Nations, and in particular the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the climate change goals.

SDG15 aims to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems [and] sustainably manage forests”. Despite this recognition, forest protection is, in legal terms, rather scattered.

In the context of forest environmental and climate governance, a mix of various layers of legal instruments with different goals exists, at the local, regional and global levels.

As a result, tha main current challenge is to make sure that the implementation of existing layers of legal protection runs smoothly, in order to prevent further environmental degradation of forested lands.

Against this background INTERFOR will investigate how the implementation of existing laws can be enhanced, with a view to creating a better protection of forested lands and the people inhabiting them.

Through this, INTERFOR will further knowledge on the implementation methods that take place on forested lands and contribute significantly to the understanding of the interactions between different legal fields and systems that apply on forested lands. More specifically, INTERFOR will:1.

Investigate interactions between EU and international law to understand how implementation between different instruments can be coordinated in order to achieve better environmental protection (WP1);2.

Investigate interactions between international environmental, development and human rights law with the aim of reconceptualising key environmental tools in light of needs of specific communities affected in forested lands (WP2);3.

Investigate the interactions between ‘global’ and ‘local’ law to assess the possibilities for greater global action in the pursuance of better forest protection (WP3);4. Provide for a solid theoretical framework to organise the various legal interactions present in forests (WP4).