The year 2012 marks a number of watershed points in international environmental affairs: The 40th anniversary of the adoption of the Stockholm Declaration, the 30th anniversary of the UN World Charter for Nature and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 25th anniversary of the Brundtland Report, and the 20th anniversary of both the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and the UNCED Conventions: the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity.
In June 2012 world leaders will gather once again in Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit 2012 to secure renewed political commitment to the global agenda of sustainable development.
This is an appropriate point in time for reflection on the legal status of nature, how environmental goods and services are valued and taken into account in decision-making, and the implications of the rule of law in this respect.
While the rule of law generally is used with regard to citizens’ rights, this conference aims to explore the application of the rule of law to environmental protection, and its implications. How can the legal protection of the natural environment be strengthened? This also opens for reflections on the temporal and geographical extension of the rule of law.
The conference aims at analysing these basic issues of international and national environmental law and looking at new trends in this area of law.