News

The world celebrates this year the fiftieth anniversary of the Stockholm Conference, often considered as the birthplace of international environmental law. The early 1970s corresponded more broadly with the rapid development of environmental law throughout the world. Accordingly, 2022 provides an important juncture to reflect on the successes and limits of developments over the past five decades.

This anniversary also takes place under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. This ongoing health crisis can help us address environmental challenges in the 2020s. While the pandemic-induced recessions did not lead to the greener future that was often foretold in 2020, various lessons can be drawn for the future. Over the past two years, governments around the world have shown an impressive willingness to take stringent measures and commit substantial public funds to address this public health crisis.

This can be contrasted with the response to environmental planetary crises. The cases of global warming, mass biodiversity extinction and land degradation are a few of the global environmental emergencies that have been well documented. Natural sciences whose data remains the prevailing basis for environmental law making have amply demonstrated the extraordinary gravity of the many crises that we are facing. This is the case even for such complex problems as climate change where a lot of long-term impacts cannot be predicted with absolute certainty. Despite this, the IPCC has published increasingly specific reports that provide much greater risks and certainty than what the world knew about the coronavirus when government’s imposed stringent measures to address the public health risk.

Reflecting on the fiftieth anniversary of Stockholm, the converging crises of the present moment, we welcome submissions addressing some of the following broad themes. In each case, we particularly welcome papers that speak to specific countries/regions of the global South.

• Critical reflections on environmental law from the point of view of planetary health in the context of the year 2022 that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stockholm Conference;
  
  
• Decolonization and the environment, in its multiple forms and dimensions from the local to the global level;
  
  
• Critical perspectives on environmental justice and equity, in particular from the point of view of the global South and/or from a gender, social/racial equity point of view;
  
  
• Rethinking the bases for environmental law beyond the existing framing that has led to the current crises, such as paradigms going beyond sustainable development (including degrowth, radical ecological democracy);
  
  
• Critical reflections on evolving environmental governance and institutional developments;
  
  
• Critical reflections on public health and the environment.

Papers can be framed at the international, transnational, or domestic level (with an emphasis on countries in the global South).

LEAD Journal

The Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal) is a peer-reviewed academic publication based in New Delhi and London and jointly managed by the Law, Environment and Development Centre of the School of Law at SOAS University of London and the International Environmental Law Research Centre. It is also indexed in Scopus.

Submissions

A title, 250-word abstract and short biography should be sent to Ms Jessy Thomas, Managing Editor at leadjournal@gmail.com by 15 February 2022.

Here you can find the Call for papers (pdf-Document):