Research & publications 2024

With the oceans covering 70% of the world’s surface, one might be under the illusion that every State might find sufficient space for their activities, nothing could be further from the truth. This was proven once more in January 2022 and August 2023 when Russian vessels sought to engage in military exercises within strategic areas of the Irish and Norwegian exclusive economic zones (EEZs), choosing some of the local fishermen’s preferred locations in the process. Unlike their governments, the local fishermen refused to accept the Russian intrusions and via continuous protest through presence succeeded in forcing the Russian Navy to move the exercises to another area. This example is proof that to this day, the legal framework of the EEZ still gives rise to significant questions and uncertainties, often to the benefit of lawfare lawyers, especially in regards to foreign military activities and overlapping uses of the same area. Art. 56 LOSC awards sovereign resource rights to the coastal State, but arts. 58 and 87 LOSC grant the maritime user State the freedom to navigate. How to reconcile these different uses has for a long time occupied the minds of law of the sea lawyers. In this article, an attempt is made - utilizing a selection of national and international jurisprudence - to clarify the relation between these different uses of the EEZ, their permissibility and why the fishermen’s success in these cases might not so easily be translated into general international law.

The human right to a healthy environment is increasingly recognized in international law and in case law. This recognition focused at first mostly on the impact of pollution on human health, and in recent years on the impact of climate change on human health. Scientific knowledge on the positive contribution of biodiversity on human health and the negative impact of biodiversity loss on human health is fairly recent, as is the recognition of the link between biodiversity and the right to a healthy environment. In recent years we have seen growing attention to this link in both international human rights law and in international environmental law. However, this link should be strengthened. We put forward three possible pathways: through a more explicit legal recognition and concretization of the right to a biodiverse environment; through addressing the problems of biodiversity loss and its impact on human health at the source in decision-making; and through strategic biodiversity litigation using human rights arguments.

Ecological restoration has emerged as one of the leading paradigms in the context of environmental governance during the past decades. With the release of a Proposal for an EU restoration law in 2022, the European Commission underlined the pioneering role of the European Union in this regard. In this chapter, we analyse the precise alignment between ecological restoration and a rights-based approach to nature protection. Using the recently proposed EU restoration law as a benchmark, this chapter finds that a rights-based approach to ecological restoration might engender some additional complexities yet ultimately presents itself as a logical lever for more comprehensive restoration efforts on the European continent.

In 2022, the European Commission proposed an EU Nature Restoration Law (Proposal). This was a groundbreaking proposal and would be the first comprehensive piece of binding international legislation that holds legally binding targets and deadlines for landscape-wide restoration. Although the Proposal initially received very positive reactions from a variety of stakeholders, including scientists, organizations, and companies, certain lobby groups—mainly from the primary sectors (agriculture, forestry, and fisheries)—led a strong campaign against the Proposal, often based on unfounded arguments and short-term considerations. After several nail-biting voting rounds, a political compromise on an amended text was finally reached and awaits final approval. The Compromise still provides an appropriate legal basis for upscaling restoration within the EU through clear targets on restoration for different ecosystems and implementation obligations for Member States. However, we argue that, since the Compromise weakens the Proposal on some vital points regarding the operationalization of restoration at the national level, it remains uncertain whether the final law will produce the tangible effects that are necessary in the coming years.

As of today, the framework of ocean governance of coastal maritime areas created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is well understood and accepted by the international community. However, there are large and important areas of ocean space around the world that are subject to a more nuanced framework of interrelated norms. These are maritime areas that have come under the effective control of occupying States, often through the use of force. As such, the legal framework applicable to these maritime areas is that of the law of occupation. Nevertheless, because of the specificities of the zonal maritime regimes established under UNCLOS, the application of the law of occupation is seldom as straightforward at sea as it is on land. The objective of this article is therefore to shed some light on the application of the law of occupation at sea, and in doing so arrive at a comprehensive analysis of the rights and duties of occupying States in maritime areas.