Environmental Co-benefits in Carbon Markets: Beyond Carbon Accounting
By Sara Tolonen, Doctoral Researcher The parallel crises of climate change and biodiversity loss make it increasingly difficult to treat them as separate policy concerns. This reality is also relevant to carbon markets, where projects designed to generate carbon reductions or removals can also have consequences for biodiversity. In carbon market governance, environmental integrity has […]
Is strong sustainability a realistic basis for governing critical raw materials? A debate
By Kenny Ng, Niko Soininen, Charlotte Ehrmann, Myele Rouxel, Kia Duché, Marina Dutra Trindade, Antti Iho, Anni Kärkkäinen, César Soares de Oliveira, Paul Tiensuu and Francesco Venuti. This blogpost reflects on an online debate held in April 2026 by CCEEL’s Sustainability Law research group on the motion “strong sustainability is a realistic and desirable basis […]
Climate tipping points and international climate law: Is law equipped for the challenge?
By Vivien Reh, Doctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland Finland, among many other countries in Europe and around the world, has seen a record-breaking heat wave for much of July 2025, surpassing previous records and feeding into a growing global acceptance that the occurrence of extreme weather events seems to have become the […]
The impact-based regulatory strategy in environmental law: Hallmark of effectiveness or pitfall for legitimacy?
By Niko Soininen, Professor of Environmental Law and Water Law, Seita Romppanen, Docent, Senior Lecturer on International Environmental Law and Senior Research Scientist at Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Mika Nieminen, Principal Scientist at Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) and Sampo Soimakallio, Head of Unit at Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) Environmental law was created to protect […]
The fraught governance of deep-sea mining
By Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Law and Policy and Catherine Blanchard, Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Department of International and European Law, Utrecht University As the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) draws to a close in Montreal, calls are […]
The ‘Glasgow Turn’: A shift toward more ocean-inclusive climate policy
By Dr. Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Law and Policy While there has been much talk of the disappointing end to COP 26 (the 26th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), there has been a notable shift in the language used by the […]
Opportunities for strengthening international action on ocean acidification through existing Multilateral Environmental Agreements
By Dr. Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Law and Policy Ocean acidification was first recognised as an emergent threat to marine systems in 1999. Over the past two decades scientific understanding of the issue has grown exponentially and it is now well understood that changing ocean chemistry due to the absorption of anthropogenic carbon […]