Environmental norm diffusion and domestic legal innovation: The case of specialized environmental courts and tribunals

Abstract

AbstractAs international environmental law grows decentralized, it is increasingly important to understand how norms promoting new environmental law institutions diffuse. This article identifies the actor classes that are promoting a norm supporting the establishment of specialized environmental courts and tribunals. It first surveys existing literature on environmental and institutional norm diffusion for foundational insight. Using document review, expert surveys and elite interviews, the article identifies key actors who have sought to promote environmental court establishment. The findings affirm that environmental courts have been promoted by widely recognized agents of environmental norm diffusion, including intergovernmental organizations, regional organizations and nongovernmental organizations. However, the results also emphasize that global environmental norms reflect active engagement by domestic judges, courts and judicial networks. This finding holds broad theoretical relevance for legal transfer and norm dynamics research in global environmental governance. First, while domestic judges are widely recognized for implementing international environmental legal norms and contributing to the governance of specific environmental regimes, this study demonstrates a case where domestic judges' norm entrepreneurship has actively supported the global diffusion of an emergent institutional norm. Second, while institutional actors including intergovernmental organizations, regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations and judicial networks are known to directly advocate new environmental institutions, this article emphasizes that they also catalyse normative dialogue, intentionally facilitating exchanges among domestic judges and actors. Collectively, these insights support ongoing research examining what values domestic environmental courts may reflect and how domestic judges and courts support environmental norm diffusion, broadly. Finally, the interdisciplinary nature of these findings underscores the benefit and practice‐relevance of further integrating norm diffusion scholarship in international environmental law and global environmental politics.