Multilateral Environmental Agreements

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Although multilateral agreements to protect environmental goods have existed for more than a century, the development of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) as we know them in the 21st century is a recent phenomenon stretching back approximately four to five decades. The selections in this bibliography focus on global MEAs. They provide references to literature on regional MEAs in fields where such treaties are particularly important. There is no generally accepted definition of MEAs. This bibliography builds on a rather broad definition, including treaties that at least partly aim to protect the environment. Some fields of international law have been extensively discussed in relation to MEAs. Literature on the relationships between MEAs and human rights, trade, and investment has been included in the following sections. The UN Environment Programme is the main UN organ responsible for the environment and has initiated negotiations of core MEAs. In addition, many specialized agencies and other organs of the United Nations have initiated MEAs and act as hosts to the institutional structures established through MEAs. The following sections are not categorized according to the institutional affiliation of MEAs. They also do not specifically focus on customary international environmental law (IEL). But there are close links between customary law and MEAs. For example, there have been significant efforts to codify customary IEL within some areas, particularly in state responsibility and the duty to cooperate to prevent environmental harm. The most significant elements of customary IEL fall within the scope of this bibliography. MEAs can be described, examined, and analyzed from a broad range of perspectives. The main perspective of this bibliography is international law. In addition, important contributions from other social sciences, in particular political science, have been referenced. Given the fragmented nature of IEL and the numerous MEAs, we can only include a few references for each topic. Consequently, the following citations will almost exclusively refer to monographs and edited books. Articles or publications written by treaty bodies, host institutions, nongovernmental organizations, or states are only referenced in exceptional cases. Moreover, as IEL is a young field of law, substantive and procedural rules are still evolving in many areas. Consequently, the following citations focus on recent and updated literature in most areas. For practical purposes, they have generally been limited to literature in English.