Protecting the Tangible and Intangible Values of Transnational Environmental Spaces

Abstract

Environmental policy and law walk a tightrope between preserving present and future environmental resources while allowing for their exploitation in the interest of socioeconomic development. This raises fundamental and complex questions regarding the weight to be given to current and future economic gain, environmental protection, and the interests of different peoples affected by this interplay. At the transnational level, these challenges are compounded by the absence of clear and targeted political accountability for any trade-offs struck by an increasingly diversified range of decision makers operating at different scales of government. Depending on one's views regarding the balance between environmental exploitation and protection, this may be considered a very positive development; the rise of new actors within transnational environmental law means greater possibility for inclusion, representation and legitimacy. Moreover, it provides alternatives to processes that may have stalled as a result of political inertia or stand-offs at the national or international level. However, accommodating these processes within the existing legal and political framework presents its own difficulties. As transnational environmental law matures, our thoughts on these issues, and the processes that accompany them, continue to evolve accordingly. In this issue of TEL, two different ways of thinking about, and addressing, this changing reality and its challenges for the protection of the environment are presented. The first three articles by