Make Europe wild again:
International commitments and European obligations on nature conservation and restoration
Recent commitments at the global and European level have been taken to reverse the biodiversity crisis and to help address the climate crisis. At the international level, the Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted in 2022 under the Biodiversity Convention. It puts forward 23 targets for 2030, aimed at reducing threats to biodiversity and aiming for sustainable use of biodiversity, while also providing tools for implementation. At the EU level, a Biodiversity Strategy was adopted in 2020, as part of the EU Green Deal. Following up on the commitments in the Strategy, the European Commission proposed a Nature Restoration Law in June 2022. After a bumpy legislative process, the proposal was finally adopted in June 2024, be it severely weakened. Nevertheless, it remains a groundbreaking law which holds the possibility to tackle both the biodiversity and climate crisis by substantially upscaling nature restoration within the EU through the development of national restoration plans. This lecture will address the Nature Restoration law in light of the EU’s international commitments.
Speaker
An Cliquet
An Cliquet is a professor of international environmental and biodiversity law at Ghent University. Her research covers international and EU biodiversity law, with a focus on ecological restoration law, and topics such as climate change and biodiversity and protected areas law. She teaches several courses on international and European environmental and biodiversity law.
Environmental Law Lecture Series
This lecture is part of the Environmental Law Lecture Series: Strengthening EU Environmental Law, Legal Perspectives on Greening Europe series. This series provides a set of important insights from environmental law scholars on how EU environmental law helps to achieve the aim of a high level of environmental protection in the European Union and across the world.
With the European Green Deal from 11 December 2019 the European Commission tabled an ambitious legislative program, based on fundamental aims such as zero pollution, do no harm, and climate neutrality. Many legal developments took place and are still ongoing, both at the European and national regulatory levels as in the courtroom, including the national courts. While efforts to protect the environment are direly needed, including effective implementation and enforcement, the regulatory acquis, and the flow of case law, has become utterly complex which poses challenges for acquiring a good understanding and application.
This freely accessible online (and hybrid) lecture series provides students and scholars with core insights into the state of affairs and further improvement of EU environmental law. The lecture series will run in 2023 and 2024. All lectures will be recorded and will be made accessible through our YouTube channel.
This GreenDeal-Net lecture series is hosted by MCEL, METRO and organised in cooperation with GLaw-Net and GreenDeal-NET. Maastricht University students will be eligible for certificates of attendance (see more information under the registration link).