Introduction

One of the greatest challenges facing us today is to ensure that the rapidly evolving legal rules in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) are applied – to close the gap between the law in books and the law as it is practised by states and followed by individuals. In the last 30 years, MEAs have proliferated in response to the growing international environmental crisis. Well over 200 MEAs have been negotiated, addressing a wide range of environmental problems. ¹ As this is a relatively new area of international law, more agreements can be expected in the coming years, either regional or global protocols to implement existing MEAs, or new conventions addressing issues sparsely covered by existing international legal rules, such as forest exploitation and timber trade. Meanwhile, the substantive provisions and procedures in existing MEAs will continue to be elaborated to meet new challenges. This will inevitably involve a growth in complexity as MEAs age and mature.