As of 30 September 2019, 73 countries have legally binding controls to limit the production, import and sale of lead paints, which is 38% of all countries. In many countries, using lead paint in homes and schools is not prohibited, creating a significant risk of children’s exposure to lead. The most effective means of preventing lead exposure from paints is to establish national laws, including legislation, regulations and/or legally binding standards as appropriate, that ban the use of lead additives in paints. Countries that have not yet done so are urged to enact and enforce effective

This Handbook is designed to provide jurists with an overview of environmental constitutionalism: we address what it is, the peculiar practical and procedural issues it presents, and how courts from around the globe have engaged it.

The publication takes stock and gives a ‘gap analysis’ of the current status of institutions and legal frameworks relating to the regulation of licit trade, and the prevention, detection and penalization of illicit trade, in wildlife and forest products. It also highlights useful components of existing instruments and possible issues with the content of those instruments, which could benefit from future attention by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of national governments.

This is a report of good practices demonstrating that effective actions are available to simultaneously address climate change and protect human rights. Drawn from every continent and featuring more than 60 States and a wide range of actors, the good practices in this report are intended to inspire ambitious action to address the global climate emergency.

The Guidebook is a “how to” guide on the steps towards ratification of, acceptance of, approval of or accession to, the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization.

The benefits of plastic are undeniable. The material is cheap, lightweight and easy to make. These qualities have led to a boom in the production of plastic over the past century. This trend will continue as global plastic production skyrockets over the next 10 to 15 years. We are already unable to cope with the amount of plastic waste we generate, unless we rethink the way we manufacture, use and manage plastics. Ultimately, tackling one of the biggest environmental scourges of our time will require governments to regulate, businesses to innovate and individuals to act. This paper sets out

This is a report of an expert process involving experts nominated by governments, inter-governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations. The outcomes of the process are intended to contribute to the efforts aimed at developing a deeper knowledge and understanding of crimes that have serious impacts on the environment, as well as to the development and better implementation of responses to these crimes at the international, regional, and national levels.

This report provides an overview of the current status of national legislation and institutional arrangements of relevance to EIAs and SEAs across the globe, as well as emerging issues and trends. It does this primarily through providing examples from a wide selection of countries of their EIA/SEA arrangements and in relation to the different steps of the EIA/SEA processes. These steps include: (1) Screening; (2) Scoping and Impact Analysis; (3) Review of the EIA/SEA report; (4) Decision-making; (5) Follow-up and Adaptive Management and (6) Public Participation as a cross-cutting issue.

This guide provides an overview of the multilateral environmental agreements, their requirements related to trade in environmentally sensitive substances and commodities, and the role of customs officers and border control officers in facilitating legal trade and preventing illegal trade. Hence, the customs and border control officers will know better what to look for, why they are looking for it, what the implications of uncontrolled or illegal trade are and whom to contact for more specialized assistance.

This assessment report gives a snapshot of how countries have progressed in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans development and national implementation since the pre-2010 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans assessment carried out by the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies3 and their readiness to meet the Aichi Targets. In particular, we examined Parties’ readiness to mainstream biodiversity concerns across sectoral and cross-sectoral plans and policies.

This report provides a global overview on the progress of countries in passing laws and regulations that limit the manufacture, import, sale, use and disposal of selected single-use plastics and microplastics, causing marine litter.

This report summarizes the findings of the workshop Climate Finance Law: Legal Readiness for Climate Finance co-convened by King’s College London and UN Environment. The workshop is part of an ongoing partnership to stimulate collaborations and mutual learning between public and private stakeholders in developing and developed countries for trans-formational change, with an aim to provide a forum in which countries can assist each other to strengthen their national law and regulation to enable climate finance at the scale required for implementation of SDGs and Nationally Determined

Over the last decade, laws codifying national and international responses to climate change have grown in number, specificity, and importance. As these laws have recognized new rights and created new duties, litigation seeking to challenge either their facial validity or their particular application has followed. So too has litigation aimed at pressing legislators and policymakers to be more ambitious and thorough in their approaches to climate change.

Far too much of the 300 million tonnes of plastic produced every year finds its way into our oceans, food chains and ecosystems, damaging our health in the process. Well-designed laws can help reverse this global trend. This report provides an overview of legislation that countries have implemented to tackle marine litter, focusing in particular on upstream solutions.