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The question of how best to tackle anthropogenic climate change is a thorny one: besides scientific uncertainty regarding the consequences of climate change, another difficulty is that the recommendations of climate experts may clash with the priorities of citizens, interest groups and political institutions. With the European Green Deal, the European Union (EU) recently made significant advances in climate policy; at the same time, and as is well known, the EU and its institutions have long been criticised for their "democratic deficit" and for their failure to involve all civil society actors equally in EU law-making processes. This article sheds light on the legal framework governing civil society participation in EU law-making, and more specifically on the Commission's consultations pursuant to Article 11(3) of the Treaty on European Union. It then critically assesses selected features of two consultations conducted by the Commission in connection with the European Climate Law, which it evaluates from the perspective of the EU primary law principles of democracy, openness and transparency. Through this analysis, and by suggesting how future climate consultations could be further improved, the article aims to contribute to the (still nascent) legal scholarship on civil society participation in environmental and climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her much-acclaimed book published in 2017, Anthea Roberts examines whether international law is indeed international. The answer to this question is 'no', one reason being the deep language biases that pervade international legal scholarship. One of the clearest symptoms of this distortion is the unprecedented dominance of English. While such a lingua franca has numerous advantages, it is connected to significant drawbacks. In this article, I first define what I mean by language bias in international legal scholarship before highlighting some of its symptoms. I then show that language bias is an underexplored topic in international legal scholarship and that this lack of engagement with the issue warrants further analysis. Next, I identify possible explanations for language bias, and I delineate its main implications for international legal scholarship and international law-making. Finally, I examine various strategies that can be pursued to minimize the negative consequences of language bias. While there are no easy answers, this article is a first attempt at highlighting the problematic effects of language bias on international legal scholarship, at outlining several strategies for tackling these effects and, importantly, at generating a scholarly debate on the dangers of language bias for the international, legal and scholarly character of our research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, citizenship by investment (CBI) and residency by investment (RBI) programmes have been burgeoning throughout the world, including in a range of European States. At first sight, such programmes are blatantly anti-meritocratic: they hinge on a person's wealth, and not on her skills, potential, and intrinsic qualities. Yet upon a closer look, the public discourse that surrounds CBI and RBI is influenced by the same meritocratic conceptions as those that have been driving domestic citizenship and immigration law in the past decades. In this article, I take a step back from existing debates about CBI to argue that the concept of meritocracy is key to understanding, supporting, but also challenging contemporary immigration and citizenship law, including CBI. First, I analyse the merits—if I may say so—of the concept of meritocracy. I then show the limitations of using meritocratic arguments to justify the existence of CBI schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jurisprudential theories have rarely taken international law into account, yet can provide insights into how domestic courts can and should conceptualise their interpretative activity. This paper relies on the works of HLA Hart and Duncan Kennedy to show that the domestic judicial interpretation of international law should be conceptualised as analogous to a hinge. The hinge analogy highlights the connecting role of domestic courts between international and domestic law, their dynamic, law-creating powers in both the domestic and the international legal order, and the legal frame they need to observe when interpreting international law. Moreover, like a good hinge that is robust and well-oiled and, therefore, fulfils its purpose, the interpretative reasoning of domestic courts must display specific characteristics in order to fulfil its role. To illustrate the different prongs of the analogy, I rely on the case law of Swiss courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The host of negative effects of animal agriculture on the immediate environment, workers, and local communities are welldocumented, yet little is known about the global repercussions of animal agriculture, especially on human rights guarantees. This contribution attempts to begin filling this soaring gap. It examines the nexus between industrial animal agriculture (with a focus on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)) on the one hand, and specific international human rights violations on the other hand. Our emphasis is on the role of government in producing these violations, rather than on the agribusiness itself. Laws originally designed to govern small family farms--so-called "farmers' rights" laws, including right-to-farm laws and exemptions from environmental and animal law--now protect corporate giants, many of which are multinationals. Governments enacting and upholding farmers' rights shield agribusiness activities that are damaging to the environment and humans' livelihoods from regulation. While they are prima facie at liberty to do so under domestic law, their laws are subject to the scrutiny of international law, particularly the human rights regime that promises to put a halt to the ongoing insulation of animal agriculture. The human rights perspective adds valuable dynamics to the ongoing debate, is novel in application to the issue, and opens new pathways for academic inquiries and legal strategies because--unlike nuisance laws, environmental laws, and animal protection laws, which de facto exempt the issue from judicial scrutiny--these laws can be used to hold governments accountable. The human rights discourse also gives rise to community empowerment and innovative forms of advocacy and forges connections between the different social justice issues implicated in animal agriculture. Finally, we show how scholars, researchers, stakeholders, and the public concerned about human rights issues can bring animal agriculture into the conversation and prompt their governments to address the issue proactively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]