The role of national courts in the field of international environmental law

While national courts have played a significant role in promoting human rights law, little work has been done on whether national courts have played, or could play, a similar role in the field of international environmental law. To help fill this gap, in 1996 the American Society of International Law's Interest Group in International Environmental Law (ASIL-IELIG) undertook a comparative study of the application of international environmental law by national courts. The present issue of RECIEL contains six articles adapted from reports from this study. The full study will be published by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, and will include reports on a broad range of countries from around the world. Each country report surveys the domestic case-law involving the direct or indirect application of international environmental law, as well as the barriers to the greater application of international environmental law by national courts. This article provides background on the rationale of the study, its relationship to existing scholarship, the critiera for case selection, and an analysis of the project results.