International Environmental Agreements-Politics Law and Economics最新文献

This article highlights Australia's interaction with Asian countries in the development of an international legal instrument on marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). An intergovernmental conference with four planned sessions is currently going on under the auspices of the United Nation's General Assembly (UNGA) for the adoption of a new legal instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Although there is literature on how Australia and Asia have forged closer engagement on matters of trade, security and culture, literature is scarce on how and in what way they can engage in promoting the conservation of ABNJ. In terms of marine environmental discussion, Australia appears to date overall to have aligned itself closely to other western countries and some developed Asian countries. This article examines the potential scope for increased collaboration with Asia on reaching future legal agreement with respect to ABNJ.

The UNFCCC and Paris Climate Agreement set the environmental agenda for many years to come, making environmental protection a global trend. Herewith, these documents created many unprecedented challenges for business, shifting the focus from the original role of commercial benefit to the trade-off between profit and social responsibility. The need to adapt business strategies to the existing agenda has created new requirements for shaping the investment environment. In this aspect, there arises the question regarding the organizational and legal form the investment activities can be carried out in and what additional regulatory instruments can be applied to simplify the procedure for attracting environmental investments. In the current conditions, corporate investment funds may be considered as promising instruments for achieving the goals of international climate agreements. The study suggests that corporate investment funds can become an effective tool for attracting environmental investments. The study purpose is to assess the role of corporate investment funds in international climate agreements goals achievement, to consider the possibility of development strategies to improve management efficiency in the corporate investment funds in terms of their linkage to UNFCCC, Paris Climate Agreement and in a comparative perspective. The study methodology is based on the analysis of world and Russian law enforcement practices in the corporate activities field through the application of a systematic approach. The relationship between corporate governance represented by big businesses and the state is considered in the framework of the investment mechanism and the institutional environment, which is visualized in the model of the business landscape of a corporate investment fund in order to determine management strategies in the operation and development of a corporate investment fund. The study results can be put into practice by financial market participants and other entities in order to increase the efficiency of the use of assets and knowledge of national jurisdictions in the context of world and Russian practices.

The European Union (EU) is trying to accelerate the transition from the current linear economy to a circular economy (CE). In fact, the CE is considered a tool to attain sustainable development goals (SDGs). In this sense, this paper aims at analysing the interaction between the CE and SDGs in the context of the new 2030 Agenda and the European CE strategy; thus contributing to the scarce empirical literature that links the potential of the European CE strategy to the achievement of the SDGs set by the 2030 Agenda. Three specific research questions have been formulated. First, could the objectives defined in the 2030 Agenda be considered homogeneous, and could they uniquely measure the concept of sustainability? Second, are there significant correlations between the implementation of a CE in the EU and the SDGs? Finally, is the behaviour of the 28 countries that make up the EU homogeneous in terms of the results of the initiatives aimed at the implementation of a CE? From these questions, nine hypotheses are put forward concerning the possible relationships between a CE implementation and the fulfilment of SDGs in the EU. Using a correlation analysis, an exploratory factor analysis, and a cluster analysis, it has been demonstrated that (a) SDGs do not univocally measure the concept of sustainability; (b) there are significant relationships between CE and SDGs in the EU; (c) the behaviour of these European countries is not homogeneous.