The Escazú Agreement has brought a myriad of environmental rights and duties to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), including the recognition of a right to a healthy environment and rights of environmental defenders. As a new agreement, the task of implementing the Escazú Agreement still lies ahead. Significantly, a non-judicial, non-punitive, consultative and transparent Committee to support Implementation and Compliance was established as a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to promote implementation. Concomitantly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised an autonomous right to a healthy environment, establishing it as directly justiciable within the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR). This chapter draws on comparative law to understand the non-compliance and judicial mechanisms available under the IASHR and Escazú, with an especial focus on the right to a healthy environment. Given the broad reach of the regional recognition available in LAC, what are the best mechanisms to use the right to prevent environmental harm? And how does this broad endeavour relate to the need to ensure that parties comply with the Escazú Agreement?

European Criminal Law has developed into a complex, jagged subject matter, which at the same time has become increasingly important for everyday criminal law practice. On the one hand, this work aims to do comprehensive justice to the complexity of the matter without sacrificing readability. In order to achieve this, the book’s structure enables legal scholars and experienced practitioners to access the information relevant to them in a targeted manner and, at the same time, enables less-oriented readers to gain access to European Criminal Law. Thus, the volume both answers basic questions and offers discussion in more specialised areas. Written by experts in the field, the book offers discussions that are both of the highest academic standards and accessibly readable.

Procedural rights play a crucial role in the functioning of the EU rules on asylum, migration and borders, as they provide fundamental guarantees allowing individuals to safeguard their substantive rights. The growing importance in the case law of the CJEU and in EU secondary legislation of, in particular, the right to an effective remedy and the right to be heard has acted as a catalyst for an increased standard of protection in the Member States in this field. Three further fundamental procedural rights – namely the right to access the file, the right to legal assistance and representation and the right to legal aid – are still at a comparatively embryonic stage for the moment, but they could be very significant for the future development of the EU acquis in the field.

The application of mutual recognition to judicial cooperation in criminal matters within the EU has created significant challenges for the right to liberty. While the European arrest warrant was initially the prinicipal subject in the debate, discussions on the impact of EU criminal law on the right to liberty have now significantly broadened in scope. The present chapter reflects this development and addresses the role of the right to liberty in three scenarios: EU measures triggering cases of continued detention through mutual recognition; EU measures safeguarding the right to liberty; and EU measures facilitating alternatives to detention. The chapter argues that, while progress has undoubtedly been made, much still needs to be done to adequately protect the liberty of persons in criminal proceedings and judicial cooperation procedures.

Human rights are a mixed bag, and populist antipathy towards human rights is not spread evenly across its contents. The idea of a human right as such is too abstract to be sustained as an object of political suspicion. Usually it is some subset of human rights or some particular aspect of human rights practice that excites critical attention from populist politicians and the citizens who support them. The subset of rights that I want to concentrate on I will call “Rule-of-Law rights.” By that I mean the cluster of rights in each of the main human rights instruments that protect Rule-of-Law values, particularly procedural values.

Because of its transboundary effects and because states will be the primary actors, large-scale solar geoengineering and its governance are matters of international law. This is the third of four chapters that consider international legal rules, here regarding human rights. The chapter introduces international human rights law and how it relates to the environment and climate change. It reviews and critiques the limited literature on human rights and solar geoengineering. The remainder considers the issues in four ways. First, solar geoengineering is presently being explored as scientific research, for which international human rights law has provisions for the researcher and the potential beneficiaries of resulting knowledge. Second, outdoor research may affect people as research subjects, for whom international human rights law provides some protections. Third, procedural human rights to information, participation in public affairs, and legal remedies are widely recognized. Finally, the international law of substantive human rights such as those to health, to an adequate standard of living, to be free from hunger, and to life could inform solar geoengineering governance.