This project studies the national implementation of legal judgements from courts and managerial decisions from non-compliance and implementation committees on European and international environmental obligations.
Against the background of the increasing impact of climate change and a lack of specialised jurisdiction over environmental disputes beyond the nation state, the implementation of legal obligations is a crucial tool to protect Earth's environment from harm. Yet, systematic insights on the national implementation of so-called 'resolution mechanisms', i.e., court judgements and managerial decisions, are lacking.
This project investigates the conditions explaining effective implementation of such decisions by adapting insights on policy implementation and intermediaries, comparing processes of implementation across different types of resolution mechanisms. It develops an innovative, theory-driven concept-structural framework based on key conditions from the implementation literature (actor preferences, perceived legitimacy, mechanism strength) that mirror the existing management and enforcement approaches. The framework enables systematic comparisons across resolution mechanisms and thus accounts for a diversity of separate but equally valid explanations.
Empirical analysis follows a mixed methods approach that includes (1) data gathering based on public documents, (2) a comparative temporal assessment via time-differencing Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), and (3) case studies of deviant and temporally relevant cases identified in the QCA. This approach provides generalisable insights on how different preferences combine with varying degrees of legitimacy and mechanism strength to explain the national implementation of court judgements and managerial decisions on environmental obligations.
Fellow: Dr. Andreas Corcaci
Supervisor: Prof. Peter Bursens
Co-Supervisor: Prof. Esther van Zimmeren