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There is hardly any doubt that climate change threatens the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. Yet, in the absence of a distinct right to a healthy environment, a victim of climate change impacts would have to rely on existing rights to bring a claim. However, not only are these avenues not always successful or even sufficient to effectively and adequately compensate the victims, but they appear especially problematic in the context of climate change. This article explores the implications of the recognition of a stand-alone substantive right to a healthy environment in the context of climate change. In doing so, it argues that such a recognition could trigger a paradigm shift that would facilitate the reconceptualization of human rights law to better adapt to the negative impacts of climate change, in particular by incorporating key environmental law principles in the human rights system.

International practice, including international instruments and case law, confirms that states generally accept that they have a duty to provide prior notification of planned measures that may have a significant adverse effect upon co-riparians. The principle of “prior notification” is framed differently in various instruments, and it can broadly include the duty to “notify” and “consult” on planned measures. Prior notification helps to prevent and mitigate disputes, as underlined by the ICJ. Notification and consultation create the conditions for cooperation among riparian states and for ensuring the protection of international watercourses. On the contrary, the lack of notification and consultation may aggravate disputes as in the case of the Great Renaissance Dam along the Nile River. The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (Watercourses Convention) provides a detailed procedural framework on prior notification and consultation. This essay outlines the established characteristics of the prior notification and consultation duty, then argues that the duty should be viewed not only as an inter-state obligation but also as including the obligation to inform and consult local communities.

Ocean Yearbook, vol. 34, p. 164

Dieser Beitrag ist ein Kommentar zu den Ausführungen der Richterin am Bundesverfassungsgericht Susanne Baer im Grundlagenkreis öffentliches Recht anlässlich der Staatsrechtslehrertagung in Mannheim im Jahr 2021. Susanne Baer forderte Komparativist:innen dazu auf, sich eines breiteren, globalen Spektrums von Rechtsordnungen und Disziplinen mittels eines umfassenden, kontextbezogenen Ansatzes zu bedienen. Angesichts dessen konzentriert sich der vorliegende Beitrag auf die Frage, wie rechtsvergleichenden Jurist:innen dies praktisch gelingen kann. Dazu entwickelt dieser Beitrag den Ansatz des "10 box thinking". Dahinter steht der Gedanke, dass die Art von (Grund-)Kenntnissen, wie sie Jurist:innen über 10 Rechtsordnungen bzw. disziplinäre Perspektiven realistischerweise erwerben können, bereits genügt, um viele der nennenswerten Vorteile der Rechtsvergleichung auszuschöpfen. Das umfasst etwa die Fähigkeit zur Teilnahme an internationalem wissenschaftlichem Austausch und die Eröffnung einer globaleren Perspektive in der Lehre (die in Diskussion über die Rechtsvergleichung oft vernachlässigt wird), und die Vermittlung von Kenntnissen, die eine bessere Auswahl von Vergleichssystemen ermöglicht. Der Beitrag schließt mit der These, dass Deutschland – mag sich die globale, pluralistische Rechtsvergleichung hier auch verschiedenen strukturellen Hürden ausgesetzt sehen – doch zugleich einige entscheidende Vorteile für eine solche Rechtsvergleichung vorweisen kann., This paper contains remarks made as a commentator to Justice Susanne Baer, speaking in the Grundlagenkreis öffentliches Recht at the 2021 Staatsrechtslehrertagung in Mannheim. Baer urged comparative lawyers to engage a broader, global range of legal systems and disciplinary perspectives in richly contextual fashion. This paper, agreeing with those aims, focuses on the question of how comparative lawyers can feasibly, practically do this. It develops a perspective called '10 box thinking'. The point of this perspective is that the level of expertise that it is feasible to expect a comparative lawyer to be able to acquire about ten systems is a level that also suffices for much that is valuable in comparative law. This includes the ability to participate in and benefit from international exchange, to teach in a global manner (though teaching is often neglected in discussions focused on comparative law scholarship), and to select comparative examples for study based on interest and relevance and not just habit and tradition. The paper concludes by arguing that, while it is true that Germany faces a number of structural obstacles in doing comparative law in a global, pluralist way, as Baer argues, it also has some key comparative advantages.

This article provides a legal analysis of the largely uncharted notion of “acts harmful to the enemy” under international humanitarian law, which reconciles the humanitarian need to grant special protection to medical services (medical personnel, units and transports) in the interests of the wounded and sick with the military necessity to remove it when acts are committed contrary to good faith and for hostile purposes or with effects which harm the adverse party. The meaning of the notion is clarified by primarily looking into the legality of an attack against land-based medical services by the aggrieved party to the conflict as a consequence of harmful acts. It concludes with specific recommendations on how to interpret the law governing such an attack, considered prima facie lawful, on a hospital.

In imposing travel restrictions against China during the current outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), many countries are violating the IHR. We—16 global health law scholars—came to this conclusion after applying the interpretive framework of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and reaching a jurisprudential consensus on the legal meaning of Article 43 of the International Health Regulations (2005).

The quest for universality in international economic law has met many obstacles. This article begins from the proposition that there are various ways to conceive of universality in international law, for example whether the rules are accepted widely among states (omnipresence) or whether they are broadly coherent (generality). Homing in on trade and investment law, the article assesses how each of these areas has functioned as a testing ground for these different conceptions. An in-built quasi-universality characterizes international trade law with the WTO as a seemingly centralized universal institution. Such universality, however, has often been achieved through differentiation of rights and obligations (e.g., the Enabling Clause and regional trade agreements). In investment law, attempts at universalization through the construction of centralized institutions have failed. Nevertheless, certain common standards have emerged in this fragmented regime. There is also a debate around the use of the MFN clause as a universalizing tool and renewed efforts to universalize investment law are afoot. More generally, it is clear that there is little appetite for codification of international economic law, and that states wish to control its content through the conclusion of treaties. In the final analysis, this article asks whether it is time to conceive of universality differently, and particularly whether equity and collective preferences should be a more central part of the quest.

Ethics plays a crucial role in international adjudication, in particular in the context of international criminal proceedings where the liberty of the accused is at stake. Criminal courts have been trying to create an “international judicial culture” based on shared ethical standards. In doing so, however, they are constantly faced with an obstacle inherent in the very idea of ethics: the impossibility of defining what constitutes “ethical conduct” divorced from one's culture, tradition, legal system, or professional background. This contribution intends to explore the complexity of trying to define the contours of ethical standards in international criminal proceedings, in particular in the absence of precise written rules, by focusing on the Furundžija case. Even when rules are codified, however, they often remain open to divergent interpretations depending on one's cultural, social, and legal background. Ultimately, it is not simply a matter of codifying ethical rules but, more importantly, of agreeing on “whose ethics” these rules should reflect.

The scope of the thesis is to determine the manner in which the International Court of Justice interprets and applies the remedies generally accepted by the international community and codified by the International Law Commission (ILC) in its Articles on State Responsibility. This thesis seeks to answer the following questions: i) Whether the International Court of Justice adopts a specific approach towards the remedies of international law? and ii) If yes, what are the justifications for the approach adopted by the International Court of Justice? The survey of theoretical perspectives, canvassing academic writings and subjective perspectives featured in the pleadings of the parties to the disputes, and the judgments of the Court, illustrates relevant results. The systematic analysis demonstrates that the Court has a distinct approach to the interpretation and application of remedies available in international law. While the Court is cautious in ordering precise actions from the parties, it appears to prioritize declarations regarding issues of legality.

The Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission did an admirable job of interpreting, applying and clarifying International Humanitarian Law (IHL) on the protection of persons. However, some of its legal findings may be criticised, which include: the repatriation of prisoners of war, which was considered as subject to reciprocity considerations; the Commission holding admissible the denial of civilians’ right to return to their home countries and even their internment, merely because they were of military age; the conclusion that IHL of military occupation is inapplicable to the invasion phase; and, the impression given that isolated IHL violations do not give rise to State responsibility or that a State only has a due diligence obligation to hinder its soldiers from committing rape. In addition to criticism of the foregoing findings, this contribution finally questions the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) rejection of the requests of both parties, to submit to the Commission reports each received from the ICRC—on its visits to persons deprived of their liberty.

Amid frenzied national responses to COVID-19, the world could soon reach a critical juncture to revisit and strengthen the International Health Regulations (IHR), the multilateral instrument that governs how 196 states and WHO collectively address the global spread of disease.1, 2 In many countries, IHR obligations that are vital to an effective pandemic response remain unfulfilled, and the instrument has been largely side-lined in the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest global health crisis in a century. It is time to reimagine the IHR as an instrument that will compel global solidarity and national action against the threat of emerging and re-emerging pathogens. We call on state parties to reform the IHR to improve supervision, international assistance, dispute resolution, and overall textual clarity.

The general wisdom is that the United States violated international law when it killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020. Most commentators discussed the killing under the aspect of pre-emptive self-defence. However, in its report to the UN Security Council the United States made no mention of pre-emptive self-defence or an imminent armed attack. Much of the “imminent threat” and “imminent attack” rhetoric employed by President Trump and other U.S. government officials seems to have been geared towards a domestic audience and the question of the President’s war powers under the U.S. Constitution. It may be for this reason that U.S. Attorney General William Barr called the concept of imminence “something of a red herring” when defending the Soleimani strike as “a legitimate act of self-defence.” It thus seems that the majority of commentators have been barking up the wrong tree when they very skilfully showed that the United States did not have a right to pre-emptive self-defence because there was no imminent armed attack. This paper follows a different lead, examining whether the killing was lawful as an act of self-defence against a continuing series of attacks against the United States by Iran. It shows that this argument can constitute a credible justification of the killing of General Soleimani under international law. Much, however, hinges on the facts. Without detailed knowledge of the facts no final and conclusive legal assessment of the killing can be made. The cautious reaction to the killing by Germany and other States did not mean that they considered the killing outright unlawful under international law. On the contrary, it seems that these States considered the U.S. justification of self-defence at least plausible, but that they did not have sufficient information on the facts to come to a final legal assessment.

Several types of changes can take place between the conclusion of a treaty and when its provisions call for interpretation, e.g. changes in the political, social, historical or legal context; technological changes; linguistic changes; or changes in the law. Traditionally, interpreters refused to consider changes that may have occurred since the treaty's conclusion. Today, many argue that it is more legitimate for a treaty interpreter to take account of these changes and use an ‘evolutionary' or ‘dynamic' interpretation. The issue of changes is particularly relevant in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Treaty, because it combines long-standing provisions with more recent ones, and because international trade has evolved greatly, notably with electronic trade (e-commerce) and new means of distribution that did not exist when the WTO was concluded. The different types of changes discussed in this article may be grouped into four non-mutually exclusive types of situations, which will be examined through the prism of the interpretation process set out in Articles 31-33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). While different types of evolutionary interpretations can be considered under standard rules of interpretation in public international law, the use of the term ‘evolutionary interpretation' allows for a more global understanding of the phenomenon, and might have, at the very least, a symbolic value.

The Pan-African Investment Code (PAIC) is the first continent-wide African model investment treaty elaborated under the auspices of the African Union. The PAIC has been drafted from the perspective of developing and least-developed countries with a view to promote sustainable development. The PAIC contains a number of Africa-specific and innovative features, which presumably makes it today a unique legal instrument. Written in a time where the international investment community is still debating the future of international investment law, this article seeks to present and contextualize this first African model investment treaty. The article highlights the most innovative features of the PAIC, such as the reformulation of traditional investment treaty provisions and the introduction of direct obligations for investors.

Este documento analiza las relaciones entre el derecho internacional del medio ambiente y el derecho internacional de inversion. Asi mismo, discute las herramientas existentes y los mecanismos procesales disponibles ante las cortes y los tribunales internacionales para promover el cumplimiento de los principios emergentes, las normas y los compromisos relacionados con la sostenibilidad. Este articulo considera la forma en que las cortes y los tribunales internacionales han recurrido a la proteccion del medio ambiente mediante la interpretacion de tratados. Tambien, evalua las diferentes formas a que hace referencia la proteccion del medio ambiente en tratados de inversion bilateral. Finalmente, el texto examina los dispositivos procesales que podrian ser usados para tener en cuenta y tratar las consideraciones medioambientales dentro del marco de referencia de la inversion.

Over the years, the Security Council has on several occasions dealt with humanitarian assistance issues. However, it is Security Council Resolution 2165(2014), related to the situation in Syria, that has brought the role of the Security Council to the forefront of the debate. It is against this background that the article discusses the legal issues arising from Security Council action facilitating humanitarian assistance to be delivered in situations of non-international armed conflict.Following a brief survey of relevant practice of the Security Council related to humanitarian assistance, the article considers the relevance, if any, of Article 2(7) of the Charter of the United Nations (UN) to humanitarian assistance to be delivered in such situations. It then moves on to analyse whether a rejection by the territorial state of humanitarian aid to be delivered by third parties may amount to a situation under Article 39 of the UN Charter. It then considers in detail whether (at least implicitly) Resolution 2165 has been adopted under Chapter VII and, if this is not the case, whether it can be still considered to be legally binding.The article finally considers what impact the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2165 might have on the interpretation of otherwise applicable rules of international humanitarian law and, in particular, the right of third parties to provide humanitarian assistance in a situation of a non-international armed conflict in spite of the absence of consent by the territorial state, and the obligations that members of the Security Council, permanent and non-permanent, have under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions when faced with a draft resolution providing for the delivery of humanitarian assistance, notwithstanding the absence of consent by the territorial state.

In its Order of 17 September 2019, the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court considered the question of whether the right to individual or collective self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations included the use of armed force against non-State actors such as the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIL). The decision has been interpreted as condoning the use of force by Germany and other Western States against ISIL in Syria. However, this is not what the Court did. The Federal Constitutional Court simly held that neither the wording nor the object and purpose of Article 51 of the UN Charter preclude the application of the right of self-defence to attacks committed by non-state actors operating on the territory of a third country. The present paper presents the relevant parts of the Court's judgment (in English translation) and puts the decision in perspective. It shows that the Federal Constitutional Court’s contribution to the debate on the scope of the right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter is much more limited than suggested by commentators.

The chapter intends to change the inherently negative focus of debates surrounding cynicism in international law to a positive-constructive one concerning the International Criminal Court. This is done in three parts: First, I will argue that the International Criminal Court has always been subject to an inherently elevated risk for cynical attacks, as it was started as one of the most idealistic and utopian projects of international law, creating an immense Fallhohe. Second, a look at the manifestations of cynicism surrounding the International Criminal Court presents an opportunity to identify many of its underlying issues. I categorise these as dismissive, abusive, institutional, and discursive cynicism. Third, the conclusion that cynical backlash should be seen as a chance, as its absolute discriminatory power can alert to and unmask existing problems, and accept it as a necessary evolutionary stage the Court must undergo, embraced as part of its coming of age story. Cynicism has the ability to demystify its targets, and the Court might be in desperate need of this demystification.

The reality of migration today is that a large majority of migrants in vulnerable situations either do not have access, or have only very restricted access, to healthcare. While the current importance of the migratory phenomenon and the need to provide protection to disadvantaged migrants has, in recent years, trig-gered a strong response from the international community in favour of the protec-tion of the rights of persons, either refugees or migrants, fleeing their countries of origin; the central challenge of protecting and promoting the right of migrants to health seems as difficult to as ever. This article firstly sets out the international community’s recent political commitments to protect the human rights of migrants as well as the norms of international law applicable to the protection of the health of migrants, mainly contained within international human rights law and interna-tional refugee and migrant law. It then discusses the numerous barriers at the na-tional level which block migrants, particularly in vulnerable situations, from ac-cessing care. In doing so, this article highlights the profound paradoxes between State’s international commitments on the one hand, and State practices to protect and promote migrant access to healthcare on the other.

The chapter looks at the relationship between sustainable development and international investment and seeks to highlight the aspects of international investment law that are relevant within the context of achieving sustainable development such as key substantive investment norms. The chapter examines investment promotion as well as investment facilitation, which may be conditioned on sustainable development objectives or may be more accurate to serve the goal of sustainable development. Another section of the chapter is dedicated to investor-State dispute settlement and sustainable development looking at – on the one hand – investment treaty cases with sustainable development implications as well as the design of investor-State dispute settlement on the other hand. Furthermore, the role of impact assessments and specific chapters on sustainable development in free trade agreements are highlighted. Finally, the chapter concludes with pointing out some future research questions with respect to sustainable development and international investment law.

Science plays a significant role in policy decisions related to the management and protection of water resources, at both national and transboundary levels. Legal frameworks provide analytical tool...

This article examines the question of whether the wto enjoys a monopoly over the settlement of trade disputes by examining the historical context of the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the wto, including early dispute resolution under the gatt and the goal behind the transformation leading to the wto of curbing potential unilateralism within the trade regime. It argues that this culminated in the intention to create a centralized rule-based system for the settlement of disputes, rather than an intention to create a monopoly for the wto. The article examines potential threats to the so-called monopoly, in particular with the proliferation of Regional Trade Agreements (rtas) and the development of Mutually Agreed Solutions (mas). It also addresses relevant case law to demonstrate that the wto does not and was not intended to enjoy a monopoly over trade disputes. Rather, the wto pursues the objective of strengthening the multilateral trading system rather than encouraging unilateral trade action, which would not appear to be undermined by resort to the dispute settlement mechanisms of relevant rtas or other dispute settlement mechanisms.

More and more, international institutions pursue their objectives together in the form of partnerships. Partnerships are established to work towards important policy objectives in relation to global health, environmental protection, and so on. However, the activities of partnerships may lead to questions of responsibility when such objectives are not achieved, or when third party interests are affected. This Forum explores questions of responsibility—the term responsibility being used in a broad sense—that may arise in relation to partnerships and in particular the question of whether responsibility can be shared between the actors that participate in a partnership. These introductory notes provide the necessary background by defining the concepts of partnerships and shared responsibility, and identify ten conclusions on shared responsibility that can be drawn from the case-studies on particular partnerships.

Discusses the role played by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 art.32, which permits recourse to a treaty's travaux preparatoires and the circumstances of its conclusion as a "supplementary means of interpretation", in the Convention's overall interpretative scheme. Considers the potential application of art.32 in international investment disputes.

The 2014 judgment of the International Court of Justice, regarding Whaling in the Antarctic, brought into focus scientific fact-finding in disputes before the Court. This article examines the Court's practice with respect to first, the mode of appointment and method of examining experts assisting the Court in fact-finding; and second, the standard of review employed in analysing a scientific fact to arrive at a judicial decision. In doing so, the article also refers to jurisprudence of the World Trade Organization to draw parallels and best practices therefrom. This analysis is aimed at structuring a coherent and predictable approach for scientific fact-finding before the International Court of Justice.

The right to development is a legally non-binding treaty under international law. In this paper, however, the distinction between legally binding and legally non-binding treaties in international law, around which many of the controversies regarding the right to development have arisen, is challenged. I argue that the right to development is used in the Indian legal system through case law, which I interpret as a process of juridification. The juridification, I claim, is manifested through Indian judges who have shown an increased inclination to refer to the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development in their legal argumentation to solve judicial conflicts. Judges explicitly affirm the existence of a human right to development and statutorily regulate it by interpreting it as part of the constitutional fundamental ‘right to life’. Furthermore, the paper approaches the question of how different concepts of development and correlated ideas of justice are negotiated in the genesis of interpretations of the right to development in Indian case law. The application of the right to development mainly reflects a legal argument for the protection of minority rights, such as women’s rights, Dalit rights and Adivasi rights, in cases on affirmative action in education, land acquisition and labour rights. However, I consider an additional imminence of misusing the right to development for a utilitarian legal argument to justify human rights violations of small groups of people in the name of development and public interest.

The concept of sources of law has only for a short time in history been confined to the formally adopted legal norms of statutory, conventional or customary nature. Such a positivistic and narrow notion can be confronted to an older layer of the concept, which has gained again some prominence in the twentieth century, whereby the sources encompass also all the elements which concur to the interpretation and development of the law. In this larger area, general principles of law play an important, albeit often invisible, role as catalysts of a law-in-movement. In particular, they offer a legal basis from which new legal doctrines or norms can be derived from case to case, in order to fit new social and legal needs. The evolution thereby remains at least partly anchored in the legal sphere, through the link with the legally connoted general principles, and at the same time strikes out to the changing needs in the social and political arena. Thus, general principles of law are particularly instructive elements of this type of dynamic equilibrium to be achieved. Their different functions, and especially their role as law-creating arguments, are put into limelight in this short contribution. These functions are illustrated more concretely through the example of the powerful principle of good faith.

Recent decades have seen pivotal changes in the management and protection of water resources, with human rights, environmental and water law each developing a strong interest in the conservation of fresh water. This surge in interest has meant that dispute settlement mechanisms, along with diplomatic tools, are becoming increasingly necessary for conflict resolution. This Handbook offers an analysis of the interaction between law and various forms of knowledge and expertise, ranging from economics to environmental and social sciences. Leading scholars examine general and specific water legal regimes and analyse the interplay between various disciplines in order to establish the extent to which law is informed by each.

In the past decade, international courts and tribunals have been increasingly facing scientific and technical issues in their case law, and international disputes have seen greater resort to expert opinion, both by parties and adjudicators. Despite the increasing use of the expert in various kinds of international disputes, there has not been a corresponding coherence in practice governing different aspects of expert use, or clarity in the rules and practices to be followed in this respect. The present journal issue includes diverse contributions from authors on the aforementioned theme and offers challenging views and opinions on the topic.

The WTO is facing difficult times as the renewal of the members of its Appellate Body seems to be in a deadlock. The opposition of some Members of the Organization to the process means the number of adjudicators is slowly dwindling. In this paper, we put this problem in context, by linking it to the greater concerns about consent in international adjudication. Consent amounts to the effective transfer of adjudicative power to a given tribunal. It is therefore argued that the non-renewal of AB members amounts to a withdrawal of consent by the parties concerned, be it legal or not. Should the problem persist, the WTO's dispute settlement system could be profoundly impacted, transforming it into a mere conciliatory body.

This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted in context of a broader study on the use of experts in international disputes. An analysis of the interviews conducted and responses received from questionnaires as part of this empirical research sheds light on various aspects of expert involvement in international disputes, revealing trends that are not discernible from a textual or casuistic approach. The analysis in this paper also demonstrates interesting divergences as well as common approaches to expert use in different international judicial fora, and among different actors in the judicial process - judges, counsel or experts themselves. The paper concludes that no single unified regime can be identified for experts in international law, variances exist in connection with the forum considered. At the same time, the empirical study reveals universal characteristics in expert use mainly to be found in due process requirements.

In his EJIL Foreword, Jan Klabbers argues that the contemporary application of functionalism, understood as organizations being assigned functions, in order both to realize the common good and to deepen inter-state cooperation, is something of a theoretical straitjacket. However, can functionalism really be described as a ‘one-size-fits-all' concept? It is the contention of this Comment that there are, in fact, different manifestations of the concept, including neo-functionalism and formal or informal functionalism. New realities in this field also reflect an evolved conception of functionalism, such as the increasing diversity of actors affected by, and influencing, international organizations, as well as the fact that institutions have become authorities in their own right. As a consequence, we may also observe the emergence of principles, often referred to as global administrative law principles, aimed at dealing with these new realities. The article recognizes that a functional orientation in designing the mandates of international organizations has contributed to overlaps and inefficiency. However, it argues that efforts have been made in pursuance of greater efficiency.

The treatment of scientific terms by the International Court of Justice has come into focus in the aftermath of its decision in the Whaling case. An analysis of this decision assesses first, the extent to which parties and the Court tackled scientific terms in the course of legal analysis. Further, this article attempts to draw inferences and lessons from the Court's scientific engagement, for future disputes of the same nature, and examines the importance of a judicial body such as the International Court of Justice in involving itself in scientific disputes. This article argues that the Court, in the Whaling case, has insufficiently engaged with scientific terms, and goes on to suggest efficient methods of addressing such future disputes. Notwithstanding the existence of technical and scientific administrative bodies, this article also emphasizes the importance of scientific adjudication by international judicial bodies.

Transboundary mountain regions in Europe emerge as normative spaces at the intersection of territorial and environmental governance. Constituting a meeting point of different national legal orders under the umbrella of international regimes, they have become natural laboratories for the development of cross-border law. The objective of this article is to examine the nature and normative dimension of such legal environments. To this end, we introduce the concept of ‘melting law’ as a means to assess the re-combination of different modes of conventional, national, international, supranational and/or interregional normativities. Hard (national) laws melt within the framework of transboundary mountain regions as a legal category, based on a mixture of national, international (or EU) and interregional norms, each combining with the other by softening their usual normative impact. Building on a review of legal approaches to mountains and cross-border cooperation practices, we trace the development of “melting law” and “melted law” through a discussion of the legal framework for and the impact of “working communities” and the “European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation” (EGTC). The discussion mobilizes a global approach with a view to generate new insights into the legal challenges facing transboundary mountain governance in Europe.