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The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures., While cooperation across national boundaries has emerged as a key concept in wildlife conservation, this Perspective reveals that, at the same time, there has been a dramatic increase in the extent of security fencing along international borders, which has dramatic consequences for this approach.

In de Urgenda-uitspraak oordeelde de rechtbank dat de Staat minimaal 25% CO2-reductie in 2020 (t.o.v. 1990) moet nastreven. Dit reductiedoel is ambitieuzer dan de Europese CO2-reductiedoelstellingen. Een aantal auteurs meent daarom dat de uitspraak mogelijk strijdig is met het EU-recht en dat hierover een prejudiciële vraag gesteld had moeten worden. Deze opvatting wordt door auteurs betwist. Ten eerste zijn de betreffende EU-doelstellingen slechts minimumnormen. Daarnaast laat de rechtbank de Staat vrij in het kiezen van de wijzen waarop zij uitvoering wenst te geven aan het vonnis en kan deze uitvoering goed geschieden op een met het EU-recht verenigbare wijze.

Framework chapter (9389 words) of the book where a new heuristic model for the study of IL/IR interdisciplinarity is proposed and explained.

In de Urgenda-zaak werd een beroep gedaan op het EVRM om de Staat tot verdergaande CO2-reductie te verplichten. De rechtbank liet zich echter niet expliciet uit over de vraag of er daadwerkelijk sprake is van een mensenrechtenschending. In deze bijdrage wordt onderzocht in hoeverre de Staat een verplichting heeft op grond van het EVRM tot het stellen van een ambitieuzere CO2-reductiedoelstelling. In het bijzonder wordt gekeken naar artikel 2 en 8 EVRM. De rechtspraak van het EHRM laat zien dat bij gevaarlijke activiteiten, de verantwoordelijkheid van de Staat om handelend op te treden toeneemt, ook indien dit aan een natuurverschijnsel of aan private (rechts)personen is toe te schrijven. Het EVRM geeft waarschijnlijk geen zelfstandige beroepsgrond voor een actie tegen de Staat. Niettemin kunnen de toenemende positieve verplichting tot handelen onder het EVRM mogelijk wel een aanvullende factor vormen bij de invulling van de zorgplicht van de Staat onder artikel 6:162 BW.

This journal is one of the Britain’s leading IR journals, edited by the UK’s most senior and—according to Professor Richard Falk of Princeton—esteemed IR scholar: Prof. Ken Booth. This article (9, 929 words) questions a dominant paradigm that NGOs speak to “truth to power”, and specifically that human rights NGOs, like Human Rights Watch, command the power of transnational legal advocacy. We explore how the IDF as an advanced military power had, over the course of the 2006 Lebanon and the 2009 Gaza Wars, developed capacities of transnational legal advocacy which pushed back public criticism by human rights NGOs, notably as HRW. Further, the article emphasizes how sophisticated states can radically adjust their public relations strategies in light of NGO critiques, and become supported by friendly NGOs, which together turn-the-table of critique upon the conduct of human rights NGOs themselves. A recent publication in Europe’s leading security studies journal, Security Dialogue, referred to the contribution of our article as follows: “(p. 106)…HRW’s attempt to make the IDF accountable for what it alleged to be violations of international humanitarian law during Operation Cast Lead takes place in a complex, discursive and institutional field involving Israeli political and military agencies, UN officials, human rights advocates, and a cluster of non-state organizations advocating in defence of Israel. Vennesson and Rajkovic (2012) have documented at length how this antagonistic transnational field acquired its present shape….” See: William Walters, “Drone strikes, dingpolitik and beyond: Furthering the debate on materiality and security”, 45 Security Dialogue 2 (2014): 101-118.

This research examines the viability of the design of environmental taxes in the achievement of sustainable waste management in the Addis Ababa Administration (AAA) of Ethiopia. It has employed an empirical qualitative method. It first shows the mutual contribution of the achievement of waste management to the progress of sustainable sanitation and water resource management. Secondly, it displays the distributive and incentive roles of environmental taxes in the achievement of sustainable waste management. Thirdly, it indicates that a cautious design of the source, base, scope and rate of environmental taxes is a critical determinant for environmental taxes&rsquo, overall success in addressing the prevalent waste mismanagement in Ethiopia. Fourthly, it demonstrates that in the AAA: (1) The sources of solid waste collection, landfill, sewerage service and effluent charges are subject to the principle of legality, (2) the scope of solid waste collection, landfill, sewerage service and effluent charges is appropriate, (3) while the base of sewerage service and effluent charges is efficient, the base of solid waste and landfill charges is not at all efficient, and (4) while the rates of solid waste, landfill and sewerage service charges are slightly optimal, the rate of the effluent charge has not yet developed. Fifthly, it reveals that, having a somewhat viable design, solid waste, landfill and sewerage service charges are marginally reinforcing the aspiration of Ethiopia to achieve sustainable sanitation. Sixthly, it uncovers that because Ethiopia has not yet developed the rate of effluent charge, effluent charge is neither internalizing the cost of water resource degradation nor incentivizing sustainable water resource management. Finally, it implies that the aspiration of Ethiopia to achieve sustainable sanitation and water resource management by 2030 is contingent on the cautious design of its waste management taxes.

The role of banks in projects which result in adverse human rights impacts has been brought to the fore in recent years. However, there are serious obstacles to regulate the (often extraterritorial) financing activities of banks under national law. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises attempt to respond to this ‘governance gap’, stipulating that all business enterprises have a responsibility to respect human rights. However, banks’ compliance with such standards has been frustrated by a failure to understand how these standards apply to them. In 2016, the Dutch Government collaborated with the Dutch banking sector and civil society to create the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement: a multistakeholder initiative initiated to improve adhering banks’ performance with respect to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. This article reviews how the actors involved drafted the Agreement in light of prevalent divergences in understandings over how human rights apply to banks’ financing activities. It then looks to scholarship on transnational private regulation, experimentalism governance, and social constructivism in mapping three roles the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement could play: regulation, experimentation, and advocacy.

The discontent within legal ranks over the recent judgment of the International Court of Justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro can be described as nothing other than poignant. The stylized characterization voiced privately by many critics is that the judgment amounted to ‘bad law’ and ‘good politics’; that the Court's ruling had been profoundly influenced by Serbia's fragile domestic politics and hence this worked silently to constrain the Court's rationale and lawmaking. Sadly, critics opine, this political intrusion into the sanctuary of lawmaking produced a judgment that now denies the ‘universal’ deterrent which the Genocide case could have provided. This article, however, takes direct issue with axiomatic interpretations of what constitutes ‘bad law’ and ‘good politics’ in the Genocide case, and argues instead that an antithetical characterization of law with politics proves fundamentally misleading when analysing the Genocide judgment, overlooking the inherent association between law and politics in complex cases that have now become ‘bread and butter’ for international lawyers. In sum, this article will argue, the judgment should not be written off using the dichotomy of ‘bad law’ and ‘good politics’, but rather should invoke critical reflection within the academic discipline and professional practice on the problems of politics which constitute and hence unavoidably permeate cases that emerge from calamitous failures of international politics. The hardening of the fictional boundary between law and politics may provide a convenient gambit for those advocating the ascendancy of international law. However, it is argued, obfuscating the political swamp which is ‘international justice’ cannot make a juridical pasture no matter how much authoritative or ‘learned’ ink is spent; and this is perhaps the key lesson which should be discerned by legal experts from the Genocide case as a whole.

Wilderness protection in Antarctica has received attention at various previous Polar Law Symposia. Generally, these discussions and resulting publications have shown the tension between, on the one hand, the broad societal appreciation of wilderness in Antarctica, and, on the other hand, the limited attention for this concept in law and policy making in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM). Although there have been attempts to place wilderness protection higher on the agendas of the ATCM and the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP; an advisory body of the ATCM), no substantial progress on the topic has been made. Against this backdrop, Antje Neumann and Kees Bastmeijer will discuss the question to what extent various domestic legal tools (available under domestic legal systems) to protect the European Arctic wilderness might be of value for wilderness protection in Antarctica.

Public goods and human rights are sometimes treated as intimately related, if not interchangeable, strategies to address matters of common global concern. The aim of the present contribution is to disentangle the two notions to shed some critical light on their respective potential to attend to contemporary problems of globalization. I distinguish the standard economic approach to public goods as a supposedly value-neutral technique to coordinate economic activity between states and markets from a political conception of human rights law that empowers individuals to partake in the definition of the public good. On this basis, I contend that framing global public goods and universal human rights in terms of interests and values that ‘we all’ hold in common tends to conceal or evade conflicts about their proper interpretation and implementation. This raises important normative questions with regard to the political and legal accountability of global ordering in both domains. The public goods approach has responded to this problem through extending the scope of political jurisdiction over public goods to encompass all those ‘affected’ by their costs and benefits. This finds its counterpart in attempts in the human rights debate to legally account for the global human rights impacts of public goods through extending human rights jurisdiction beyond state territory. By way of conclusion I contend that both approaches are indicative of a ‘horizontal’ transformation of statehood under conditions of globalization aimed at recovering the public good beyond the international order of states.

In the last decade, solar geoengineering (solar radiation management, or SRM) has received increasing consideration as a potential means to reduce risks of anthropogenic climate change. Some ideas regarding SRM that have been proposed have receded after being appropriately scrutinized, while others have strengthened through testing and critique. This process has improved the understanding of SRM's potential and limitations. However, several claims are frequently made in the academic and popular SRM discourses and, despite evidence to the contrary, pose the risk of hardening into accepted facts. Here, in order to foster a more productive and honest debate, we identify, describe, and refute five of the most problematic claims that are unsupported by existing evidence, unlikely to occur, or greatly exaggerated. These are: (A) once started, SRM cannot be stopped; (B) SRM is a right-wing project; (C) SRM would cost only a few billion dollars per year; (D) modeling studies indicate that SRM would disrupt monsoon precipitation; and (E) there is an international prohibition on outdoors research. SRM is a controversial proposed set of technologies that could prove to be very helpful or very harmful, and it warrants vigorous and informed public debate. By highlighting and debunking some persistent but unsupported claims, this paper hopes to bring rigor to such discussions.

This research examines the instrumental roles of the introduction of environmental tax in the realisation of the polluter-pays principle under the federal jurisdiction of Ethiopia. It is a single country case-oriented comparative research design, and data triangulation is the method used to establish its validity. It first shows the recognition of polluter-pays as a principle, rule and policy to reach the idea of sustainable development. Secondly, it verifies the degradation/pollution-based redistributive, preventive and curative functions of the polluter-pays principle. Thirdly, it indicates the variations of the threshold-bound distributive and incentive bases of environmental tax according to the functions of the polluter-pays principle. Fourthly, it demonstrates the instrumental roles of: (1) Municipal and treated hazardous solid wastes, sludge, and sewer charges in covering the cost of their collection, transportation, treatment and disposal; (2) Effluent charges in restoring authorised water resources degradation; (3) Carbon tax and cap-and-trade in restoring authorised air degradation; (4) Consumption taxes in reinforcing an environmentally friendly pattern of consumption; (5) Royalties in encouraging rational use of scarce natural resources. Finally, it implies that the polluter-pays principle is contingent on setting up a range of legally viable and administratively feasible environmental taxes.

The effectiveness and reliability of the EU ETS depends for a substantial part on the level of compliance in each of the 31 participating states. A lack of compliance in even one or just a few participating countries may harm the functioning of the ETS in the entire EU. So far, attention for compliance of the EU ETS has been mainly focused on harmonization of the MRV-process and on the role of the verifiers in the MRV-process. Little or no attention is paid to enforcement of the EU ETS by the competent authorities in the participating states. We have researched whether in the third phase the compliance mechanism of the EU ETS has sufficiently improved in terms of effectiveness with a specific focus on the role of competent enforcement agencies in the participating countries. From empirical research in a number of EU Member States, we conclude that the final, essential element of the compliance cycle, i.e., administrative and criminal enforcement by the domestic authorities in the Member States is not overall effective. In order to increase resilience and reliability of the EU’s central instrument to achieve future climate change targets, we suggest that more efforts should be undertaken to harmonize the practice of the national competent authorities responsible for the enforcement of the EU ETS.

Europe’s identity is not just contested. It is contested in specific terms, namely which set of properties (values, heritage, or vocation) would uniquely identify Europe? Major ramifications allegedly follow from whatever stance taken in this debate, e.g. with regard to external relations (should the Union come to include Turkey?) and internal institutionalisation (is there a European demos?). Without exception, these arguments derive from representations of Europe’s past. This paper challenges this common bias, taking a cue from Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between ‘Europe en représentation’ and ‘Europe en acte’. It does so by tracking, firstly, how the narrative of Europe’s past vanishes into a myth that we cannot represent but also cannot cut loose from. Secondly, it revisits the incisive critique of a representationalist view on Europe which Nietzsche confronted us with. Here I first address Nietzsche’s explicit, but scattered, notes; then I explore how the same themes are played out in what I consider to be one of the greatest novels on ‘Europe’ of the 20th century, Musil’s The Man without Qualities). Thirdly, the paper argues that the alternative reading of identity in terms of ‘Europe en acte’ allows us to deploy the myth of Europa in prospect rather than retrospect, to bear in mind the multiple ways in which various polities within European lost their innocence, and to stand united in an attitude of prudence with regard to at least three major praxeis of the future: technology, economics and the rule of law. Hence, shared selfhood rather than shared sameness should inspire the terms of the identity debate Идентичность Европы не просто оспаривается, оспариваются ее отдельные составляющие. Какие именно характеристики (ценности наследие, или род занятий) однозначно идентифицируют Европу? По всей видимости, любая позиция, занятая в данной дискуссии, приведет к значительным последствиям, например, в отношении внешней политики (следует ли Евросоюзу включить Турцию в свой состав?) или внутренней институционализации (существует ли европейский народ?). Все эти доводы, без исключения, вытекают из представлений о прошлом Европы. В настоящей статье оспариваются общепринятые утверждения, исходя из различий между ‘Europe en représentation’ и ‘Europe en acte’, на которые указывал Мерло-Понти. Прежде всего, исследуется, как повествование о прошлом Европы растворяется в мифе, который мы не можем воспроизвести, но от которого не в силах избавиться. Во-вторых, рассматривается резкая критика репрезентационного взгляда на Европу, которую нам приводит Ницше. Здесь автор впервые обращается к точным, но достаточно противоречивым заметкам Ницше; далее анализируется, как те же самые темы отражены в одном из величайших, по мнению автора, романов о Европе ХХ века, «Человек без свойств» Роберта Музиля). В-третьих, в статье утверждается, что альтернативное понимание идентичности в рамках ‘Europe en acte’ позволяет развернуть миф о Европе в перспективе, а не в ретроспективе, принимая во внимание сценарии, по которым различные страны в рамках Евросоюза потеряли свою идентичность, чтобы объединиться для благоразумного решения трех основных задач будущего: развития технологий, экономики и верховенства закона. Следовательно, дискуссия об идентичности должна больше опираться на коллективную индивидуальность, чем коллективное единообразие

In Russian spatial planning processes, ecological issues are currently considered almost exclusively through zoning regulations within urban planning processes. The Federal Urban Planning Code 2004 provides the legal basis for these regulations. Recent efforts for its amendment, which also include the introduction of strategic environmental assessments of plans and programmes, could strengthen the consideration of environmental issues in spatial planning. The first part of the article presents the main regulations concerning spatial planning in Russia. The second part will describe the most important legal instruments for taking into account ecological issues. Last but not least, it focuses on approaches to improve the integration of ecological issues into spatial planning decisions as well as on deficiencies and regulatory gaps.

This chapter discusses the extent in which wilderness in Europe receives legal protection under the European Union's Natura 2000 regime.

Proposed large-scale intentional interventions in natural systems in order to counter climate change, typically called “climate engineering” or “geoengineering,” stand to dramatically alter the international politics of climate change and potentially much more. There is currently a significant and growing literature on the international politics of climate engineering. However, it has been produced primarily by scholars from outside the discipline of International Relations (IR). We are concerned that IR scholars are missing a critical opportunity to offer insights into, and perhaps help shape, the emerging international politics of climate engineering. To that end, the primary goal of this paper is to call the attention of the IR community to these developments. Thus, we offer here an overview of the existing literature on the international politics of climate engineering and a preliminary assessment of its strengths and lacunae. We trace several key themes in this corpus, including problem structure, the concern that climate engineering could undermine emissions cuts, the potentially “slippery slope” of research and development, unilateral implementation, interstate conflict, militarization, rising tensions between industrialized and developing countries, and governance challenges and opportunities. The international politics of climate engineering is then considered through the lenses of the leading IR theories (Realism, Institutionalism, Liberalism, and Constructivism), exploring both what they have contributed and possible lines of future inquiry. Disciplinary IR scholars should have much to say on a number of topics related to climate engineering, including its power and transformational potentials, the possibility of counter-climate engineering, issues of institutional design, international law, and emergent practices. We believe that it is incumbent on the IR community, whose defining focus is international relations, to turn its attention to these unprecedented technologies and to the full scope of possible ramifications they might have for the international system.

Wilderness areas are characterized by a relatively high degree of naturalness, the absence of proof of modern human society (e.g., roads, buildings, bridges, motorized transportation) and a relatively large size (IUCN 2008). Worldwide, wilderness areas are becoming more scarce and this article focuses on the role of law in protecting such areas. The discussion starts with an analysis of the historic human-nature attitude in Western society and how this attitude has influenced legal concepts regarding private property on land and territorial sovereignty. It will be shown that these concepts have stimulated active land transformation by humankind and that (as a consequence) wilderness protection is not embedded in our Western legal roots. Next, the discussion focuses on the response to the increasing awareness of the downside of modern human civilization: a changing human-nature attitude in the Nineteenth Century and the adoption of a large number of international nature protection conventions in the Twentieth Century. However, all this ‘law making’ has not resulted in comprehensive wilderness protection at the global or regional level, which may be explained by a number of important weaknesses in these conventions and their implementation. Probably, many of these weaknesses have much to do with weaknesses of humankind itself, such as the difficulty to accept limitations to our social and economic ambitions and our disability to deal with accumulative impacts. Against the background of these discussions, the final part of this chapter discusses options for strengthening wilderness protection with an emphasis on the importance of making deliberate policy choices to protect wilderness.

In recent years strong concerns have been raised about the protection of the remaining areas of wilderness in Europe. Despite an extensive human footprint, Europe still retains large areas with a high degree of native and free functioning ecosystems, where roads, buildings, bridges, cables and other permanent manifestations of modern society are absent. In the past, such ‘wilderness areas’ were considered ‘wastelands’ whose value lay only in their potential for cultivation and economic exploitation. Today, wilderness areas are increasingly cherished as places for rest and recreation, homelands for indigenous people, and as important areas for scientific research, biodiversity conservation and the mitigation of and adaptation to certain climate change effects. Despite this growing appreciation of wilderness values, however, numerous threats to Europe’s wilderness remain, such as fragmentation and the tensions inherent between economic development and ecological conservation. Against this background, this book provides the first major appraisal of the role of international, European and domestic law in protecting wilderness areas and their distinguishing qualities in Europe. Part I of the book provides an international history of wilderness protection and introduces the remaining wilderness areas in Europe and their ecological, social and economical values. Part II examines the extent to which wilderness in Europe is protected through international and regional conventions and EU nature conservation law. Part III analyses wilderness protection under the domestic legal systems of selected European countries, many of which have developed unique approaches to the conservation, management and re-establishment of wilderness within their territory. Part IV examines the lessons learned from these international, regional and national approaches, identifies the obstacle to wilderness protection in Europe and considers whether and how the legal protection of wilderness can be further advanced. This book will be of particular interest to environmental lawyers, students of environmental law, as well as specialists in ecology, geography, environmental policy and the management of protected areas in Europe.

While most people experience their nationality as a fixed and integral feature of their identity, it is not necessarily a permanent or immoveable characteristic. Indeed, most States’ nationality laws feature a set of rules—alongside those which elaborate the conditions for acquisition of nationality—which stipulate the grounds upon which a national can lose or be deprived of that nationality. With concern rising about international terrorism and now the phenomenon of foreign fighters, governments have been rediscovering nationality policy as a potential instrument in the protection of their national security interests. This chapter highlights a range of States’ perspectives on the deprivation of nationality and discusses recent developments in national-level debate and/or policy around the deprivation of nationality from foreign fighters. It then goes on to explore the international law implications of an expanded use of such deprivation powers. In particular, the chapter looks at the international law prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of nationality and what this requires of States that would seek to deprive a person of nationality in response to their engagement in an armed conflict in a third country. It discusses how international legal standards relating to the prevention of Statelessness restrict States’ powers of deprivation of nationality and asks what the significance is of such restrictions for the enjoyment of nationality by dual nationals. Finally, the chapter also assesses to what extent different approaches to the deprivation of nationality from foreign fighters pose a challenge from the perspective of the international law principle of non-discrimination.

In the face of dire forecasts of climate change and disappointing emissions abatement, some scientists and others are increasingly suggesting and researching intentional, large-scale interventions in natural systems in order to counteract climate change. These ‘climate engineering’ or ‘geoengineering’ proposals presently appear to hold the potential to significantly reduce the risks from climate change, but they also would pose environmental and social risks and would raise numerous legal questions, particularly at the international level. After introducing climate engineering, this chapter suggests why climate engineering is challenging for international environmental law and its scholars, briefly describes applicable international legal instruments and reviews the existing legal scholarship on the international environmental law of climate engineering, with particular attention to proposals for future international regulation. It closes with suggestions for future research.

More than 80% of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) range in Africa still exists outside of formal protected areas, and sits across many administrative and political boundaries. These ranges comprise a matrix of multi-use landscapes of potentially divergent administrative, legal and political systems. It is further recognised that the evolution of the various human focused administrative systems, from an elephant conservation perspective, has been ad hoc and without integration. This has resulted in or facilitated a progressive encroachment on the natural range by human settlement and agricultural activities. The movement of elephant across international boundaries results in a parochial approach to their management, particularly within a context of increasing human-wildlife conflict, and an inconsistent consideration of ecological requirements of the elephant at a trans-boundary level, leading to a mismanagement of these populations, at a trans-boundary level. This study investigates the conservation and management of the Central Limpopo River Valley (CLRV) elephant population roaming between Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and utilizing the trilateral Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area (GMTFCA). The desirability of conserving and managing wildlife at the level of the biological unit of the trans-boundary population is taken as a starting-point, following insights from trans-boundary large carnivore and waterbird species in Europe. The many legal and policy frameworks applicable to the CLRV elephant population are identified and tested against this approach. The current approach taken in respect of the CRLV elephant population meets the benchmark to a substantial degree, although some essential steps remain to be taken. We discuss potential adjustments to laws and policies that are required to ensure the ecological stability of trans-boundary elephant populations, and to provide for their collective management.

The wilderness values of Antarctica receive explicit legal protection under the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty. However, different opinions exist, on the one hand, as regards the precise meaning of the wilderness concept at the international and national level and, on the other hand, in respect to the question what consequences may arise from the legal obligation to protect Antarctica’s wilderness values, in particular as regards tourism policy. Due to these divergences, the international debate has been stagnating for several years and no progress could be achieved towards the protection of respective values. Against this background, a PhD-project on the relevance of a wilderness concept for managing tourist and other non-governmental activities in Antarctica will be presented. The project investigates the central research question: “To what extent can the concept of protecting Antarctic wilderness values constitute a basis for regulating tourism and other non-governmental activities in Antarctica, taking particular notice of experiences and ‘lessons learnt’ in other wilderness areas in the world?” At the conference, first results of one of the ‘lessons to be learnt’ case studies, conducted in relation to the wilderness of Svalbard, will be presented. They include, among others, the priorities set by the present regulatory system of Svalbard towards the wilderness characteristics of (1) a minimum size, (2) the absence of infrastructure, (3) the natural intactness, and (4) the provision of solitude. Furthermore, they elaborate on the preferences that are made in terms of selecting regulatory instruments, such as the designation of protected areas and the duty to conduct Environmental Impact Assessments. Despite ambitious political strategies and numerous regulatory efforts towards wilderness protection in Svalbard, preliminary results indicate that economic interests prevail over the interest of preserving “the area’s distinctive natural wilderness”.