About
Veerle Heyvaert is a Professor at LSE Law School and founding Editor-in-Chief of Transnational Environmental Law. She is also Associate Dean of LSE Law School. She teaches environmental law and European law. She has an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence (It). In 1998-1999, she was the inaugural Sir Peter North Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Keble College, Oxford. She has published extensively on issues of transnational environmental law and risk regulation, including books on Transnational Environmental Regulation and Governance. Purpose, Strategies and Principles (CUP, 2019) and European Environmental Law (CUP, 2017, with S. Kingston & A Čavoški).
Research
Research Interests
Current research interest cover international environmental law and questions of compliance with international commitments, new developments in European environmental law, and in particular the reform of the EU regulatory framework for chemicals control.
Publications
Research Handbook on Transnational Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, 2020) edited by Veerle Heyvaert (LSE) and Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli (KCL)
This illuminating Research Handbook offers a detailed overview and critical discussion of the key themes and perspectives that characterize the burgeoning research area of transnational environmental law. Varied perspectives from leading and emerging scholars are brought together to deliver methodological and conceptual frameworks for future research, whilst providing an original view on this emerging field of law.
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Transnational Environmental Regulation and Governance: Purpose, Strategies and Principles (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
A large and growing proportion of contemporary environmental regulation is transnational, which means that it is impossible to understand environmental governance without a firm grasp of the nature of transnational environmental regulation (TER). In this illuminating work, Veerle Heyvaert offers readers a comprehensive discussion of TER, including analysis of international environmental agreements, regional and EU regulation, private environmental regulation, and governance networks, arguing that TER is highly diverse but sufficiently cohesive to allow the identification of shared characteristics that establish TER as a model of regulation. The book uncovers the key features of TER, and analyses the various intentions of TER regulators, TER's governance principles and compliance strategies, using a newly developed activity-based methodology for regulatory analysis. This book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the strengths and weaknesses of transnational environmental governance and its contribution to sustainability.
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European Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press: 2018) (with Suzanne Kingston and Aleksandra Čavoški)
EU Environmental Law is a critical, comprehensive and engaging account of the essential and emerging issues in European environmental law and regulation today. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, the book delivers a thematic and contextual treatment of the subject for those taking courses in environmental law, environmental studies, regulation and public policy, and government and international relations. Placing the key issues in context, EU Environmental Law takes an interdisciplinary and thematic approach to help students to better understand the implementation and enforcement of environmental law and policy across Europe. It offers an accessible overview, and links theory with practical applications that will allow students to contextualise the outcomes of legal rules and their impact on public and private behaviours. It provides a definitive account of the subject, examining traditional topics such as nature conservation law, waste law and water law, alongside increasingly important fields such as the law of climate change, environmental human rights law, and regulation of GMOs and nanotechnology.
- 'Dislocation of environmental litigation – new developments in corporate liability for environmental harm' European Business Law Review (2024) 35 (3-4). pp. 403-428
- 'Governing Intersystemic Systemic Risks: Lessons from Covid and Climate Change' Modern Law Review (online first) (March 2022)
- 'If at first you don't succeed: suing corporations for climate change' O.J.L.S. 2018, 38(4), 841-868 (with Geetanjali Ganguly and Joana Setzer)
- 'Environmental Law' in Michael Dougan ed. The UK After Brexit: Legal and Policy Challenges (Intersentia, 2017) (with Aleksandra Čavoški)
- 'The Transnationalisation of Law: Rethinking Law Through Transnational Environmental Regulation' Transnational Environmental Law 2017, 6(2), 205-236; first appeared in Law, Society and Economy Working Paper Series 04-2016
- 'With Reference to the Environment: The Preliminary Reference Procedure, Environmental Decisions and the Domestic Judiciary' (2014) 130 (July) LQR pp.413-442 (with Justine Thornton and Richard Drabble)
- ‘What's in a Name? The Covenant of Mayors as Transnational Environmental Regulation' (pages 78–90); Vol 22(1) RECIEL (2013)
- 'Regulatory Competition - Accounting For the Transnational Dimension of Environmental Regulation' Journal of Environmental Law (2012) 25 (1) pp.1-31
- ‘Introducing Transnational Environmental Law’ (2012) 1(1) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 1-11 (with Thijs Etty)
- 'Governing Climate Change. Towards a New Paradigm for Risk Regulation' (2011) 74:6 The Modern Law Review, pp. 817-844
- 'Aarhus to Helsinki: Participation in Environmental Decision-Making on Chemicals' Chapter 7 of Interactions and Tensions between Conventional International Law and EU Environmental Law (Europa : 2011)
- 'Regulating Chemical Risk: REACH in a Global Governance Perspective' in Regulating Chemical Risks, European and Global Challenges, Eriksson, Johan; Gilek, Michael; Rudén, Christina (eds.) (Springer : 2010)
- 'Levelling Down, Levelling Up, and Governing Across: Three Responses to Hybridization in International Law' European Journal of International Law 2009 20(3):647-674
- 'Globalizing regulation: reaching beyond the borders of chemical safety' Journal of Law and Society 2009, 36(1), 110-128.
- 'The EU’s Chemicals Policy: Towards Inclusive Governance?' in E. Vos, European Risk Governance: Its Science,Its Inclusiveness and Its Effectiveness (CONNEX book series, Mannheim); first published as 'The EU’s Chemicals Policy: Towards Inclusive Governance?' (LSE Law Department Working Paper, March 2008)
- 'No Data, No Market. The Future of EU Chemicals Control under the REACH Regulation' Vol. 9 Environmental Law Review, pp. 201-206
- “Overleven in het Europees gemeenschapsrecht: het voorzorgsbeginsel tussen integratie en identiteitsverlies” (“Surviving in European Community Law: the precautionary principle between integration and identity loss”) SEW Tijdschrift voor Europees en Economisch Recht (Issue 9), pp. 306-315 (approx. 8500 w)
- 'Facing the Consequences of the Precautionary Principle in European Community Law' Vol. 31 European Law Review (2006, Issue 2), 185-207
- 'Guidance Without Constraint: Assessing the Impact of the Precautionary Principle on the European Community’s Chemicals Policy' Vol 6. Yearbook of European Environmental Law (2006), 27-60
- 'Codificazione e centralizzazione da un punto di vista inglese' in D. De Carolis, E. Ferrari & A. Police (eds.), L’ambiente e l’attivita amministrativa (Milano, Giuffre, 2006)
- 'Codification and Centralisation of Environmental Law: a UK Perspective' Rivista Italiana di Diritto Pubblico Comunitario (2005, Issue 5)
- 'Wie wordt er wijzer van. Enige bedenkingen bij het recht op toegang tot milieu-informatie' ('Who is any wiser? Pondering the right of access to environmental information') in Christine Larssen, Dix ans d’access a l’information en matiere d’environnment en droit international, europeen et interne. Bilan et Perspectives. Actes du colloque organise par l’Association Belge du Droit de l’Environnement et l’ULB (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2003), 17-33
- 'Trade and the Environment: Proportionality Substituted?' Vol. 13 Journal of Environmental Law (2001, Issue 3), 392-407
- 'Institutions for Regulating Risk', with Stephen Breyer, in Richard B. Stewart, Richard L. Revesz & Philippe Sands (eds.), Environmental Law, the Economy and Sustainable Development (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 283-352
Teaching
Engagement and impact
External Activities
Veerle Heyvaert is a Founding Editor-in-Chief of Transnational Environmental Law, a peer-reviewed journal published by CUP.