Special issue: Law and sustainable development

DOI: 10.1002/sd.2044 EDITORIAL Special issue: Law and sustainable development Despite the large consensus on both the theoretical and ethical levels • the sociocultural dimension of environmental issues and the rule of law. toward sustainable development, a grounded skepticism coming from the business side has been for a long time an obstacle to the imple- • the emerging of social enterprises directly oriented to environmental goals, as part of their “core business”; mentation of practical behaviors and the building of effective rules. The major challenge remains to overcome definitely the trade-offs • the regulation of intrageneration effects of natural resource use (Mc Shane et al. 2011) in favor of economic growth over social well- (assets of biological diversity including ecosystems on land sea and air); being and ecological viability. The achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) • the preservation of cultural and historical heritage. requires the commitment of private and public institutions (UN 2015), and from the economic and political debate, a call for action arises to Law as a research discipline is mainly based in social science, and the member states of the United Nations, required to translate the thus, it is no surprise that several of the contributions to this Special international principles and rules shared so far into local policies and Issues enter from the social dimension of sustainable development regulations. including its cultural aspects (besides the environmental and the eco- In this vein, this Special Issue on Law and Sustainable Development aims to enrich the existing body of knowledge through the dis- nomic dimension; UN 2015), addressing particular issues of social capital, social capacity, and social carrying capacity (Mauerhofer 2019). semination of a selection of studies focused on particular aspects Abraham Klaasen leads in the first contribution titled “The quest related to legislative issues of sustainability in a specific geographic for socio-economic rights; the Rule of Law and violent protest in context. South Africa” to a nation with a very particular sociocultural situation Legal provisions that are responsive to the achievement of suit- where riots threaten the maintenance of the social carrying capacity able conditions of equilibrium under the approach of sustainable within sustainable development. Therein he explores two conven- development—intended as “balanced integration of economic perfor- tional methodologies about how to strengthen the rule of law, namely, mance, social inclusiveness, and environmental resilience, to the bene- the institutional approach and the neocultural interventionist fit of current and future generations” (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017)—are approach. Klaasen (2020) advocates for a reform to strengthen the being issued in all industrialized countries, and although with some rule of law in South Africa toward the realization of socioeconomic delay, this process of enforcement has been initiated also in develop- rights and advocates in this connection an integrated and problem- ing countries. solving approach to the rule of law, focusing on problems experienced As it is well-known, the perspective of sustainability covers almost all aspects of human activities, moving from the need to shift by end users of the law system to complement the substantive components of the rule of law. from an anthropocentric toward an ecocentric view of the economy Within the growing social economy sector, many new terms are (Purser et al. 1995). The ecocentric philosophy urges preservation and starting to gain recognition, and for many of them, there is still no restoration of natural ecosystems and their component species, shared definition. The study of Tineke Lambooy, Pjotr Anthoni, and and claims the adoption of the ecocentric framework in the definition Aikaterini Argyrou (2020), titled “Aren't we all pursuing societal goals and interpretation of the SDGs, as well in designing the body of inter- in our businesses? Defining “societal purpose” as pursued by social national environmental law (Kotzé and French, 2018). enterprises,” highlights the spread of social enterprises in Europe, The public action should encourage private production, when underlining that several legal frameworks refer to “societal purpose” deemed able to boost environmental objectives, and consider sustain- in a general way. Therefore, the authors want to verify how the ability as a priority in the agenda for future development, assuming an notion of societal purpose and the therein reflected public benefit aim active role in guiding the change of the organizational paradigm and can be defined in the context of legislating a tailor-made legal form of the rule of law. for social enterprises. To this aim, both doctrinal and empirical Absolute environmental and social improvements – also consider- research were performed. Results show that there is no universal defi- ing intergenerational and intragenerational justice – should be given nition for social enterprise, that has been defined differently by priority in a flexible decision-making system of priority setting in order scholars and by policymakers of different countries and regions exam- to prevent rebound effects (Mauerhofer 2019). ined. Furthermore, similarities were detected through the comparison Among the different topics considered as the focus of the legislative efforts and examined the following special issue: Sustainable Development. 2020;1–3. of the definition of societal purpose in Dutch legislation and in the Netherlands (Lambooy et al. 2020). wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sd © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment 1 EDITORIAL 2 Jonathan Liljeblad and Khin Thinn Thinn Oo are bringing with Sustainable Development Law. The broad geographic and thematic their paper on “World Heritage Sustainable Development Policy and coverage can serve an interested reader from Science as well as from Local Implementation: Site Management Issues Using a Case Study of Practice with a first “teaser” to explore more and to dive deeper into Sri Ksetra at Pyu Ancient Cities in Myanmar” the cultural aspects of the endless legal widths of environmental, social, and economic inter- the social sustainable development dimension even stronger in the actions toward a sustainable development. focus. Based on a recent resolution on policy within the frame of the Finally, the guest editors would like to take the opportunity to World Heritage Convention (WHC) and a case study about ancient express their sincere appreciation to the authors of the articles pres- cities in Myanmar, the authors explore how management practices ented in this special issue to the reviewers for their valuable feedback toward local communities can frustrate the implementation of WHC and comments and to Sustainable Development for inviting us to be policy goals. The paper argues that the implementation of WH Policy the guest editors of this issue. involves not only the contents of policy statements but also the actions of site management practices, such that efforts to promote sustainable development via community participation require consideration of both the articulation of appropriate management systems in formal policy documents as well as the practice of appropriate conduct by those systems (Liljeblad and Thinn Thinn Oo, 2020). KE YWOR DS law, national policy, regulation, sustainability, sustainable development goals (SDG) The next paper in this special issue is written by a larger team of Volker Mauerhofer1 authors, namely, Nguyen Hong Quan, Tran Duc Dung, Dang Kim Khoi, Daniela Rupo2 Dorien Korbee, Pham Dang Manh Hong Luan, Vu Thi Lan, Luu Tang, Lara Tarquinio3 Ho Huu Loc, Nguyen Tan Phat, Ngo Thi Thu Trang, Nguyen Thi Kim Dung, Andrew Wyatt, Maaike van Aalst, Tran Anh Thong, and William B. Seal. It is titled “Land use dynamics in the Mekong Delta: From 1 Department of Ecotechnology and Sustainable Building Engineering, Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden national policy to livelihood sustainability”. Thus, it connects the economic and social dimension of sustainable development stronger with the environmental one. They investigate in the Vietnamese Mekong 2 3 Department of Economics, University of Messina, Messina, Italy Department of Economic Studies, University of Pescara, Pescara, Italy Delta (VMD) land-use changes during the past based on institutional analyses across multiple scales, that is, from national, provincial to local livelihood based on institutional and sustainability analysis. The results indicated a strong relationship between legal settings over the last 30 years on land use and livelihood transitions. In addition, the Correspondence Volker Mauerhofer, Department of Ecotechnology and Sustainable Building Engineering, Mid Sweden University, Akademigatan 1, Building Q, Room Q317, SE-831 25, Östersund, Sweden. Email: volker.mauerhofer@miun.se authors identify the constraints of implementing national legal frameworks at provincial level in practice (including effects to local livelihoods) and offer some recommendations for sustainable livelihoods in the VMD, with a focus on increasing socioecological resilience (Nguyen et al. 2020). With a focus on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), Aysegul Sirakaya comes with her paper title “A Balanced ABS System: Stakeholder Perception on ABS Goals” from the environmental angle of biological diversity and explore the social dimension of a sustainable use of environmental assets. She addresses the current perception regarding the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol which is that the national implementations bring complexities for both the provider countries and users of genetic resources (GR) that result in less willingness to access GR. Then she identifies an apparent need for a methodology in regulating ABS models in a way that is supportive for both the provider countries and users. Sirakaya (2020) provides with hear paper an introductory part of a comprehensive study on creating a methodology for mutually supportive ABS systems for users and providers by introducing international ABS goals and the stakeholders' (both users and providers) perceptions thereof. This short introduction can only provide a glimpsy overview of the multifaceted structures and contents of the papers and how they roughly fit into an emerging but already wide research field of RE FE RE NCE S Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N. M. P., & Hultink, E. J. (2017). The circular economy—A new sustainability paradigm. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 757–768. Klaasen A. (2020), The quest for socio-economic rights; the Rule of Law and violent protest in South Africa (this Special Issue) Kotzé, L. J., & French, D. (2018). The anthropocentric ontology of international environmental law and the sustainable development goals: Towards an ecocentric rule of law in the Anthropocene. Global Journal of Comparative Law, 7, 5–36. Lambooy T., Anthoni P., Argyrou A. (2020) Aren't we all pursuing societal goals in our businesses? Defining ‘societal purpose’ as pursued by social enterprises, highlight the spread of social enterprises in Europe, underlining that several legal frameworks refer to ‘societal purpose (this Special Issue) Liljeblad J. and Thinn Thinn Oo, K. (2020) World heritage sustainable development policy & local implementation: Site management issues using a case study of Sri Ksetra at Pyu ancient cities in myanmar (this Special Issue). Mauerhofer, V. (2019). Legal institutions and ecological economics: Their common contribution for achieving a sustainable development. Ecological Economics, 156, 350–359. McShane, T. O., Hirsch, P. D., Trung, T. C., Songorwa, A. N., Kinzig, A., Monteferri, B., O'Connor, S. (2011). Hard choices: Making trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Biological Conservation, 14, 966–972. EDITORIAL Nguyen H. Q., Tran D. D., Dang K. K., Korbee D., Pham D. M. H. L., Vu T. L., Luu T., Ho H. L., Nguyen T. P., Ngo T. T. T., Nguyen T. K. D., Wyatt A., van Aalst M., T. A. T., Sea W.B. (2020). Land use dynamics in the Mekong Delta: From national policy to livelihood sustainability (this Special Issue) Purser, R. E., Park, C., & Montuori, A. (1995). Limits to anthropocentrism: Toward an ecocentric organization paradigm? Academy of Management Review, 20(4), 1053–1089. 3 Sirakaya A. (2020). A Balanced ABS System: Stakeholder Perception on ABS Goals (this Special Issue) UN (2015) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 Sept 2015,” Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” A/RES/70/1, Retrieved at 27th Sept 2016 from https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/ generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_70_1_E.pdf