Transnational environmental law in the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT Climate change, biodiversity loss, marine degradation and a pandemic have marked 2020. This article introduces a Special Issue that interrogates transnational environmental law in the context of the Anthropocene and invites reflection on the meaning and role of law in light of changing planetary realties. How law interacts with and governs the global environmental problems is a challenge that legal scholars have approached with vigour over the last decade and, more recently, the concept of the Anthropocene has become a topic that researchers have also begun to grapple with. One avenue of research that has emerged to address global environmental problems is transnational environmental law. Adopting ‘transnational law’ as a lens or framework through which to analyse environmental law takes a broader approach to the ways in which law may be assessed and deployed to meet global environmental challenges. The collection of articles within this Special Issue provide a timely intervention into the theoretical and practical approaches of transnational environmental law in a time of significant global uncertainty and environmental crisis.