INTERFOR was organised in four work pachakges, each of them answering a specific aspect of the protection of forests in international law.
1. WP1: With a number of new judicial cases and a rise in interest in rights-based climate litigation, this part of the project analyses in details how forests can change the purpose and nature of such rights-based climate litigation. This WP focuses on how forests-focused arguments can be brought to national courts and be more successful in winning cases that can have positive impact on states’ climate pledges and obligations. This is therefore about the judicial engagement of different interactions between the international, European and national levels of climate governance. In a nutshell, forest-focused arguments have the specific ability to bring together different types of claims, by focusing on the implementation of states’ specific climate obligations related to forests.
2. WP2: This WP focuses specifically on international environmental impact assessments, as the main tool used across the world and in different levels of jurisdictions to plan for development projects in a considerate manner to the environment. Environmental impact assessments have a very strong presence in international law. However, it is clear that the design of environmental impact assessments is flawed in two ways: it excludes the relevant rightsholders of the land where potential harmful projects would take place, and it creates unfettered discretion on the part of the authorities to decide whether projects are indeed harmful or not. This is very clear when looking at forest governance, the object of INTERFOR. This WP tackles these two issues and identifies ways to overcome them.
3. WP3: WP3 focuses on the concept of common concern of humankind, as a way to bridge the two most relevant frameworks for the protection of forests: climate change and biodiversity. Both the UN Convention on Climate Change and the subsequent Paris Agreement, as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity emphasise the reliance of the respective regimes on the common concern of humankind. It is always mentioned in the preamble of the conventions, but it is not always clear what legal consequences this concept has. This WP focuses on this particular question and seeks to define the contours of this notion and its applicability to the protection of forests in international law. It is argued that the concept of common concern of humankind can lead the way to find positive and reinforcing interpretations of both the climate change and biodiversity regimes in ways that make them more compatible and positive for forests.
4. WP4: WP4 was about bringing together all the WPs from INTERFOR. It was about creating that bigger picture of where international forest law and governance stands at, and where the pressure points are. This is why this WP was always about bringing leading experts together to think about it together. This was also a way to establish myself among those experts, and create further connections across the world. This project aims at making sense of the links, tensions and opportunities that the many initiatives from regional, transnational and international entities entail, and provide for an assessment of the impacts of those various areas of law, not individually, but as a whole, on the protection of forests. It aims at understanding how the different areas of international law engage with forests and what these different layers of protection mean for the protection of forests.
