Editorial: Changes

Initially, we thank our readers and contributors for their patience with delays in publication this year, attributable not only to the COVID-19 quarantines, but also to the need to settle in with new publication and submission procedures being instituted by our publisher. In this connection, we note that the pause in the international meeting schedule has given us the opportunity to look back at important meetings in 2019, and to take a new interest in information provided by international institutions on how they are responding to the COVID-19 issues.

On a very different topic, we at EPL would like to warmly congratulate Elizabeth Maruma Mrema on her recent appointment as Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. We know her as an excellent lawyer, diplomat and advisor, with a long list of real-world credentials and accomplishments to accompany her academic credentials. She is also a staunch defender of the environment and a very nice person. We are confident that her elevation to this position, after temporarily holding it for some months, was an excellent decision.

Finally, as explained in our editorial in issue 1– 2 of this volume, IOS is in the process of identifying new additions to EPL’s team. Chief among these is the addition of Professor Bharat Desai (a longtime friend to this journal, its founder and the undersigned) who will become our co-Managing Editor. Professor Desai’s credentials in the field of environmental law and policy are well known and his excellent commentaries on the need for and development of institutional structures of environmental cooperation at the international level are very familiar to our readers and have been very well received. Professor Desai will guest edit our sixth issue of 2020, a “special issue” to be titled “Our Earth Matters: Pathways to Our Common Environmental Future”, which will come out in December, and he will then join us in editing of all issues beginning in January 2021.

EPL would also like to welcome the following new “associate editors”:

Ilker K. Basaran, Ph.D. – Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey

Elizabeth Kirk, LL.M. – University of Lincoln, College of Social Science, Lincoln, UK

Elisa Morgera, Ph.D. – University of Strathclyde Law School, Glasgow, UK

Melanie Jean Murcott, LL.D. – University of Pretoria, Department of Public Law, Pretoria, South Africa

Walters Nsoh, Ph.D. – Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Tiina Paloniitty, LL.D. – Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science and Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

David C. Smith, Ph.D. – The University of the West Indies, Institute for Sustainable Development, Kingston, Jamaica

Cleo Verkuijl, LL.M. – Stockholm Environment Institute, SEI Oxford, Oxford, UK

And the following additions to EPL’s Editorial Board:

Eeva Furman, Ph.D. – Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, Environmental Policy Centre, Helsinki, Finland

Camena Guneratne, Ph.D. – Open University of Sri Lanka, Department of Legal Studies, Nawala, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka

Michelle Lim, Ph.D. – Macquarie University, Macquarie Law School, Sydney, Australia

We note again that this is an on-going process and will keep our readers posted on how our team is growing.

Tomme Rosanne Young

Managing Editor, Environmental Policy and Law