The European Union and environmental unilateralism: a quest for global regulatory dominance

The EU is proactively marketing itself as a global leader on the environment and climate. Whilst championing for better protection of the environment at a time of a climate crisis is commendable, a problematic phenomenon is taking place. The EU is increasingly relying on unilateral measures aimed at shaping both process and legal standards outside of EU territory, hence challenging the sovereignty of other states. These internal measures of an outward-looking nature include the EU Timber Regulation, the inclusion of aviation to the EU Emissions Trading System, and importantly, more proposals have been heard, such as a proposal for an EU legal framework to halt and reverse EU-driven global deforestation. This enthusiasm towards unilateral action on the environment and climate welcomes critical analysis of these measures as tools for global environmental and climate governance. This thesis argues that regulation needs to be characterized as a form of power, exercised by the EU in the shape of unilateral regulation. In this context, unilateralism is utilized as a strategy of a global hegemon looking to compel others into its dominant worldview, accomplished here by establishing European standards as global standards. Hence, whilst the EU’s unilateral measures can secure better protection of the environment and climate, and are merited with success in creating transnational environmental law, they remain highly problematic. This thesis focuses on the international legal order and how it accommodates unilateralism in the field of environmental and climate law. It is argued that the EU’s unilateral measures should be regarded as an extraterritorial exercise of jurisdiction. Due to this conclusion, it will be considered whether multilateralism as the basis of international environmental law is a thing of the past and whether unilateral measures could be justified on a reconceptualized legal order, which accommodates unilateralism. Such discussion is relevant due to the current climate crisis and calls for a reconceptualization of the legal order into one which sees the environment and climate as a global concern facing all of humanity and knowing no territorial borders. It will be argued that the EU’s unilateral measures aimed at producing environmental standards outside its territory are not a reflection of a shift in the international legal order or the end of multilateralism but reflect the EU’s ambitions of global regulatory dominance