Law for the Living Environment
Prof. Dr. Josephine van Zeben
About me
What? Designing legal rules and institutions to facilitate transitions to a sustainable living environment.
My research interests focuses on the legal management of complex problems by pluricentric systems, for example, the regulation of climate change by the European Union. This research focus has led me to establish substantive legal expertise in EU and international environmental law, constitutional and administrative law, and comparative law, as these areas of scholarship embody the types of institutional challenges that inform my broader research interests.How? When we know more, we see more.
Workable solutions to the social challenges that we face today depend on interdisciplinary collaboration. One of the key challenges of multi-disciplinary research is to meaningfully translate definitions and approaches between them in order to create a shared language. These insights can strengthen and enrich existing doctrinal legal foundations.Where? International and interdisciplinary working.
Since 2019, I am Chair of the Law Group, and full professor, at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands - a unique place for interdisciplinary research which brings together the social and life sciences. I have also been taught my course "Environmental Regulation: Law and Policy" at the ETH Zurich (Switzerland) since 2012. Through these positions, and my membership of several academic networks, I passionately engage in interdisciplinary research and teaching about our living environment.More detailed information about past and current projects can be found on my WUR page.
Academic Appointments
[10/2019 - present] Wageningen University & Research, Chair Law Group, full professor of law
[09/2012 - present] ETH Zurich - Visiting Lecturer (Environmental Regulation: Law & Policy)
[09/2014 - 09/2019] Worcester College, University of Oxford - Tutorial Fellow in Law (EU Law, UK Constitutional and Administrative Law, Environmental Law)
[Spring 2016] Visiting Professor Notre Dame University
[01/2013 - 01/2014] Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis - Postdoctoral Researcher
Publications
You can find links to all my publications via my Google Scholar Profile or visit my SSRN page.
On this page, I provide links to my most recent book projects.
"A Guide to EU Environmental Law"
(University of California Press, 2020)Information/order from University of California Press
"Policy Instruments in Environmental Law"
(Edward Elgar, 2020)Information/order from Edward Elgar
"Polycentricity in the European Union"
(Cambridge University Press, 2019)Information/buy from Cambridge University Press
"The Allocation of Regulatory Competence in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme"
(Cambridge University Press, 2014)Information/buy from Cambridge University Press
Research
Research overview
This page is for archival reference only; latest projects can be found on my WUR page.
A Polycentric Europe?
Post-doctoral research funded by the Niels Stensen Fellowship
[Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in Bloomington, Indiana (USA)].
As a descriptive theory of governance, polycentric governance is characterized by the presence of many centres of decision-making, which are formally autonomous and may compete and/or collaborate under an overarching shared system of rules. Normatively, polycentric governance accommodates both representative and deliberative models of democracy by placing intrinsic value on individual self-governance without prescribing specific outcomes to the process of governance. The institutional set-up of polycentric systems aims to ensure balance between decision-making centres so as to prevent dominance of certain centres and safeguard continued self-governance. Adopting a polycentric perspective means to conceptualize society as a collection of rule-based interactions between individuals, shaped by individuals.
My polycentric research agenda has worked towards two aims. First, I seek to assess the extent to which the EU does, and could, sustain polycentric governance. In doing so, it seeks to offer an alternative theory of governance for the EU, as compared to existing pluricentric EU governance theories, specifically federalism, multi-level governance, constitutional pluralism, and multilevel constitutionalism.
The application of polycentric theory to the EU has been very limited: Vincent Ostrom commented on the European Union several times but never developing polycentric theory to fit the EUs particular context. More generally, polycentric theory has thus far primarily been used to explain (local) governance in the United States, and resource management by local communities worldwide. This can partly be explained by definitional issues that restrict the application of polycentricity as a theory of governance, which leads to my second aim: to expand the scope of application of polycentric theory itself.
The preliminary findings of this project can be found in the edited volume Polycentricity of the European Union, with Ana Bobic (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Environmental Law & Policy
My environmental focussed-research started with my doctoral work (see below). I continue to publish widely on environmental law and policy, focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on jurisdictional issues and the use of different policy instruments.Together with Arden Rowell, I am working on an exciting project called "Essential Environmental Law". This series of five books will set out the foundational elements of environmental law in key jurisdictions, including the United States, the EU, Brazil, China and India. The series is under contract with University of California Press. The first two books on the United States and the European Union are will be in print in 2020.
Competence Allocation &
Regulatory Functioning: A Study of the EU ETS
My PhD research examined how the allocation of competence at different regulatory levels affects the effectiveness of regulatory tools. This work builds on existing economic and legal theories regarding the benefits and costs of (de)centralization by distinguishing between specific regulatory competences – i.e. norm setting, implementation, and enforcement – and by making the interactions between these competences explicit. Environmental problems are particularly complex and often in need of multi-jurisdictional solutions.
I applied the theoretical findings of my doctoral work to climate change regulation within the EU through emissions trading. The deviations from the theoretically first-best allocation in the trading phases of the EU ETS can explain some of the problems in the earlier trading phases. In turn, these deviations can be explained by the political economy of the EU ETS, which shows that first-best allocation is hard to achieve during the foundation of a new regulatory regime due to the relative strength of certain stakeholders in the political process.
The results of this project have been published in the monograph The Allocation of Regulatory Competence in the European Emissions Trading Scheme (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and several other peer reviewed articles on climate change and environmental regulation.