EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It is increasingly recognized that effectively enforced environmental law is critical to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the SDG global indicator framework, as approved by the UN General Assembly in 2017, has generally overlooked environment-specific legal indicators, undermining the role of environmental law in achieving the SDGs.

As a result, existing indicators for measuring progress on SDG implementation seldom refer to the contribution of environmental law and hardly reflect qualitative data that would allow its effectivity to be gauged, thereby disregarding the impact of environmental legislation on the success or failure of environmental policies.States need to accurately assess the effectivity of environmental laws and treaties by means of consistent legal indicators. This can assist governments, parliaments and civil society to track progress, gaps and regressions, so as to precisely measure the extent to which existing laws and treaties are effectively implemented, and to chart the path to suitable reforms, as appropriate. Their mathematical processing makes it possible to produce decision-making dashboards, and to visually identify the levels of application of the law, together with areas for improvement.From this perspective, the International Center for Comparative Environmental Law (CIDCE) has outlined an innovative methodology for the development of science-based legal indicators of effectivity. This paper illustrates their usefulness, advocating their establishment to accurately evaluate the effectivity of environmental law at national, regional and global levels, including for reviewing progress in achieving relevant SDGs.The paper explores ways to foster the use of the suggested indicators for furthering the implementation of SDGs having direct bearing on the legal protection of the environment. This entails refinements to the SDG global indicator framework, conceivably involving the addition of new indicators or the revision of current indicators with a view to advancing the realization of environment-related SDGs.

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