14. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Abstract

UNEP promotes the development and implementation of environmental law with a view to sustainable development. In particular, it supports states and the international community in strengthening their capacity to develop and implement legal frameworks; it promotes the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements; and it administers the secretariats of numerous multilateral environmental agreements. It also provides technical legal assistance and capacity-building training to developing states and states with economies in transition. UNEP also disseminates information through an online environmental law database (ECOLEX) and various publications. In 2010, UNEP commenced its medium-term strategy for 2010-13, which marks a new direction with a focus on six key areas: climate change; disasters and conflicts; ecosystem management; environmental governance; harmful substances and hazardous waste; and resource efficiency, sustainable consumption, and production. This report will focus on UNEP’s contribution to international environmental law in 2010 in these six key areas. UNEP focused on providing support for climate change adaptation in 2010. This focus was achieved by increasing the knowledge and capacity of states to undertake vulnerability and adaptation assessments, providing countries with policy and legal support to translate the knowledge into policy and decision making, and conducting pilot demonstrations to show how adaptation can increase resilience to climate change.