As Patricia Birnie cautiously and prophetically put it in the inaugural issue of this journal (INEA 1, January 2001, p. 74), “we do not know whether States and the tentative regimes they have so far established can withstand the pressures of globalization of trade and degradation and over-exploitation generated by advances in technologies for locating, fertilizing, harvesting, processing and modifying natural resources and biodiversity. This is truly terra incognita in which such seeds of destruction may already be implanted.” Among the 600 or so papers and reviews published in INEA from 2001 to 2020, more than 70 deal wholly or partly with legal aspects of environmental problems and the international dimensions of environmental justice. While the main focus of INEA has been on issues of public international (inter-state) law, there have also been important inputs drawn from comparative legal analysis (of national legislation and judicial decisions) and from “transnational administrative law” that influence the effectiveness of multilateral treaties and their associated international institutions. Novel concepts and practices emerging from the environmental field (such as recourse to a range of “soft law” principles; flexible delegated standard-setting in the face of global change; and equitable differentiation of compliance duties) have inspired developments in related areas of contemporary international law-making and law-applying. At the same time, the very proliferation of multilateral and bilateral environmental instruments raised new questions and expressions of alarm over “treaty congestion” and “fragmentation” within the international law system. It is not the intention of this paper to explore the general interaction of international environmental law with neighboring disciplines such as international economic law or human rights law, but simply to record the “seismographic” impact of INEA on legal-intellectual discourse over these past two decades. To some extent, the role of the Journal in identifying both new prospects and new risks in this field could indeed be likened to that of a “canary in the coal-mine.” The lessons so learnt may thus offer new insights to help in averting the destruction which Birnie visualized, and to advance inter-generationally and intra- generationally shared values of environmental justice.

正如 Patricia Birnie 在本刊创刊号（INEA 1，2001 年 1 月，第 74 页）中谨慎而预言性地指出的那样，“我们不知道国家和它们迄今建立的初步制度能否承受全球化的压力。定位、施肥、收获、加工和改变自然资源和生物多样性的技术进步所产生的贸易、退化和过度开发。这是真正的未知领域，其中可能已经植入了这种破坏的种子。” 在 2001 年至 2020 年期间，INEA 发表的 600 多篇论文和评论中，有 70 多篇完全或部分涉及环境问题的法律方面和环境正义的国际层面。虽然 INEA 的主要关注点是国际公法（国家间），也有来自比较法律分析（国家立法和司法决定）和“跨国行政法”的重要投入这会影响多边条约及其相关国际机构的有效性。环境领域出现的新概念和实践（例如诉诸一系列“软法律”原则；面对全球变化的灵活授权标准制定；以及合规职责的公平区分）激发了当代相关领域的发展。国际立法和法律适用。与此同时，多边和双边环境文书的激增引发了对国际法体系内“条约拥塞”和“碎片化”的新问题和警觉。本文的目的不是探讨国际环境法与国际经济法或人权法等相邻学科的一般相互作用，而只是记录过去两年国际环境署对法律知识话语的“地震”影响几十年。在某种程度上，《华尔街日报》在识别该领域的新前景和新风险方面的作用确实可以比作“煤矿中的金丝雀”。因此，所吸取的教训可能会提供新的见解，以帮助避免 Birnie 设想的破坏，并促进代际和代内共享的环境正义价值观。《华尔街日报》在确定该领域的新前景和新风险方面的作用确实可以比作“煤矿中的金丝雀”。因此，所吸取的教训可能会提供新的见解，以帮助避免 Birnie 设想的破坏，并促进代际和代内共享的环境正义价值观。《华尔街日报》在确定该领域的新前景和新风险方面的作用确实可以比作“煤矿中的金丝雀”。因此，所吸取的教训可能会提供新的见解，以帮助避免 Birnie 设想的破坏，并促进代际和代内共享的环境正义价值观。