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Professor M. Pallemaerts (1960) has been appointed Professor of European Environmental Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam.

Marc Pallemaerts studied law and political science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Harvard Law School. He obtained his PhD from the VUB in 1999 with a dissertation entitled Production, toxics and transnational law: an inquiry into the effectiveness of international and European Community environmental law. His research deals with the diverse domains of European and international environmental law, and their implementation in national law. He has published over 50 articles in academic journals on extremely diverse topics, including cross-border air and water pollution, climate change, the regulation of international trade in hazardous chemicals, the fundamental principles of international environmental law, the emergence of the concept of sustainable development in international and European legal discourse, the enforcement and effectiveness of national, European and international environmental law, the links between human rights and environmental protection, and the procedural environmental rights of citizens and civil society organisations. groups. He wrote the book Toxics and Transnational Law: International and European Regulation of Toxic Substances as Legal Symbolism (Oxford: Hart, 2003) and (co)edited six anthologies, including The EU and Sustainable Development: Internal and External Dimensions (Brussels: VUB Brussels University Press, 2006).

Pallemaerts has been senior fellow and head of the research programme ‘Environmental Governance' at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (Brussels and London) since 2005. In addition, he teaches international and European environmental law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and at the VUB. He serves as vice-chair of the Facilitative Branch of the Kyoto Protocol Compliance Committee and was appointed a member of the Management Board of the European Chemicals Agency in 2007. He was senior research fellow at the Institute for European Studies of the VUB from 2003 to 2005, and president of the Belgian Association for Environmental Law from 1997 to 2003.

Pallemaerts's academic activities draw on extensive practical experience in the area of national, European and international environmental policy and law. From 1992 to 2003 he worked as a legal and policy adviser in the Cabinet of the Flemish Minister of the Environment and the State Secretary of the Environment, and as adjunct principle secretary for the federal State Secretary of Energy and Sustainable development. In this function, he acted as a representative of both the Flemish and Belgian governments, and also of the Belgian chairmanship of the European Union, in various international and European environmental negotiations. Pallemaerts was also chair the board of Greenpeace Belgium from 1985 to 1992.