Air pollution is a major global environmental problem, with various adverse effects on health and the environment. This introductory article provides an overview of related global and regional legal instruments. The article evaluates the legal landscape in terms of its coverage, geographic scope and effectiveness, and concludes that the legal measures currently in place fall far short of providing an adequate response to the problem of air pollution. Thus, there is a clear need to strengthen global and regional cooperation to improve air quality. Such cooperation is likely to take non-binding and flexible forms and involve both wider participation among States and broader engagement of various stakeholders. The informal character of cooperation also makes it possible to experiment with new governance approaches that are difficult to implement within the context of traditional international law. | INTRODUCTIONThe atmosphere needs protection in the face of air pollution, ozone depletion and climate change. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is 'the biggest environmental risk to health' and 'a public health emergency', 1 responsible for millions of premature deaths annually. Tackling air pollution also has co-benefits for the climate and development issues such as urban sustainable development and energy access.2 Several international and regional agreements aim to reduce emissions of air pollutants. However, the problems associated with air pollution are far from being solved. The current legal and regulatory approaches to air pollution seem inadequate if the negative impacts already witnessed and the risks at stake are considered. Effective air pollution laws and policies require prompt action and cooperation at global, regional and national levels, reaching across most economic sectors 3 and engaging the public. 4 It is this apparent disconnect between the state of the complex problem and the law -as well as the urgency of the need to address it 5 -that motivated us to prepare this RECIEL special issue.The aims of this introductory article are threefold. First, the article seeks to provide an overview of existing global and regional legal instruments for atmospheric protection, with a specific focus on air pollution and ozone depletion. 6 Second, it aims to assess the current state of regulatory approaches to air pollution in terms of their coverage, geographic scope and effectiveness. Third, the article seeks to reflect on the future of global cooperation in this importantThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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This article critically discusses the interface between EU climate and energy law. It argues that legal scholarship should explore and expose the interrelationships between these legal disciplines through shared understanding and evaluation of both the disparities and synergies found. It maps the origins of EU climate and energy law to demonstrate how they have evolved side by side, guided by separate legal rationales and distinct legislative developments yet sharing partially overlapping objectives and instruments. By comparing EU climate and energy law as legal disciplines, the article identifies dynamic and static attributes that characterize the interface between EU climate and energy law. These attributes, combined with the evolution of EU climate and energy law, are key elements in facilitating disciplinary convergence. As an outcome of the analysis, the article calls for critical legal scholarship that acknowledges the climate and energy law interface, allowing disciplinary convergence to develop between them.

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