Fostering Legal Indicators for Sustainable Development - Perspectives Issue No. 40

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. This 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.