This book is the culmination of a project which started in August 2005, when the board of the Stockholm Environmental Law and Policy Centre adopted, on its agenda, the plan for an international conference on environmental law and justice. The plans materialised, and the ‘2006 Stockholm Conference on Environmental Law and Justice’ took place at Stockholm University on 6–9 September 2006. The project could not have been accomplished without the generous support of the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas), the Cassel Foundation (Casselstiftelsen), the Department of Law, Stockholm University, and Nordforsk through the Nordic Environmental Law Network (NELN). In addition, the Stockholm Consumer Cooperative Society (Stockholms Konsumentförening) supported the conference with Fair Trade coffee and sweets.

Almost all contributions are based on papers presented at the conference. We are grateful to all the contributors for their co-operation and patience. All were generous with their time. We are particularly grateful to William Twining for advice in carrying through the book project, and to Hanne Petersen, who, although not a conference participant, responded readily to our request to fill a significant gap in the book's content. In selecting the speakers for the conference, and thus the contributors to this book, we were supported by the other members of the conference organising committee, Jutta Brunnée, Ludwig Krämer and Richard Falk.