This book could not have been written without the support of many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Peter-Tobias Stoll for encouragement and trust, constructive conversations, inspiring thoughts and for continuously providing opportunities for professional and personal development. Furthermore, I am particularly grateful for the help of Johannes Ju¨rging for reading and commenting on my work with so much analytic expertise and a keen sense of the essential and even more for many conversations. All the members of the Department of International Economic and Environmental Law as well as of the Institute of Public International and European Law of the Go¨ttingen University provide for a pleasant, supportive and constructive working atmosphere. I enjoyed working and studying in this environment throughout all the years, and it builds up the cornerstone of this book. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Nele Matz-Lu¨ck and Prof. Dr. Andreas Paulus, as members of my thesis committee, as well as PD Dr. Marcus Schladebach, as second assessor of the thesis, for their generous support. I was privileged to be a member of the doctoral programme “Biodiversity and Society” under the auspices of the Go¨ttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences. The research for this book was enriched by the work of all the members of the doctoral programme. It would not have been possible without the funding by the Go¨ttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences, financially supported by the state of Lower Saxony (Niedersa¨sisches Ministerium fu¨r Wissenschaft und Kultur). I would like to thank Dr. Bettina Ross, as a representative for the Graduate School, for this invaluable support. Furthermore, this book benefited immeasurably from the most accurate language check by Katherine Belton. Thank you for your offer and for investing your time. I appreciate it very much. Finally, without the love,