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2026 J.L. & Mobility 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/jlwmby2026 and id is 1 raw text is: SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY IN INTERNATIONAL, EUROPEAN AND NATIONAL LAW: A PERSPECTIVE FROM EUROPE LANDO KIRCHMAIR* Cite as: Lando Kirchmair, Sustainable Mobility in International, European and National Law: A Perspective from Europe, 2026 J. L. MOB. 1. This Article develops a European perspective on sustainable mobility, a concept still underexamined in legal scholarship, and argues that meeting today's mobility needs while preserving ecological foundations for future generations will not occur without deliberate regulatory intervention. After clarifying the evolution of the core concepts of sustainability, mobility, and sustainable mobility, the Article shows how international, European, and Austrian law have progressively incorporated sustainability goals in the transport sector. It then proposes a taxonomy of financial incentives-from subsidies and tax breaks to behavioral nudges and evaluates their effectiveness, emphasizing the need for flexible, context-specific regulatory instruments. Applying these insights to self-driving cars, the Article demonstrates that technological innovation alone cannot deliver sustainable mobility and that proactive, sustainability-oriented regulation remains essential. The Article concludes with several proposals for reform aimed at steering technological and behavioral change toward a genuinely sustainable mobility system. Introduction ..........................................................................................2 I. T erm in ology ................................................................................ . 3 A. Sustainability ........................................................................3 B. Mobility.................................................................................6 C. Sustainable Mobility-A Contradiction?..............................9 II. Sustainable Mobility in International, EU and National Austrian * Prof. Dr. ir. habil.; Euregio Endowed Chair in Sustainability and Mobility Law, Department of Legal Theory and Future of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Innsbruck, Austria. This article is partly based on a lecture given at the Faculty of Law of the University of Innsbruck on September 11, 2024. The author is grateful to the audience and, particularly, to Sebastian Ambros, Matt Blaszczyk, Hector Orlando Candray Medina, Alexandra Klass and Sebastian Krempelmeier for their helpful feedback as well as to Konstantin Friese and Ronny Wagner for their research assistance. Parts of this article have also been published in German. The author can be contacted at lando.kirchmair(auibk.ac.at. 1