Jutta Brunnée
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198843603
- eISBN:
- 9780191879395
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198843603.003.0014
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
The chapter highlights the main features of climate change as a complex policy challenge. Drawing on the interactional account of international law it sets out the key traits of legality and the rule ...
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The chapter highlights the main features of climate change as a complex policy challenge. Drawing on the interactional account of international law it sets out the key traits of legality and the rule of law in the international context. It focuses primarily on how treaty-based law has evolved to grapple with complexity on the one hand, and meeting the demands of the rule of law on the other. The 2015 Paris Agreement, which was adopted under the auspices of the FCCC and employs an unprecedented range of legal ‘modes’, is taken as the key example. It is argued that the ‘hard’ vs ‘soft’ law distinction is not the most informative metric when it comes to exploring the trajectory of the international rule of law. Analytic attention is most fruitfully directed to the distinctive traits of legal norms and practices; traits that transcend traditional conceptions of formality and informality.Less
The chapter highlights the main features of climate change as a complex policy challenge. Drawing on the interactional account of international law it sets out the key traits of legality and the rule of law in the international context. It focuses primarily on how treaty-based law has evolved to grapple with complexity on the one hand, and meeting the demands of the rule of law on the other. The 2015 Paris Agreement, which was adopted under the auspices of the FCCC and employs an unprecedented range of legal ‘modes’, is taken as the key example. It is argued that the ‘hard’ vs ‘soft’ law distinction is not the most informative metric when it comes to exploring the trajectory of the international rule of law. Analytic attention is most fruitfully directed to the distinctive traits of legal norms and practices; traits that transcend traditional conceptions of formality and informality.
Barry Barton and Jennifer Campion
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198822080
- eISBN:
- 9780191861161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198822080.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Environmental and Energy Law
Climate change is a particularly difficult policy problem, being long term and multifaceted. This chapter explores the proposition that well-crafted laws make it easier to make climate change policy ...
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Climate change is a particularly difficult policy problem, being long term and multifaceted. This chapter explores the proposition that well-crafted laws make it easier to make climate change policy that is coordinated, systematic, durable, and likely to encourage suitable energy innovation. Without dictating content, it identifies five elements for such legislation: greenhouse gas targets that have legal significance; instruments such as carbon budgets that impel early action towards long-term targets; requirements to identify the policies and measures that will reach those targets; requirements for decision makers in different sectors to pursue climate change targets; and rules for the information base. It concludes that laws reflecting these elements can improve the process of climate change policy making.Less
Climate change is a particularly difficult policy problem, being long term and multifaceted. This chapter explores the proposition that well-crafted laws make it easier to make climate change policy that is coordinated, systematic, durable, and likely to encourage suitable energy innovation. Without dictating content, it identifies five elements for such legislation: greenhouse gas targets that have legal significance; instruments such as carbon budgets that impel early action towards long-term targets; requirements to identify the policies and measures that will reach those targets; requirements for decision makers in different sectors to pursue climate change targets; and rules for the information base. It concludes that laws reflecting these elements can improve the process of climate change policy making.
Henrik Selin and Stacy D. VanDeveer (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262012997
- eISBN:
- 9780262259170
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262012997.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
North American policy responses to global climate change are complex and sometimes contradictory, and reach across multiple levels of government. For example, the U.S. federal government rejected the ...
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North American policy responses to global climate change are complex and sometimes contradictory, and reach across multiple levels of government. For example, the U.S. federal government rejected the Kyoto Protocol and mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) restrictions, but California developed some of the world's most comprehensive climate change law and regulation; Canada's federal government ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but Canadian GHG emissions increased even faster than those of the United States; and Mexico's state-owned oil company addressed climate change issues in the 1990s, in stark contrast to leading U.S. and Canadian energy firms. This book examines and compares political action for climate change across North America, at levels ranging from continental to municipal, in locations ranging from Mexico to Toronto to Portland, Maine. It investigates new or emerging institutions, policies, and practices in North American climate governance; the roles played by public, private, and civil society actors; the diffusion of policy across different jurisdictions; and the effectiveness of multilevel North American climate change governance. The book finds that although national climate policies vary widely, the complexities and divergences are even greater at the subnational level. Policy initiatives are developed separately in states, provinces, cities, large corporations, NAFTA bodies, universities, non-governmental organizations, and private firms, and this lack of coordination limits the effectiveness of multilevel climate change governance. In North America, unlike much of Europe, climate change governance has been largely bottom-up rather than top-down.Less
North American policy responses to global climate change are complex and sometimes contradictory, and reach across multiple levels of government. For example, the U.S. federal government rejected the Kyoto Protocol and mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) restrictions, but California developed some of the world's most comprehensive climate change law and regulation; Canada's federal government ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but Canadian GHG emissions increased even faster than those of the United States; and Mexico's state-owned oil company addressed climate change issues in the 1990s, in stark contrast to leading U.S. and Canadian energy firms. This book examines and compares political action for climate change across North America, at levels ranging from continental to municipal, in locations ranging from Mexico to Toronto to Portland, Maine. It investigates new or emerging institutions, policies, and practices in North American climate governance; the roles played by public, private, and civil society actors; the diffusion of policy across different jurisdictions; and the effectiveness of multilevel North American climate change governance. The book finds that although national climate policies vary widely, the complexities and divergences are even greater at the subnational level. Policy initiatives are developed separately in states, provinces, cities, large corporations, NAFTA bodies, universities, non-governmental organizations, and private firms, and this lack of coordination limits the effectiveness of multilevel climate change governance. In North America, unlike much of Europe, climate change governance has been largely bottom-up rather than top-down.
Tomer Broude
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198843603
- eISBN:
- 9780191879395
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198843603.003.0015
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter is a comment on the capacity of international law to address complex problems such as climate change, as a complement and response to Jutta Brunnée’s preceding chapter. The comment first ...
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This chapter is a comment on the capacity of international law to address complex problems such as climate change, as a complement and response to Jutta Brunnée’s preceding chapter. The comment first questions whether complexity is in fact a special case or rather an all-pervading characteristic of international relations, and by extension, of international law. Second, the comment questions—notwithstanding the current angst that internationalist lawyers feel and express due to what seems like a tidal-scale assault on international law—whether the international rule-of-law management of complexity is a particularly contemporary issue, or just another iteration of recurrent, resurgent, occasionally even refreshing, frictions that characterize international law. Third, the comment asks whether the challenges of complexity maintain a special relationship with international law, or whether these are substantially the same as the interactions of these issues with domestic legal systems.Less
This chapter is a comment on the capacity of international law to address complex problems such as climate change, as a complement and response to Jutta Brunnée’s preceding chapter. The comment first questions whether complexity is in fact a special case or rather an all-pervading characteristic of international relations, and by extension, of international law. Second, the comment questions—notwithstanding the current angst that internationalist lawyers feel and express due to what seems like a tidal-scale assault on international law—whether the international rule-of-law management of complexity is a particularly contemporary issue, or just another iteration of recurrent, resurgent, occasionally even refreshing, frictions that characterize international law. Third, the comment asks whether the challenges of complexity maintain a special relationship with international law, or whether these are substantially the same as the interactions of these issues with domestic legal systems.
