This book presents a comprehensive, authoritative and independent account of the rules, institutions and procedures governing the international climate change regime. Its detailed yet user-friendly description and analysis covers the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and all decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties up to 2003, including the landmark Marrakesh Accords. Mitigation commitments, adaptation, the flexibility mechanisms, reporting and review, compliance, education and public awareness, technology transfer, financial assistance and climate research are just some of the areas that are reviewed. The book also explains how the regime works, including a discussion of its political coalitions, institutional structure, negotiation process, administrative base, and linkages with other international regimes. In short, this book is the only current work that covers all areas of the climate change regime in such depth, yet in such a uniquely accessible and objective way.

An innovative volume that covers all the common topics of climate law currently debated in the global academic community.

A perfect introduction to climate change law, this textbook offers students and scholars an overview of the international law governing this fundamental issue. It demonstrates how to interpret the language used in the applicable instruments and conventions, and sets climate change law in its broader international legal context.

International Environmental Law is a new textbook written for students, practitioners, and anyone interested in the subject. The overall aim of the book is to provide a fresh understanding of international environmental law as a whole, seen in the light of climate change, biodiversity loss, and the other serious environmental challenges facing the world. The book has also been kept deliberately manageable in size by careful selection of topics and by adopting a cross-cutting synthesis of regulatory interaction in the field. This enables the reader to place international environmental law in the broader context of public international law in general, revealing at the same time that international environmental law is experimental ground for developing new legal approaches towards global governance. To this end, the authors have combined theory and practice. Apart from discussing concepts, rule-making and compliance, the book looks at options for improved coordination, harmonisation and even integration of existing multilateral environmental agreements, analysing how conflicts between various environmental regimes can be avoided or, at least, adequately managed. The authors argue that an appropriate management of international environmental relations must address the North-South divide, which continues to be a major obstacle to global environmental cooperation. Furthermore, the authors emphasise the growing human rights dimension of international environmental law. This book is an ideal 'door opener' for the further study of international environmental law. Focusing on 'international environmental governance' in a comprehensive way, it serves to explain that each institution, each actor, and each instrument is part of a multi-dimensional process in international environmental law and relations.

This book takes a critical lens to humanity’s collective regulatory response to the existential threat of climate change. It explores those aspects of the international climate change regime that, albeit born of political dysfunction, demonstrate ingenuity, innovation and experimentation. This includes aspects relating to the legal form of instruments in the regime, the legal character of its provisions, as well as norm hybridity and mutation, and the nature, extent and evolution of differential treatment in the regime. This book argues that innovations and experiments in the international climate change regime have resulted in a highly sophisticated and nuanced legal regime – one that challenges the conceptual boundaries of international law, enriches the core of treaty law and practice and is likely to have an enduring impact on international law, legal practice and diplomatic intercourse.

Emerging Principles of International Environmental Law is ideally suited for any law or environmental studies student, practitioner or law academic who is interested in the legal status of emerging principles in the field of international environmental law. Among its highlights, the text examines the interaction of principles/concepts such as sustainable development, the precautionary principle etc., with one another and how the present international environmental law regime has taken the vast disparity between developed and developing countries into account in designing innovative methods to accommodate this disparity. Following an introductory chapter on the development of international environmental law, the book explores five concepts/principles that have emerged in the recent years in this field and discusses their relationship to one another, particularly how they interact and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development: sustainable development, the precautionary principle, the environmental impact assessment process and participatory rights, the common but differentiated responsibility principle and the polluter pays principle. The final chapter evaluates the emergence of a distinct field of international law called ‘International Sustainable Development Law’ and discusses its future direction. While these principles or concepts have received much attention in previous literature, not much attention has been paid to their interaction with one another and how the present international environmental law regime has taken the vast disparity between developed and developing countries into account in designing innovative methods to accommodate this disparity. It is here the strength of the book lies. The book was written to provide a firm grasp of international environmental law issues and of international law in general. It is intended for the international market, for anybody who is interested in the future direction of international environmental law and of sustainable development. As such, it would be relevant not only to the law student and law academic, but also to international organizations such as UNEP, Commission on Sustainable Development, UNDP and the World Bank as well as for international and national civil society groups engaged in environmental issues and human rights issues. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.