International Law Archives

Climate Ambition and Sustainable Development for a New Decade: A Catalytic Framework

This paper examines the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA) and discusses options to improve sub‐ and non‐state involvement in post‐2020 climate governance. A framework that stimulates sub‐ and non‐state action is a necessary complement to national governmental action, as the latter falls short of achieving low‐carbon and climate‐resilient development as envisaged in the Paris Agreement. …

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Closing the High Seas to Fishing: A Club Approach

The world’s fisheries are governed by a vast, and largely ineffective, set of international and regional institutions. If we are to preserve and manage what remains of the oceans’ fisheries, bolder solutions are needed. In this paper, we present a new approach: closing the high seas to fishing through the use of regulatory “clubs” – …

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New Frontiers in Ocean Environmental Governance: Private Actors, Public Goods

Published in: Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, Vol. 8, Issue 3 (2019)

Ocean Plastic Pollution: A Survey of Existing Global Agreements and Proposals for Reform

Plastics present a relatively new and significant threat to the marine environment. Production and use of plastics has increased globally in the past decades, and much of it ends up adrift in the ocean. The impact of this marine plastic pollution is far-reaching. Plastic in the ocean does not biodegrade; rather, it breaks down again and …

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Building Blocks: A Strategy for Near-Term Climate Action

The Paris Agreement cemented a new framework for global climate policy based on the voluntary and non-legally binding emission reduction actions by both developed and developing countries. The building blocks strategy for climate action discussed in this Special Issue is well adapted to and strongly complements this new structure. Building blocks focus on multiple transnational …

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Next Steps for the Paris Climate Agreement

In December 2015, 196 countries met in Paris, France for UNFCCC COP21 and adopted the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. While much of the attention surrounding the Paris Agreement has focused on the post-2020 period, the Paris Agreement could enter into force much sooner–possibly by the end of 2016. In this brief, Guarini Center fellow Amelia Linn examines …

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A Building Blocks Strategy for Global Climate Change

The likely future global climate regime, based on nationally determined, non-legally binding commitments, is not by itself likely to produce emissions reductions sufficient to prevent dangerous climate change. There is, however, already significant mitigation occurring outside the context of the UNFCCC that could potentially be scaled up to fill the gap. This chapter, expanding on earlier work, proposes a …

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Building Blocks for Global Climate Protection

This article presents an innovative institutional approach to supplement and ultimately strengthen the lagging United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process for negotiating a climate treaty that commits major emitting and developed countries to greenhouse gas emissions limitations. The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action does not aim to have such a treaty before …

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A New Strategy for Global Climate Protection

This essay proposes an innovative institutional strategy for global climate protection, quite distinct from but ultimately complementary to the UNFCCC climate treaty negotiations. Our “building block” strategy relies on a variety of smaller-scale transnational cooperative arrangements, involving not only states, but also sub-national jurisdictions, firms, and civil society organizations, to undertake activities whose primary goal …

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