Suchergebnisse

A comprehensive doctrinal study of states' obligations on climate change mitigation, showing that obligations arise not only from climate treaties, but also from customary international law, unilateral declarations, and human rights treaties, and exploring the interactions between these multiple obligations.

AbstractThe Parties to the Paris Agreement have committed to communicate successive 'nationally determined contributions' (NDCs) to the global response to climate change. Each NDC is expected to reflect the Party's 'highest possible ambition' (HPA) on the mitigation of climate change. This article envisages the possibility of taking HPA seriously: that is, of approaching it as an effective legal standard. It shows that, in some circumstances, the HPA standard can help to assess whether a State has complied with due diligence obligations on climate change mitigation.

Abstract
This review essay explores the distinction that judges and scholars have occasionally made between legal norms that they consider to be procedural and those considered to be substantive in nature. Approaching the issue from different angles, the three books under review all struggle to define procedure and substance as concepts informing a decontextualized distinction among international norms. Overall, they fail to show how this distinction is useful, either to understand what the law is or to account for its evolution. The essay argues that the concepts of 'procedure' and 'substance' hinder the clarity and, often, the soundness of the analysis presented in these books. At times, this ineffective conceptualization is an intellectual detour that hinders the development of more useful distinctions – for instance, between 'principal' and 'accessory' obligations, to determine when the breach of an obligation implies the breach of another obligation. Through this case study focused on recent publications on the distinction between procedure and substance, this essay reflects on the capacity of ineffective concepts to hinder the analysis of international law when their relevance and usefulness is too readily taken for granted.

AbstractCourts and scholars have interpreted open-ended legal norms as imposing due diligence obligations on States and other entities to mitigate climate change. These obligations can be applied in two alternative ways: through holistic decisions, where courts determine the level of mitigation action required of defendants; or through atomistic decisions, where courts identify some of the measures that the defendant must take. This article shows that, whilst most holistic cases fail on jurisdictional grounds, atomistic cases frequently succeed. Overall, it is argued that atomistic litigation strategies provide more realistic and effective ways for plaintiffs to prompt enhanced mitigation action.