Humans everywhere put their trust in certainty, consistency, a sense of justice and
fairness. Once they trust, they gain a greater con fi dence to act in every walk of life.
Broader, faster action at all levels of government, business and society is required to
respond to the long-term challenge of climate change. In this respect, law and the
legal process are critical elements to any policy response to climate change and its
adverse effects. Climate Change and the Law provides a helpful review of the
emergence of a new discipline, its core principles and legal techniques, and its
relationship and potential interaction with other disciplines. It is particularly timely
because, in Durban, South Africa, at the 2011 UN Climate Conference, governments
of the world agreed to craft a universal climate agreement with legal force, to
be adopted in 2015 and to come into force no later than 2020.
As an instrument for policy implementation, law provides a normative and institutional
framework for managing and responding to climate change. It translates
policy precepts into binding legal norms. A legal regime may provide for the establishment
of legally binding targets to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and sanction non-compliance. It can thereby channel human behaviour along
pathways consistent with a low emissions economy. Institutional processes may be
established and vested with power and authority to carry-out assessments, monitor
trends and compliance, incentivize action, and enforce legal requirements. Legal
processes are critical in addressing social crises and disputes arising from the impacts
of climate change. At the global level, international law provides a framework for
cooperation amongst states in responding to a global problem that requires a multilateral
response. This book critically examines the current international legal framework
and undertakes a comparative legal survey of national climate law, bringing
together views from a broad array of perspectives, and a diverse group of authors.
This work will undoubtedly be a valuable reference for the on-going global efforts
to construct the post-2020 international climate change regime.