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The Legal Form of the Paris Climate Agreement: a Comprehensive Assessment of Options journal article

Sandrine Maljean-Dubois, Thomas Spencer, Matthieu Wemaere

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 9 (2015), Issue 1, Page 68 - 84

For many years, the issue of the legal form of the new climate agreement has hovered over the international negotiations. Countries have insisted on first discussing substance. Indeed, it is here that the main divergences remain. However, one year out from the Paris climate conference, it is time to open the discussion on the legal form of the final agreement. The issue of legal form is often reduced to the negotiation of a ‘binding’ or ‘non-binding’ agreement. The bindingness of an international environmental agreement however depends on multiple parameters. We propose four parameters to be considered: the form of the core agreement; the ‘anchoring’ of commitments; mechanisms for transparency, accountability and facilitation; and mechanisms for compliance. Parties should assess pros and cons of these options, and the agreement should be optimised across all four, combining flexibility and credibility.


After Durban, what Legal Form for the Future International Climate Regime? journal article

Sandrine Maljean-Dubois, Matthieu Wemaëre

Carbon & Climate Law Review, Volume 6 (2012), Issue 3, Page 187 - 196

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is due to expire at the end of 2012, but no commitments have been adopted to date for a second period. Discussions about the fate of the climate regime beyond 2012 were supposed to end in 2009, in order to avoid a gap between the first and second commitment periods. But neither the Copenhagen climate summit (2009), nor the Cancun conference (2010) resulted in conclusion of a deal. They did not yield answer about the divisive issues of legal form and architecture of the future international climate regime. The Durban Conference (2011) no longer was able to avoid addressing these thorny issues. At the very end of the summit, a compromise was reached following long and difficult negotiations. Parties decided to extend the Kyoto Protocol through a second commitment period and launch a new round of negotiations under the Convention in order to adopt a more inclusive and ambitious international climate regime to be implemented from 2020.

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