Building Resilience from the Top Down? The Role of International Law and Institutions

Abstract

Abstract This chapter assesses the resilience-building capacity of international law and institutions in the context of energy and related fields. It considers two aspects of building resilience from the top down. First, it argues that the extent to which binding international norms and principles can dynamically change and evolve, especially when confronted by disrupting events, is a measure of their resilience. The focus is principally on treaty law, given the important normative role treaties perform in the energy and related fields. Their flexibility and capacity to adapt over time in response to economic, technical, and environmental changes can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, ranging from treaty amendment to more nimble methods for incorporation of external norms and evolutive interpretation of treaty provisions. Secondly and relatedly is the role of international institutions in this process. Building sustainable institutional structures plays a key role in disaster risk reduction and response. Some areas of international law such as international disaster law, and some institutions such as the International Energy Agency, may be viewed as hard-wired to respond to catastrophic change and emergencies, with treaty bodies and institutions playing a catalytic role in responding to disruption. However, there is no ‘one stop shop’ with respect to disaster management and response in international law and no general multinational treaty on disaster law. Nonetheless, prevention and disaster response are already part of the fabric of substantive international law in some contexts such as oil pollution casualties and nuclear incidents.