Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée, and Lavanya Rajamani, International Climate Change Law

Abstract

The authors have a long and illustrious record on climate change issues, and the reader would naturally expect to find therein the highest level of scholarship, set out in meticulous detail, and the broadening insight the practical involvement with climate negotiations brings to any doctrinal work. The final product delivers on each one of these points. Already in their introduction, the authors set out the parameters of their subject matter. They recognize three perspectives in viewing climate change: an environmental one, an economic one, and, finally, an ethical one, which largely correspond to the ways the subject is addressed in different parts of the world. They develop their discussion along four basic issues: mitigation of climate change; adaptation to climate change; financial and other means of support for mitigation and adaptation; and international oversight to promote implementation, compliance, and effectiveness. And, finally, they place the regulation of climate change within the wider context of international law in general, further exploring different levels of normative instruments both in international and domestic levels; varying degrees of regulatory arrangements of both the hard and soft law variety; a multitude of actors; and formal and informal networks creating synergies and discrepancies in a multi-factoral challenge.