Exploring the Crystallization of ‘Climate Change Jurisdiction’: A Role for Precaution?

Abstract

Amidst the lively discussion on legal fragmentation and climate change, this article seeks to highlight the windows for the potential interaction of jurisdictional and environmental norms. This is relevant for climate-protective trade measures, which, it is argued, are not exhaustively regulated by WTO law. Exploring the contours of ‘climate change jurisdiction’ in customary international law, the article considers how the traditional jurisdictional principles may be operationalized in the untested territory of cumulative and uncertain environmental harm. With their origins in criminal and economic law, the jurisdictional principles were not originally designed for these challenges. This paper argues that the environmental norm of precaution, which originated out of a need to respond to complex threats, should have a role to play. Precaution governs issues of state regulatory competence in the face of scientific uncertainty. Particularly in relation to questions of foreseeability and causation, this norm may be helpful in navigating the application of the abstract jurisdictional principles, providing opportunities for synergy in the crystallization of the climate change jurisdiction.