Through the looking glass : climate change and the law of state responsibility

Abstract

Climate change poses threats of great seriousness and urgency for humanity and the planet. As an issue that cuts across all domains of human activity, creates scientific uncertainties, and leads to wide-ranging socio-economic and environmental impacts, it also challenges conventional rules, sources, structures, institutions and approaches in international law. This volume contains the work of the 2022 Centre for Studies and Research on this important and timely topic of climate change and the testing of international law. Using the challenge of climate change as an experimental laboratory for international legal innovation, the contributions in this volume seek to measure the capacity of international law across a broad range of fields — from peace and security law, to investment law, trade, human rights and many other areas — to adapt and evolve, and as a catalyst for designing the international law of the future. It traces a progressive “climatization” of international law occurring under the transformative influence of the climate problem, highlighting both international law’s potential for creative responses, as well as areas where its rules and structures are not fit-for-purpose and require more radical overhaul to better match the scale and urgency of the challenge of addressing climate change.