The international climate change regime

(updated 5 September 2019)

This blogpost deals with the international legal regime “specialized” on climate change, namely the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). It was created already a quarter-century ago, in the…

The politics and economics of climate change

(updated 20 October 2020)

In this blogpost, we look at climate change from an economic and political perspective. In particular, we will explore how economic and political considerations (and disagreements) shape the…

“Market-based” approaches to regulating emissions: cap-and-trade and carbon tax

(updated 28 November 2020)

In this blogpost we look at the so-called “market-based” approaches to regulating GHG emissions: cap-and-trade (=emission trading systems, or…

Introduction I: Transnational law

(updated 20 October 2020)

This text describes the concept of “transnational law”, which provides the analytical framework for this course. In the remainder of the course, we will look at climate change as a transnational phenomenon, and explore…

Political rights, civil disobedience, climate change and the law

(updated 3 December 2020)

In the previous weeks we often talked about institutional actors such as international organizations, governments, courts, administrative agencies and companies…

Introduction II: Climate change as a transnational (legal) phenomenon

(updated 20 October 2020)

As discussed in the previous blogpost, the concept of “transnational law” starts from the observation that many facts of life do not adhere to national…

The science of climate change

(latest update on 3 September 2019)

(8) National and regional regulation of emissions II: regulatory strategies and legal resistance

In the last class we argued that the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions cannot be separated from broader political dynamics. They may create “co-benefits” (i.e…