LAW 7040 - International Environmental Law (PG)

After a brief introduction concerning the origin and the history of international environmental law the current system of law-making shall be the main focus of the course. Analysis of the relevant actors such as States and their representatives, governmental and non-governmental organisations, expert bodies and the national electorates. Analyze the various sources of environmental legislation, the treaty

law constituting the main focus of attention. Instruments, such as the international regimes on ozone protection, climate change or biodiversity will be examined and compared to non-binding instruments, such as the Stockholm and the Rio Declaration or Agenda 21. On the one hand the course will deal with the material contents and the effectiveness of each of these instruments. On the other hand, they shall serve to illustrate different regulatory approaches and techniques (such as the so-called framework-protocol-approach) that are typical of international environmental law-making.

Special emphasis shall be put on comparing the effectiveness and the modalities of treaty implementation in various countries against the background of cultural, economic, social and other differences. Finally, a typical negotiation scenario - such as the Conference of the Parties dealing with the Kyoto Protocol - shall be simulated. Students will be provided with the bargaining positions of individual actors (as far as these are available) in order to re-enact the actual negotiation process and to come up with possible solutions.