Climate Change and Crime

Conflict has a carbon footprint. Crime is a subtype of conflict. Citizen on citizen predation by force or fraud, and responses to it, have carbon costs. The paper reviews relevant literatures and notes the absence of recognition of the nexus between crime and carbon-profligate lifestyles. The writers contend that looking at crime and disorder through a carbon costing 'lens' would profoundly influence social and criminal justice policy. The precise quantification of the carbon costs of crime is beyond the scope of this paper. The preliminary estimates contained herein suggest that the direct carbon costs of crime are substantial and the consequential costs more so, to the point where it is difficult to envisage a high crime society being a low carbon society. Recognition of this would lead to a major shift in policy favouring primary crime prevention through the design, implementation and maintenance of products and services less prone to crime. The costs of crime, both fiscal and carbon, would be a matter for regret rather than action were it not for the demonstrable success of schemes to design out crime, for example from residential environments. These are briefly discussed. The scope for further improvement in designing out crime seems considerable, and an intensive programme of research to explore avenues for advance is advocated.     

Climate Change and Global Citizenship

The international climate change regime has failed. Even the most optimistic assessment of action to limit greenhouse pollution in the coming few decades will not prevent calamitous changes in Earth's climate. Arguments for international—that is, interstate—justice that have permeated international negotiations on climate change have been insufficient in fostering robust action by states. Indeed, by diverting all responsibility to states, focusing on international justice has not addressed consumption and pollution by hundreds of millions of affluent people around the world, including many millions living within developing states that have no treaty obligations to limit nationwide pollution. Increasingly, however, it is these individuals that matter: more and more of them who are not now subject to any climate‐related legal obligations are able to afford lifestyles that lead to greenhouse gas emissions and more climate change. This is especially true given the very rapid increase in the numbers of affluent people in the developing world. Bearing this in mind, this article goes beyond the still important questions of international climate justice to explore cosmopolitan or global climate justice. Global justice demands that affluent individuals in both affluent and poor states do much more to limit their pollution of the atmosphere. By being good global citizens, capable persons can help states start the world on a path to reducing the severity of climate change.     

The Legally Disruptive Nature of Climate Change

Climate change gives rise to disputes and problems not easily addressed by existing legal doctrines and frameworks. This is because it is a polycentric problem; the assessment of future climate impacts must deal with uncertainty; climate change is socio‐politically controversial; and addressing climate change requires recognising a dynamic physical environment. As such, climate change can be thought of as legally disruptive in that it requires lawyers and legal scholars to reconcile the legal issues raised by climate change with existing legal orders. The legal disruption catalysed by climate change has not only led to the creation of new legal regimes but also given rise to a multitude of legal disputes that require adjudication. A study of some of these cases highlights the need for active and deliberate reflection about the nature of adjudication and the legal reasoning embedded in it when confronted by a disruptive phenomenon like climate change.     

Rawlsian difference principles and economic utilitarianism

John Rawls's theory, justice as fairness, constitutes an important alternative to a utilitarian theory of social justice. This essay addresses the relationship between utilitarian choice and the difference principle that is central to Rawls's theory. It argues that the difference principle, if applied to utility, is not supportable in the economic utilitarian framework. The Rawlsian result could be consistent with this framework if expressed with respect to income rather than utility. However, the argument in a utilitarian framework is ad hoc and not compelling. The paper presents conditions under which a utilitarian in an initial position, with some similarity to Rawls's original position, would choose the Rawlsian difference principle. The choices coincide only under the unrealistic assumption that redistribution entails no efficiency loss.     

Women and the Rawlsian Social Contract

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls considers neither the position of women nor the organization of the family in the just society. My paper discusses the extent to which his social contract can be extended to include justice to women in spite of this omission. Feminists have accused Rawls of creating a theory of justice for white middle class males. I argue that this is not a logical consequence of the basic elements of his theory, namely his definition of the original situation and of the veil of ignorance. The limitations of Rawls's theory arise because he deliberately constrains the social contract to the rights and duties of citizens in relation to the government while he also defines the family as being outside the sphere of citizenship and government. If this constraint is removed, the social contract must of necessity be extended to the family. I also argue that unless organization of the care and nurture of children are included in the social contract, the position of women in society is not resolved.     

Climate Change Meets the Commerce Clause: Obstacles and Alternatives for State and Local Responses to Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change is a global problem resulting from our aggregate emissions. The United States has failed to take significant action on a federal level to address our country’s contributions. There are options available at the state and local levels to reduce emissions and to prepare for the effects of climate change. However, the commerce clause and the doctrine of federal supremacy may bar states and municipalities from adopting those strategies. This article discusses tactics to circumvent those restrictions, and potential changes to commerce clause jurisprudence that would give states and municipalities greater flexibility to act where Congress has not.     

A Regulatory Analysis of International Climate Change Regulation

The political challenges impeding the negotiation of a comprehensive multilateral agreement on international climate change have received a great deal of attention. A question that has gone somewhat overlooked is what essential components an effective regulatory scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should contain. The objective of this article is to examine the regulatory architecture of current international arrangements relating to global climate change regulation. A systematic analysis of the structure, substantive composition, and administrative characteristics of the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol is undertaken. The analytical standard against which the agreements are examined is whether current international regulatory arrangements satisfy the basic requirements of regulatory coherence. The analysis identifies how the present scheme consists of a complex institutional structure that lacks a substantive regulatory core. The implications of the absence of functional and effective mechanisms to govern greenhouse gas emission reductions are considered in relation to the principles of good regulatory design. This, in turn, provides useful insights into how a better regulatory scheme might be designed.     

论中国对气候变化之适应性立法

适应是复杂的社会过程.气候变化直接影响或者改变特定区域的自然生态条件,间接影响当地的经济社会状况以及人的生存与发展,对经济和社会关系产生深远影响.法律作为调整经济和社会关系的基本制度手段,需要对源于环境和经济社会的适应性要求做出积极回应.除了在国际气候立法框架下进行的国际合作外,国家或者地方的适应性法律和政策是回应地方性适应性需要的必要制度基础,也是促进环境和经济社会可持续发展的制度保障.     

气候变化的国际法发展:从温室效应理论到《联合国气候变化框架公约》

本文考察了温室效应理论对缔结《联合国气候变化框架公约》的决定性影响 ,并对《联合国气候变化框架公约》的基本法律原则 (规则 )及其对国际环境立法的贡献进行了述评。     

Can International Law Adapt to Climate Change?

Abstract

While this article is an overview of existing international environmental law, its main focus is to explore whether we can develop a legal system that has the ability to adapt to climate change in all its complexities. There is no easy solution to this global issue but the scholarship cited here favors the one most difficult to implement, concluding that an adaptation approach provides the flexibility needed to deal with the ever-changing world of climate change. The question remains whether we are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to adapt.     

Applying Fairness Principles in Climate Change Nuisance Litigation

The tort of public nuisance has been used in two recent climate change cases, Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co. and Comer v. Murphy Oil, USA, to single out a handful of American companies with deep pockets and hold those companies liable for global climate change. This article examines why these suits contravene judicially established procedural and substantive safeguards—including “but for” causation, proximate causation, remediability, and liability allocation—that are meant to ensure that when the judicial system holds a defendant liable, it is fundamentally fair to the defendant to do so.     

Climate Change Litigation in Canada and the USA

This article examines the growing phenomenon of climate change litigation in the USA and Canada. It explores the expanding context in which this litigation is occurring and highlights key successes and failures of these actions. In the absence of a comprehensive federal framework in both countries, the article shows how litigation is being used by claimants to attempt to require government action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to force private entities to do the same and to pay damages. Whether a piecemeal approach to climate change engendered through litigation can provide a solution to this global issue remains to be seen.     

Adaptation to Climate Change and the Everglades Ecosystem

Water management, development, and farming continue to degrade the structure and function of the Florida Everglades. Global climate change is expected to exacerbate these anthropogenic impacts. This article explores the historical and current adulteration of the Everglades, reviews the expected effects of climate change on the ecosystem, and recommends an amendment to the farm bill to support the implementation of adaptive management to increase climate resilience.     

Environmental Justice Imperatives for an Era of Climate Change

This paper is about intra- and inter-generational equity, connecting environmental justice discourse with necessary responses to climate change. It offers a review of the role of globalization in this pervasive context, contrasting the disaggregated nature of localized impacts, and seeks to address the potential for adjusting law-policy frameworks as a key part of the search for solutions. It argues that environmental justice approaches can incorporate values into law-policy processes based upon vital aspects of the integrity and functioning of communities, distributional fairness, and capacities for wider engagement and participation in the search for necessary behavioural change. The conclusion is that the ultimate success of the urgent process of addressing climate-related threats, through a meaningful degree of mitigation and adaptation, and multiple levels of decision-making and response, must be informed by the precepts of environmental justice.     

Global Climate Change and the Fragmentation of International Law

Born into the wider body of international law, the climate regime needs to be understood in light of preexisting regimes. By drawing on the current debate about fragmentation in international law, this article highlights challenges for international lawyers and policymakers in navigating the relationship between the climate regime and the biodiversity regime, and the relationship between the climate regime and the multilateral trading system. This article concludes that a narrow focus on conflicts misrepresents the multifaceted nature of climate change and precludes an adequate jurisprudential understanding of the relationship between the climate regime and other regimes. An improved understanding, particularly with respect to interactions with the biodiversity regime, requires a broadening of the debate that takes account of the institutional aspects of these relationships that may allow enhanced political cooperation and coordination. Further, international law, and in particular the emerging concept of systemic integration, has the potential to make a positive contribution to the climate‐trade interplay.