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Osofsky, Hari M. --- "Climate Change and Dispute Resolution Processes" [2012] ELECD 749; in Rayfuse, Rosemary; Scott, V. Shirley (eds), "International Law in the Era of Climate Change" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: International Law in the Era of Climate Change

Editor(s): Rayfuse, Rosemary; Scott, V. Shirley

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800303

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: Climate Change and Dispute Resolution Processes

Author(s): Osofsky, Hari M.

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

14. Climate change and dispute
resolution processes
Hari M. Osofsky1

INTRODUCTION
Analysing dispute resolution processes within the context of this book
poses a fundamental challenge. To the extent that much of the book focuses
on action taking place at an international level, dispute resolution does not
fit within its confines easily. Most of the dispute resolution regarding
climate change has taken place at subnational levels, with limited direct
impact on either treaty-making or customary international law. The handful
of actions to date invoking international law has resulted in very limited
action by international bodies, and any future international level efforts to
invoke dispute settlement mechanisms will likely struggle with barriers
such as the tendency of the United States not to join relevant treaties and the
hesitancy of courts and tribunals to take on a complex problem like climate
change.
However, a narrative of the way in which efforts to address the problem of
climate change are transforming international law would be incomplete
without the inclusion of climate change lawsuits and petitions at multiple
levels of government. The international-level actions brought thus far raise
foundational substantive questions about how we define cross-cutting prob-
lems like climate change; they ask bodies which are not environmental in
their focus to address a problem that would typically be characterised as

1
Section 2 of this chapter is an edited version of a portion of H.M. Osofsky,
`Climate Change Litigation as Pluralist Legal Dialogue?' (2007) 26 Stanford
Environmental Law Journal and ...