scholarly journals Multilevel Environmental Governance in the European Union and United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Provost
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Regulatory Standards ◽  
Collective Action Problems

Managing the risks of climate change partly involves setting and implementing regulatory standards that help to diminish the causes of climate change. This means setting regulatory standards that require businesses to emit fewer pollutants, most notably carbon dioxide. In large federalist systems like the United States and the European Union, this regulation is produced by a variety of institutional structures and policy instruments as well. In the United States, federal regulations often encompass stricter standards with less flexibility; these standards have direct impacts on the relevant regulated interests, but they also influence the content and structure of non-governmental regulations, such as those promulgated by NGOs or industry trade associations. This influential “shadow of hierarchy” can be witnessed in both the U.S. and E.U. However, at a more local level, businesses and governments do not solely operate within the confines of strict, hierarchical regulation. Both sets of organizations join together horizontally to form compacts and regulatory networks that are often characterized more by guidance, soft law and collaborative efforts. While such institutions can be a welcome and effective complement to stricter, hierarchical regulation, such networks require high levels of trust and goal congruence to overcome the potential collective action problems that are inherently possible in such networks. Finally, the conditions under which networks and hierarchies both develop to construct environmental regulatory policies will depend on the dynamics of the policy process as well. Under ordinary circumstances, diverging preferences and collective action problems may create the foundation for more incremental and weaker regulatory standards, whereas an environmental disaster might create a groundswell of support for strict, judicially binding legislation. In this way, policy processes affect the structure of hierarchies and networks and ultimately the shape of regulations designed to mitigate the effects of climate change.

scholarly journals State Responsibility for “Targeted Sanctions”

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Antonios Tzanakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Legal Entities

The United States and other actors such as the European Union impose “targeted sanctions” against foreign officials for acts carried out in their official capacity, or against legal entities of targeted states. This mirrors the practice and experience of the United Nations. The Security Council's practice of imposing comprehensive sanctions in the early 1990s quickly evolved into a practice of “targeted” or “smart” sanctions, to both improve effectiveness and to alleviate the significant effects of sanctions on the population of targeted states. However, the legal regime for resorting to sanctions is different when it comes to states acting unilaterally than it is for collective action within the framework of the UN Charter. This essay first clarifies some terminological issues. It then delves into the legality of the practice of unilateral “targeted sanctions,” and concludes that the most legally difficult aspect of these measures is their purported extraterritoriality.

The Hare and the Tortoise Revisited: The New Politics of Consumer and Environmental Regulation in Europe

2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID VOGEL
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Regulatory Standards ◽  
The 1960S

There has been an important shift in the pattern of divergence between consumer and environmental protection policies in Europe and the United States. From the 1960s through the mid 1980s American regulatory standards tended to be more stringent, comprehensive and innovative than in either individual European countries or in the European Union (EU). However, since around 1990 the obverse has been true; many important EU consumer and environmental regulations are now more precautionary than their American counterparts.The ‘new’ politics of consumer and environmental regulation in Europe are attributable to three inter-related factors: a series of regulatory failures within Europe, broader and stronger political support for more stringent and comprehensive regulatory standards within Europe and the growth in the regulatory competence of the European Union.In many respects, European regulatory politics and policies since the 1990s resemble those of the United States during the 1970s. Thus health, safety and environmental politics and policies in the United States are no longer as distinctive as many scholars have portrayed them.

scholarly journals The Club Approach: A Gateway to Effective Climate Co-operation?

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 1071-1096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Hovi ◽  
Detlef F. Sprinz ◽  
Håkon Sælen ◽  
Arild Underdal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Club Good ◽  
The Right ◽  
Global Emissions

Although the Paris Agreement arguably made some progress, interest in supplementary approaches to climate change co-operation persist. This article examines the conditions under which a climate club might emerge and grow. Using agent-based simulations, it shows that even with less than a handful of major actors as initial members, a club can eventually reduce global emissions effectively. To succeed, a club must be initiated by the ‘right’ constellation of enthusiastic actors, offer sufficiently large incentives for reluctant countries and be reasonably unconstrained by conflicts between members over issues beyond climate change. A climate club is particularly likely to persist and grow if initiated by the United States and the European Union. The combination of club-good benefits and conditional commitments can produce broad participation under many conditions.

scholarly journals The Paris Climate Agreement and the Three Largest Emitters: China, the United States, and the European Union

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda A. Schreurs
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Emission Reduction ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Gas Emissions

The Paris Agreement would not have come into being had China, the United States (US), and the European Union (EU), which together contribute more than half of all global greenhouse gas emissions, not signaled their intent to take major steps to reduce their domestic emissions. The EU has been at the forefront of global climate change measures for years having issued binding domestic emission reduction targets for 2020 and 2030. For many years, China refused to announce a target date for when it might begin reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and the US Congress blocked action on climate change.  In the lead up to the Paris climate negotiations, however, there were major shifts in China’s and the US’s climate positions. This commentary examines the climate policies of the three largest emitters and the factors motivating the positions they took in the Paris negotiations. Given that the commitments made in Paris are most likely insufficient to keep global temperature from rising 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, the commentary also considers what the likelihood is that these three major economies will strengthen their emission reduction targets in the near future.

Litigating Climate Change in Asia

Climate Law ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 140-149
Author(s):  
Jolene Lin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation

There is increasing climate change litigation in jurisdictions such as the United States, Australia and the European Union. Such litigation seeks to, inter alia, promote mitigation and compel governmental authorities to take effective adaptation measures. Climate litigation, however, is almost unknown in Asia. This article explores the potential for climate litigation in Asia and argues that conditions are ripe in jurisdictions like India and the Philippines for advancing climate mitigation and adaptation via the courtroom.

Overview of Climate Change Litigation

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 194-197
Author(s):  
Michael Gerrard
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
International Tribunals

Climate change litigation is a global phenomenon. According to a database maintained by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, as of February 4, 2019 a total of 1,297 climate cases had been filed in courts or other tribunals worldwide. Of these, 1,009—78 percent—were from the United States, Australia was a distant second, with ninety-eight, followed by the United Kingdom with forty-seven. No other country had as many as twenty. The cases were filed in twenty-nine countries and six international tribunals, led by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which had forty-one.

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