As climate change plays havoc with the hydrological cycle, exacerbating problems of freshwater scarcity in many regions worldwide, has the time come to rethink the foundations of international water law? Professor Stephen C. McCaffrey, who was one of the International Law Commission’s special...

Many new and ambitious energy efficiency and conservation laws are being enacted at all levels of government - and with greater financial incentives than provided previously. These innovations are intended to overcome or minimize market barriers such as principal-agent problems, information and...

This commentary sketches a research agenda for mapping the normative networks through which debates concerning transboundary water resources in the Mekong River Basin are being conducted, particularly those networks’ transnational legal dimensions. It argues that traditional ‘hard versus...

Alarming predictions have been made about the potential for climate change to fuel war and other forms of violent or social conflict, particularly due to resource scarcities (including food, water and energy) driven by climate change. This article first charts the likely security risks arising...

Currently, there are no adequate mechanisms under international law to balance the competing tensions climate change presents to state sovereignty. On one hand, climate change threatens state sovereignty because the catastrophic loss of life and property of millions of people would deprive...

Planet earth is host to a dazzling variety of living organisms. This diversity of life, or – biodiversity, is vital to the survival and prosperity of humanity, supplying such vital amenities as food, clothing, shelter, natural biochemicals useful in medicine, industry, and agriculture, and...

Debate about the adequacy of civil liability and compensation arrangements for nuclear reactor accidents increased markedly after the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The subsequent development of international nuclear liability and compensation conventions has sought to address the principal...

This paper first outlines the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement, with a focus on displacement from small island States (particularly in the Pacific), on which the impacts of climate change are well documented and keenly felt (although the challenges manifested there have parallels in...

Sustainable development would require the United States to maintain and improve human prosperity while at the same time greatly reducing its consumption of energy, materials, water, and land. The scope of the challenge includes, but is not limited to, climate change. This Article suggests the...

Experience teaches that the Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) will need a financing facility if it is to garner widespread acceptance among low-income countries. The promise of financing is a well-established carrot to encourage countries to assume new convention-imposed obligations...