Negotiating the 2015 Climate Agreement: Issues relating to Legal Form and Nature

The on-going UN negotiations for a 2015 climate agreement have yet to resolve two fundamental legal issues on which the effectiveness of this agreement will hinge. First, they have yet to resolve the precise legal form this agreement will take. Parties agreed in Durban, 2011 to launch work towards a ‘protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties’ to be adopted in Paris in December, 2015. This formulation, reflective of divergences among Parties, leaves scope for a range of possibilities on legal form,..