Master

Anthropogenic climate change is arguably the most severe challenge facing humanity. This course is devoted to the emerging field of “Climate Change Law”. It aims at identifying unifying characteristics and principles of Climate Change Law and provides for an introduction into the geophysical basis of human-induced climate change. This introduction will be provided by Professor Dr. Reto Knutti, Center for Climate Systems Modeling (C2SM), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). The course seeks to situate the “Climate Change Law” with its cross-cutting character in both international law and domestic (environmental) law. Students will gain insights into the relation between Climate Change Law and General International Law as well as International Environmental Law and acquire knowledge on the history of the emergence of the international regime to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The course will provide for a profound understanding of the complex treaty-based regime of Climate Change Law spanning from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and discuss the implementation thereof both at the domestic level (Switzerland) and in the European Union. Students will get familiar with the potential and challenges of climate change litigation and the role private actors such as corporations and social movements can play in the combat against global warming.

The lecture conveys a basic understanding of the climate-physical foundations of climate change. Students are enabled to critically reflect on different approaches to legal problem solving and to apply these in existing environmental, constitutional, and administrative law.