The Resilience of the Paris Agreement: 

Negotiating and Implementing the Climate Regime

Georgetown Environmental Law Review, Vol. 31.1, pp. 1-64, 2018

Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 284/2018;

64 Pages Posted: 28 Aug 2018 Last revised: 26 Jan 2019

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3236985

Rafael Leal-Arcas

Queen Mary University of London - School of Law

Antonio Morelli

American University - Washington College of Law

Date Written: August 22, 2018

Abstract

The Paris Climate Agreement is undoubtedly one of the greatest diplomatic achievements of the Obama-Kerry administration. Yet under the Trump presidency, it is under threat of being dismantled, just like many other international agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This article explains that such dismantling will be hard to achieve because the success of the Paris Agreement does not only rest in its negotiation phase, but is supported through a bottom-up approach in the implementation phase and the potential of the international trading system. With an analysis of the climate regime’s negotiation and implementation, this paper aims at demonstrating why dismantling the Paris Climate Agreement will be hard and not favored by the plurality of actors involved in the process.

Keywords: Paris Agreement, climate change, international trade