International Economic Law & The Climate (LAWS90296)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5Not available in 2025
About this subject
Overview
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This course explores the relationships between climate change and international economic law. After considering the synergies and conflicts between climate change, international trade, and foreign investment, the course assesses climate dimensions of core treaty commitments in the World Trade Organization (WTO), free trade agreements (FTAs), and investment treaties. Students will critically analyse how these legal instruments can be leveraged or reformed to support climate objectives and the Paris Agreement. Insights will also be used from emerging climate frameworks in finance and supply chains as well as international climate litigation based on human rights disciplines. Based on a combination of lectures and applied case studies and exercises, the course is highly interactive with considerable student participation and discussion.
Indicative list of principal topics:
- An introduction to climate change and the Paris Agreement.
- Climate change and international trade in goods and services.
- Foreign investment, international finance, and climate change. Supply chains and climate change.
- WTO commitments and their role for climate change.
- FTA disciplines and their role for climate change. International investment law and climate change. The human rights dimension of climate change and its importance for international economic law and dispute settlement.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- Identify and explain economic and political synergies and conflicts between climate change, international trade, and foreign investment.
- Examine and discuss the dual international law architectures governing international economic relations and climate change.
- Evaluate how the Paris Agreement relates to international economic relations and law.
- Differentiate between core international economic law instruments and disciplines and how they relate to climate objectives and climate policy.
- Analyse and critically assess how climate governance frameworks for international finance, supply chains, and human rights are relevant for international economic law.
Generic skills
- Articulate and explain complex information regarding international economic law and climate change to relevant specialist and non-specialist audiences.
- Communicate insightful interventions in policy debates and legal arguments relating to international economic law and climate change.
- Develop insights from emerging climate frameworks in finance and supply chains as well as from international climate litigation based on human rights disciplines.
Last updated: 4 March 2025