Ocean acidification is a significant but under-recognised climate impact where oceans absorb CO2, leading to a 30–40 per cent decrease in pH since pre-industrial times. This poses a threat to marine ecosystems and food webs, as calcifying organisms such as oysters and corals struggle to build their shells, while non-calcifying species face behavioural changes. Despite an increasing amount of scientific literature, OA receives minimal attention from social sciences and lacks international governance. The book explores how OA should be governed, mapping the governance landscape as a regime complex involving multiple actors and instruments. It proposes global experimentalist governance as suitable for addressing the complexity of OA, examining case studies of the OA Alliance and the International Maritime Organization. The research finds that while OA is framed as a climate change effect needing holistic responses, including mitigation, adaptation, and resilience measures, current governance remains fragmented, with limited coordination among relevant international frameworks.

This chapter traces the early life of Louis Bieral, born in 1814 in Valparaíso, Chile, amid revolutionary upheaval. It explores his ambiguous racial and familial origins and the violent political culture of post-independence Chile, which shaped his understanding of masculinity and authority. Bieral’s exposure to maritime life and urban vice in Valparaíso foreshadowed his later immersion in New York’s underworld. His alleged kidnapping by a whaling captain and subsequent servitude in Brooklyn illustrate the porous boundaries between freedom and coercion in antebellum America. The chapter situates Bieral’s formative years within broader themes of race, labor, and violence, emphasizing the social structures that normalized physical domination and racial ambiguity.

Moving to California during the Gold Rush, Bieral found himself in a frontier society defined by lawlessness, racial tension, and economic ambition. The chapter examines his possible involvement in violent incidents and his association with notorious figures in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. Bieral’s return to Boston and legal name change reflected his desire for reinvention and racial reclassification amid rising nativism and the Fugitive Slave Act. His story illustrates the fluidity of identity and the strategic use of whiteness in navigating legal and social hierarchies. California’s chaotic environment provides an extreme example of a society run by bullies in antebellum America.

This chapter analyses the Ocean Acidification Alliance (OAA) against five elements of global experimentalist governance. The OAA, launched in 2016 by Pacific Coast governments, comprises over 145 members addressing ocean acidification. Evaluating the five elements reveals: (1) A shared problem exists – members agree on OA definition and causes; (2) Open-ended goals are present – six framework objectives like ‘reduce CO2 emissions’ with provisional, loosely worded targets; (3) Delegation occurs – members create Action Plans with discretion to experiment, although delegation is not solely to lower levels; (4) Feedback and peer review are limited – information sharing occurs through webinars and meetings but lacks systematic reporting on specific metrics; (5) Goal adjustment is possible – goals and metrics can evolve based on scientific findings and member experiences. A key limitation is that metrics lack specificity, undermining systematic reporting and peer-review cycles essential to experimentalist governance. No penalty default exists due to voluntary membership. While the OAA exhibits features of experimentalist governance, the absence of concrete metrics weakens the recursive learning process. Future metric development could enhance the implementation of experimentalist governance within this voluntary, multilevel climate coalition.

This chapter outlines the governance landscape of ocean acidification (OA), identifying thirty-one actors and twenty-seven instruments at the international, regional, local, and transnational levels. The map indicates that no single institution leads OA governance; rather, multiple institutions address different aspects through implicit mandates rather than explicit ones. Only the Ocean Acidification Alliance has a clear OA mission. Most institutions operate across various fields such as climate, biodiversity, and marine protection, resulting in functional overlaps without a clear hierarchy. Applying regime complex theory, the chapter contends that OA governance constitutes a regime complex – partially overlapping, likely non-hierarchical institutions governing the same issue area. Three factors affirm this classification: divergent interests (economic vs. environmental), high uncertainty (scientific complexity and multiple actors), and limited linkages between institutions. The regime complex is situated at the intersection of climate, marine, and atmospheric governance systems. This characterisation is vital, as it implies that global experimentalist governance could effectively utilise these existing institutional arrangements rather than supplanting them, laying the groundwork for selecting suitable governance approaches in subsequent chapters.

This chapter introduces the reader to the basic structure and history of the international legal system, including the relationship between law and politics and the nature of the international legal order. It is intended to put the reader in a position to understand the role played by international law within the system of international relations. The historical development of international law from its early origins in, for example, the ancient Middle East, through Roman law and the concept of the jus gentium (law of peoples), and the Renaissance to the founders of modern international law, such as Vittoria and Grotius, and onto the nineteenth century and later is surveyed. The chapter refers to the concepts of positivism and naturalism and looks at communist theories of international law in Russia and China. The chapter concludes with a brief survey of the role and position of Developing Countries (Third World; Global South).

The afterword explains why Louis Bieral’s life matters. He had an almost unique set of experiences. He illustrates the importance of violence to the operation of nineteenth-century American society. He also suggests the difficulty of establishing the rule of law, replacing the veneration of physical might with the celebration of persuasion.

This chapter centers on Bieral’s role in the 1854 Anthony Burns fugitive slave case, where he organized armed guards to prevent Burns’s rescue. Bieral’s participation reveals his alignment with pro-slavery Democrats and his complex racial identity. The chapter interrogates his motivations – political loyalty, racial self-interest, and personal pride – while contrasting his actions with abolitionist efforts. Bieral’s subsequent assault on attorney Richard Henry Dana, Jr., exemplifies the violent enforcement of political power. The narrative situates Bieral within the broader context of antebellum racial politics, highlighting the paradox of a possibly mixed-race man defending slavery to assert his whiteness and authority.

This chapter concerns state succession, the process by which a state may succeed to the treaties, assets, debts and responsibilities of a predecessor state. The relationship between continuity and succession of states is not always easy to determine, as some states may be deemed to be continuations of the earlier state in a slightly different form rather than a totally new state. Examples covered here include Russia, Yugoslavia and Germany. The question of succession to treaties is then considered with an examination of the different kinds of treaties, such as multilateral treaties, bilateral treaties, human rights treaties and territorial treaties. The various effects upon such treaties of how the succession is characterised, from absorption and merger to cession of part of a state to another, to the creation of a new state, are examined. The chapter then turns to other branches of succession, from succession to membership of international organisations to succession to assets, including archives, and debts and succession to private rights, nationality and responsibility.

This chapter posits that risk assessment necessary as a condition precedent to settlement requires evidentiary transparency as to all stakeholders, including the arbitral tribunal. Moreover, this chapter discusses and asserts that settlement and mediation techniques are futile absent a thorough understanding of the underlying evidence, and objective procedural methodologies governing admissibility, relevance, materiality, and weight of the evidence. Thus, the chapter analyzes features and possible amendments to the rules of the leading ICA institutional administrative bodies that would enhance the predictive value of determinations based on existing evidence. Consequently, the evidential framework of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and the German Arbitration Institute (DIS) rules are analyzed.

This chapter concerns international organisations, from their inception to their rise. Regional organisations are described in Europe, Central and South America, Arabia, Africa and South East Asia. This is followed by an examination of some legal aspects of international organisations, such as their definition, and the question of legal personality. A discussion of the constituent instruments of such organisations is noted before the question of their powers is examined. The applicable law of such organisations is described, followed by an analysis of the responsibility of international organisations. The liability of member states of international organisations is considered, as is the accountability of the organisations. This is followed by a consideration of the privileges and immunities of international organisations. The chapter concludes with a look at the questions of withdrawal from such organisations, the dissolution of international organisations and the succession of international organisations.

Bieral’s relocation to New York and integration into Tammany Hall’s Empire Club mark his rise as a political enforcer. The chapter details his involvement in pedestrianism, prizefighting, and Democratic factionalism, including the violent 1859 Syracuse convention. Bieral’s alignment with pro-slavery “Hards” and his role in suppressing abolitionist dissent reflect the entwinement of sport, politics, and violence. His involvement in the Heenan–Sayers fight and other high-profile events solidified his status as a cultural figure. The narrative emphasizes the performative nature of masculinity and the strategic deployment of physicality in political contests.

This chapter proposes global experimentalist governance as an ideal framework for addressing ocean acidification (OA). Global experimentalist governance consists of five elements: identifying a shared problem, setting open-ended goals, delegating solutions to lower governance levels, establishing feedback and peer-review mechanisms, and adjusting goals based on learning. This approach aligns well with OA’s characteristics, which are both scientific and part of a regime complex. The framework accommodates OA’s complexity through recursive learning cycles, multilevel participation, and provisional goal setting that can adapt as scientific understanding advances. A central unit coordinates, but does not control, the process, using ‘penalty defaults’ to encourage reluctant actors to cooperate. Favourable background conditions for experimentalist governance exist for OA, such as strategic uncertainty due to problem complexity and polyarchic power distribution with no single dominant actor. The chapter concludes that this governance approach could leverage OA’s existing regime complex rather than replace it, making it a promising framework for tackling this emerging environmental challenge.