Could Turkey dam the Tigris and Euphrates and deprive its downstream neighbors of vital water resources? Could Brazil over-pump the Guarani Aquifer System to the detriment of the other aquifer states? Could Egypt put pressure on upstream Nile states and prevent them from developing river related infrastructure that might limit downstream flow? International law in the field of transboundary water cooperation has evolved and would appear to condemn unilateral practices such as the ones suggested above. However, hydro politics and the lack of reception of international water law instruments by many countries sometimes make it difficult to see international law properly reflected in the management of major rivers, lakes and aquifers around the world. In this essay, I first highlight what international law dictates when it comes to the tension between national sovereignty and transboundary water cooperation. I then explore how this tension plays out in the three examples noted above. Due to limited acceptance of the existing international, bilateral, or regional legal instruments, the resolution of the tension between national sovereignty and transboundary water cooperation will often be left to customary international law.

There is no doubt that the discourse around climate change has matured over the years and has become one of the central features of international relations. We all know of the international legal regime that has developed to deal with climate change, starting from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and finishing with the Paris Agreement. Climate change is also either at the core or on the fringes of many other international debates, from international security to international economic relations. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a (yet again) stark warning alerting to the risks of not moving towards a 1.5 degrees goal, rather than a 2.0 degrees as the Paris Agreement seems to be suggesting. The truth is that the trend countries are moving toward with their pledges in their nationally determined contributions is not going to meet the 2.0 objective, let alone the 1.5 degrees objective. Against this background, it is not surprising that sectors of society interested in pursuing stronger climate change policies have explored multiple governance routes to take forward their agenda. This has led to the emergence of a polycentric and multilevel governance in the field of climate change. It is within this greater picture that climate change litigation has become a key facet in the fight against climate change.

John J. Kirton and Michael J. Trebilcock (eds.), Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment and Social Governance, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0754609669, 372 pp.