Inter-linkages: The Kyoto Protocol and the International Trade and Investment Regimes

In 1997 delegates to the third session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed by consensus to adopt the Kyoto Protocol under which industrialized countries would reduce their combined greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5.2% from their 1992 levels. To have any hope of achieving these emission reductions and averting global climate catastrophe will require a fundamental shift in the way in which energy is produced and the way it is used. Inter-linkages examines the Climate Change Convention in the context of potential synergies and conflicts that could arise between it and the World Trade Organization, international investment agreements and private and contractual trade law.