Self-drive, Inducement, or Compulsion: Co-progressive Climate Change Solutions and the Advisory Proceedings before the ITLOS and the ICJ

Abstract This comment first recalls the idea of the international law of co-progressiveness—all encompassing, bent for progressiveness, and relying on the self-drive of each State while allowing inducement from other States—and then highlights the essential features of the Paris Agreement nationally determined contributions (NDC) system to reduce GHG emissions, which is now the mainstay of the main channel or platform under the UN to fight climate change, to show that this system—dominated by self-drive and inducement, designed to be all involving, mutually influencing, mutually inducing and mutually uplifting—is a very good reflection of the idea of the international law of co-progressiveness. The ITLOS in its advisory opinion on climate change considers the Paris Agreement to be a complement, not lex specialis, to the UNCLOS, without adequate analysis. In its advisory opinion to be delivered, the ICJ should act as the guardian of international law as to both the system and the content, center-stage the Paris Agreement NDC system, and holisticize the system of international law, by properly addressing the relevant systemic and substantive issues, rather than taking a sectoral approach. Some concluding remarks are offered at the end.