Humans everywhere put their trust in certainty, consistency, a sense of justice and fairness. Once they trust, they gain a greater con fi dence to act in every walk of life. Broader, faster action at all levels of government, business and society is required to respond to the long-term challenge of climate change. In this respect, law and the legal process are critical elements to any policy response to climate change and its adverse effects. Climate Change and the Law provides a helpful review of the emergence of a new discipline, its core principles and legal techniques, and its relationship and potential interaction with other disciplines. It is particularly timely because, in Durban, South Africa, at the 2011 UN Climate Conference, governments of the world agreed to craft a universal climate agreement with legal force, to be adopted in 2015 and to come into force no later than 2020. As an instrument for policy implementation, law provides a normative and institutional framework for managing and responding to climate change. It translates policy precepts into binding legal norms. A legal regime may provide for the establishment of legally binding targets to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sanction non-compliance. It can thereby channel human behaviour along pathways consistent with a low emissions economy. Institutional processes may be established and vested with power and authority to carry-out assessments, monitor trends and compliance, incentivize action, and enforce legal requirements. Legal processes are critical in addressing social crises and disputes arising from the impacts of climate change. At the global level, international law provides a framework for cooperation amongst states in responding to a global problem that requires a multilateral response. This book critically examines the current international legal framework and undertakes a comparative legal survey of national climate law, bringing together views from a broad array of perspectives, and a diverse group of authors. This work will undoubtedly be a valuable reference for the on-going global efforts to construct the post-2020 international climate change regime.