China has mainly relied on plans and policies to deal with adaptation challenges while climate legislation at the national level encounters with series of hurdles. Adaptation and environmental law are deeply entangled with each other, and a sustainable adaptation response entails current environmental law to reform for better adaptation regulation. This article reveals that China’s environmental law faces some legal challenges of applying its rules, especially tort rules, to distribute climate-induced loss and damages. Nonetheless, a possible solution to facilitate a better or more aggressive adaptation regulation would be establishing the linkage between loss and damage with climate change, mainstreaming adaptation within extant legal instruments and turning to EIA-based climate litigation.
The present contribution questions the role of principles of EU law in climate litigation. Notwithstanding their importance within the EU general regulatory framework, their operationalisation in climate litigation is underexplored. To appreciate EU principles in the context of climate change litigation, this paper positions them within the scope and dynamics of climate change litigation worldwide. Secondly, with this background, the analysis develops as a case law review on the emerging role of the precautionary principle, intergenerational equity, and the minimum harmonisation principle in the climate litigation. To date, five relevant climate lawsuits have unfolded before the courts of EU Member States, which allows for canvassing the content, status, and significance of the principles under examination with concrete examples of the climate lawsuits where these principles have been applied. In this regard, the paper finds that courts in Member States have steadily provided protection of the climate and future generations through rights-based arguments supported by principles. In this context, domestic courts seem to be filling the normative gap left by the CJEU by interpreting fundamental rights in relation to EU environmental principles in what I conceptualise as “the rights turn through principles.” As a final point, the paper concludes with the prospective development of EU principles in the EU legal order and beyond, possibly enabling comparisons with other jurisdictions.
In contrast to climate protection law, which regulates the mitigation of climate change, climate adaptation law deals with the management of the unavoidable consequences of climate change. This article provides an overview of its legal basis from a European perspective. In addition to international law, especially the Paris Agreement, EU law is of central importance in this respect. It is primarily shaped by the EU Climate Law enacted in 2021. However, this Law only sets a general framework and is further defined by legal acts of various sectoral policies, especially in the field of environment. Climate adaptation regulations at the level of European member states are presented using the example of Germany, where a Federal Climate Adaptation Act is currently being drafted. Due to Germany's federal state structure, state legislation is also analysed. Most of the German states ("L & auml;nder") have their own climate laws, although their content varies. The municipal level is only addressed with restraint in these laws. The reasons for this are of a fiscal constitutional nature and will be explained in more detail.
This article examines the adjustment mechanisms which have been designed and implemented under China’s experimentations with its emissions trading scheme (ETS). In China, several ETS pilot programs have adopted these mechanisms in the process of cap setting, allowance allocation and price regulation to allow regulatory intervention at different stages of the ETS operation to ensure that particular regulatory objectives are going to be achieved. Using doctrinal analysis, this article provides some critical insights into the specific regulatory design of the flexible mechanisms in China. It highlights their impact on regulatory stability and on the credibility of the ETS program. Considering that the ETS pilots are designed for and operated at local levels for the purpose of testing regulatory design and implementation in order to inform the policymakers at the central government when designing the national scheme, the lessons learned from the ETS pilots with respect to the adjustment mechanism are critical to fulfilling this strategy.
There are two models with which to evaluate a merger’s potential side-effects on innovation: the exogenous model and the endogenous model. The exogenous model takes innovation as an exogenous element and independently assesses this element. The endogenous model considers innovation as a competition parameter and involves it in the analysis of the competition mechanism. The key purpose of the Anti-Monopoly Law of the PRC is the “protection of fair competition”. To achieve this legislative purpose, China applies the endogenous model, appraising the concrete harm to the innovation parameter of the competition mechanism. The Chinese competition authority determines whether to evaluate harm to innovation competition based on the relevant market, merging parties, attributes of the transaction and other factors according to the specific case. Unilateral effects in horizontal mergers and input foreclosure in vertical mergers are the main theories applicable to innovation competition harm. In practice, the Chinese competition authority may differentiate between factual competition and potential competition, as well as product innovation and industry innovation, on a case-by-case basis. This paper argues that the competition authority should properly handle the uncertainty in assessing innovation competition, and fully respect the efficiency defence raised by notifying parties.
