Net-Zero: A New Norm Analysis

Despite its relative obscurity five years ago, four out of every five people on the planet now live under a Net-Zero target. Undoubtedly, Net-Zero has had a rapid normative diffusion. However, it remains to be seen what this entails from a legal standpoint. As the world moves from Net-Zero ideation to implementation, it is imperative to clarify its current legal status and possible future implications. This thesis develops a framework to investigate new norms under international law and applies it to the context of Net-Zero. It sets the scene by introducing the array of norm practices today and showing how orthodox legal methods are ill-equipped to capture them. To address this gap, it proposes a New Norm Analysis that tailors Brunnée and Toope’s theory of interactional international law to the unique context of New Norms. It illustrates how New Norm Analysis involves distilling the shared understandings of a norm candidate, examining the extent to which they meet Fuller’s criteria of legality and possess a potential practice of legality. In this way, it reveals New Norm Analysis as a tool that can establish both the current legal contours and future prospects of a norm candidate.

The thesis finds that Net-Zero is not a norm itself, but rather a norm bundle with a variable and contingent legal character. It does this by exploring three particular Net-Zero norm candidates: the energy transition, aligning financial flows with the Paris Agreement, and the environmental integrity of carbon markets. It shows how each norm candidate has developed a core set of shared understandings that both reveals its typology and embeds it within the broader Net-Zero norm bundle. At the same time, it demonstrates that no norm candidate examined fulfils all eight criteria of legality, indicating the extent of development needed for them to potentially become fully-fledged norms in future. Yet, as demonstrated by opportunities for norm contestation and consolidation at their intersection with international economic law, all have potential practices of legality, making them valuable objects of study. Assessing Net-Zero in this manner is designed to bring to life a reflexive framework that can be applied to other live areas of norm development. In this way, the thesis provides a broader window into new norms and their role in the architecture of contemporary international law.