IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/masfgc/v17y2012i8p849-863.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The European Commission White Paper on adaptation: appraising its strategic success as an instrument of soft law

Author

Listed:
  • Magali Dreyfus
  • Anthony Patt

Abstract

The European Union took its first strategic step on the topic of climate adaptation in 2009 with publication of a White Paper on Adaptation. Since its publication, many researchers and analysts have criticized the White Paper for its lack of concrete and enforceable actions. In this paper, we analyse the White Paper as an instrument of soft law. First, we provide background on the theory of soft law, its terms of applicability, and the standards by which to judge its success. Second, we analyse the content and context of the White Paper according to soft law principles. We find that the conditions under which the White Paper was adopted were exactly those suited to a soft law approach and highly determined by the European multi-level governance context. As such, the White Paper has managed to achieve several of the common objectives of soft law in particular in setting up processes allowing information-sharing and subsidiarity. However it has failed to achieve several others especially in fostering the commitment of the states, and in moving the European Union in the direction of binding regulation. Further strategy development will be required to fix these deficiencies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Magali Dreyfus & Anthony Patt, 2012. "The European Commission White Paper on adaptation: appraising its strategic success as an instrument of soft law," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 17(8), pages 849-863, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:17:y:2012:i:8:p:849-863
    DOI: 10.1007/s11027-011-9348-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11027-011-9348-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11027-011-9348-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moravcsik, Andrew, 1991. "Negotiating the Single European Act: national interests and conventional statecraft in the European Community," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 19-56, January.
    2. Michelle Cini, 2000. "From Soft Law to Hard Law?: Discretion and Rule-making in the Commission's State Aid Regime," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 35, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    3. Jon Birger Skjærseth & Olav Schram Stokke & Jørgen Wettestad, 2006. "Soft Law, Hard Law, and Effective Implementation of International Environmental Norms," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 6(3), pages 104-120, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. George A. Gonzalez, 2016. "Transforming Energy: Solving Climate Change with Technology Policy . New York : Cambridge University Press . 360 pages. ISBN 9781107614970, $29.99 paperback. Anthony Patt , 2015 ," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 33(1), pages 111-113, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Doleys, 2009. "Incomplete Contracting, Commission Discretion and the Origins of EU Merger Control," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 483-506, June.
    2. Carsten Hefeker & Michael Neugart, 2016. "Policy deviations, uncertainty, and the European Court of Justice," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 547-567, December.
    3. Phillip M. Hannam & Vítor V. Vasconcelos & Simon A. Levin & Jorge M. Pacheco, 2017. "Incomplete cooperation and co-benefits: deepening climate cooperation with a proliferation of small agreements," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 65-79, September.
    4. Lily Gardner Feldman, 1994. "Germany and the EC: Realism and Responsibility," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 531(1), pages 25-43, January.
    5. Stuart Smedley, 2021. "A Matter of Public Importance? The ‘Europe Open for Business’ Campaign, British Public Opinion and the Single Market," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 929-944, July.
    6. Bell-James, Justine & Boardman, Tessa & Foster, Rose, 2020. "Can’t see the (mangrove) forest for the trees: Trends in the legal and policy recognition of mangrove and coastal wetland ecosystem services in Australia," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    7. Pistorius, Till & Reinecke, Sabine, 2013. "The interim REDD+ Partnership: Boost for biodiversity safeguards?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 80-86.
    8. José Luis Castro-Montero & Edwin Alblas & Arthur Dyevre & Nicolas Lampach, 2018. "The Court of Justice and treaty revision: A case of strategic leniency?," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(4), pages 570-596, December.
    9. Jean-Yves Pitarakis & George Tridimas, 2003. "Joint Dynamics of Legal and Economic Integration in the European Union," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 357-368, November.
    10. Henrik Scheller & Annegret Eppler, 2014. "European Disintegration – non-existing Phenomenon or a Blind Spot of European Integration Research? Preliminary Thoughts for a Research Agenda," Working Papers of the Vienna Institute for European integration research (EIF) 2, Institute for European integration research (EIF).
    11. Olav Stokke, 2013. "Regime interplay in Arctic shipping governance: explaining regional niche selection," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 65-85, March.
    12. Arie Krampf, 2012. "The Consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon/European Consensus on Price Stability - From International Coordination to a Rule-Based Monetary Regime," KFG Working Papers p0047, Free University Berlin.
    13. Thomas König & Thomas Bräuninger, 1998. "The Inclusiveness of European Decision Rules," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 125-142, January.
    14. Mark Aspinwall, 1995. "International Integration or Internal Politics? Anatomy of a Single Market Measure," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 475-499, December.
    15. Steinar Andresen & Jon Birger Skjærseth & Torbjørg Jevnaker & Jørgen Wettestad, 2016. "The Paris Agreement: Consequences for the EU and Carbon Markets?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(3), pages 188-196.
    16. Ronald D. Gelleny & Christopher J. Anderson, 2000. "The Economy, Accountability, and Public Support for the President of the European Commission," European Union Politics, , vol. 1(2), pages 173-200, June.
    17. Bill Lucarelli, 2014. "The Euro: A currency in search of a state," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 25(3), pages 484-496, September.
    18. Adis Dzebo, 2019. "Effective governance of transnational adaptation initiatives," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 447-466, October.
    19. Beate Kohler-Koch, 1997. "The European Union Facing Enlargement: Still a System sui generis?," MZES Working Papers 20, MZES.
    20. Fikri Muhammad, 2022. "Environmental agreement under the non-interference principle: the case of ASEAN agreement on transboundary haze pollution," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 139-155, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:17:y:2012:i:8:p:849-863. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.