Dear readers,

When countries fail to meet internationally agreed climate targets, nothing usually happens. So far, there are no reliable enforcement measures that the international community could impose or that individual citizens can push for. Do we therefore need an international environmental court that could require that countries keep their promises? This is just one of the questions being addressed by a group at THE NEW INSTITUTE led by Maja Groff. She heads the Planetary Governance Program and has been working for years on the question of what kinds of international laws, treaties, and institutions are needed to better manage a global crisis like the climate crisis. Groff is now at THE NEW INSTITUTE to make some of these a reality.

I’m a business journalist and currently a media fellow at THE NEW INSTITUTE, where this year's theme is "Re-thinking Capitalism". In this short newsletter series, I will try to share some of the ideas and projects as clearly and concretely as possible. I hope you enjoy the read!

Felix Rohrbeck

P.S. We have a German version of the text available for you here.

Do We Need an International Environmental Court?

For years, legal scholar Maja Groff has been exploring which international laws and institutions are needed to tackle climate change. As Program Chair at THE NEW INSTITUTE, she is working to transform some of these ideas into reality.

1. What is the Problem?

When nearly 200 countries came together in Paris in 2015 and pledged to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world responded with jubilation. Politicians embraced in the hallways, and people across the globe dared to hope that the climate crisis might actually be brought under control. German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared with solemn pride: “For the first time, the entire global community has committed itself to action in the fight against global warming.”

Eight years later, the first global assessment of the Paris Agreement demonstrated that progress was not actually being made: in September 2023, the United Nations concluded that the development of global greenhouse gas emissions was not in line with the Paris Agreement. Hardly any country was on track to achieve its climate targets. Many states had also missed the deadline for submitting new climate plans.

For Maja Groff, Head of the Planetary Governance Program at THE NEW INSTITUTE, this example shows what the international community urgently needs to get the climate crisis under control and to prevent planetary boundaries from being further overstepped: more reliable international laws and institutions to ensure that they are actually implemented.

“The problems are fundamentally solvable,” Groff says. “But because they are global problems, they need global governance structures. These are not yet sufficiently in place.”

Photo by Maxi Glas 

2. What is the Approach?

As a lawyer, Groff has long been committed to improving the world through international law. She has been involved in the drafting of international treaties and has been present at several criminal courts. For example, the Yugoslavia Tribunal was an ad hoc court established by the United Nations that brought more than 100 war criminals to justice. The tribunal is considered a precursor to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which, since 2002, has prosecuted the world’s gravest crimes—genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The ICC stands for a vision of global order grounded not in violence or power, but in justice and the rule of law.

The founding of the ICC in The Hague was an important step by states to transfer some of their power to international organizations. But the broader architecture of international cooperation remains rooted in the post-World War II era and is poorly equipped to tackle 21st-century challenges like climate breakdown and biodiversity loss.

So, what might a future-ready system of global governance look like?

That’s the question posed in 2016 by the Global Challenges Foundation in Sweden, which launched a worldwide competition to imagine new models for global cooperation. The response was overwhelming: over 2,700 submissions from more than 120 countries. Among the winners: Groff and her two collaborators, who proposed a blueprint for a reformed United Nations system. Their work resulted in the 2020 book Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century, which was published by Cambridge University Press and was backed by €600,000 in prize funding.

But the work didn’t end there. In 2019, Groff co-founded the Climate Governance Commission, joined subsequently by prominent figures like former Irish president Mary Robinson and climate scientist Johan Rockström. The Commission’s mission: to develop concrete proposals for international governance innovations that can effectively address climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. In 2023, the Commission released a report with 10 short-term and 5 medium-term action plans. These range from urging the UN General Assembly to declare a planetary emergency, to strengthening existing institutions, to creating an international environmental court.

In addition to making good proposals, however, the Commission also wants to ensure that they are actually implemented. “This is, of course, a challenge,” says Groff. The multilateral system is vulnerable to political blockages, and traditional diplomatic methods often lack agility and the ability to pursue ambitious goals.

But Groff believes history offers valuable lessons in how change can happen. She points to the examples of the International Criminal Court and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the United Nations in 2017. In both cases, the momentum didn’t only come from within the system, but also from the outside—from civil society. “It’s often outsiders with good ideas who do the conceptual groundwork and build support for their cause,” Groff says. A key factor for success, she adds, is the formation of so-called “smart coalitions”—alliances of NGOs, governments, cities, think tanks, and business initiatives that join forces to mobilize, apply pressure, and campaign for the implementation of important initiatives.

The approach by Groff and the Climate Governance Commission can be summed up in one sentence: make thoughtful, high-quality proposals for "planetary governance" that then lead to real change through "smart coalitions.”

3. What is the Institute's project?

At THE NEW INSTITUTE, Groff is working to concretize and implement selected measures from the Commission's report. "This phase is about putting our proposals into practice," says Groff. This is laborious work, which often starts on a small scale. Various organizations and experts have to be strategically involved. Even the first drafts can be subject to disagreements. "But it is necessary work to ensure that a proposal has a real chance of success in the end," Groff says.

Groff and her team are currently working on the following proposals, among others:

Declaration of a planetary emergency by the UN General Assembly: It is true that there are already countries, cities, and institutions that have declared a state of emergency in the face of the climate crisis and the overstepping of planetary boundaries. But this has not yet happened at the international level. As Groff says, "It would be a relatively quick first step toward recognizing the urgency of the crisis and initiating more international cooperation on that basis." One of the main goals for Groff during her time at THE NEW INSTITUTE is further developing the draft content for a UN declaration of a planetary emergency.

Establish an International Environmental Court: Similar to the International Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction over serious war crimes and crimes against humanity, an International Environmental Court could have jurisdiction over relevant climate and environmental disputes and, for example, hold states to their promises. But what exactly would the court’s powers be? Which cases would it hear? How would it be funded? "So far, the ideas for an International Environmental Court have been mostly discussed in abstraction," says Groff. "We're working on establishing a process to develop a credible, concrete, and stress-tested proposal.” Groff is drawing on her experience of drafting a model treaty for an International Anti-Corruption Court, which now has the support of many countries and organizations (and was drafted in part at THE NEW INSTITUTE). A similar process is now being planned for the International Environmental Court.

Photo by Maxi Glas 

Building an Earth Governance Alliance: The idea that "smart coalitions" are needed to implement and strengthen the structures of "planetary governance" has given rise to Mobilizing an Earth Governance Alliance (MEGA). The online platform can be used to launch campaigns and forge coalitions of like-minded civil society organizations.

According to Groff, the success of her work requires a variety of ingredients: financial resources, critical feedback, and a place where experts, NGOs, think tanks, and government officials can meet face-to-face to build and deepen coalitions. To this end, several meetings with academics, civil society organizations, and lawyers have already taken place at THE NEW INSTITUTE, most recently in April of this year. The projects were discussed, developed, and advanced in numerous workshops. "The Institute acts as a catalyst for our work," says Groff.

4. What Does this Mean for Capitalism?

For Groff, it's relatively simple: laws and strong institutions are needed to prevent our current economic systems from causing even greater harm. This is not a new idea. Adam Smith, considered to be the father of national economics, saw it that way. But for Smith, living in the 18th century, the nation state alone was responsible for this regulatory framework. In our current global environmental crisis, this is no longer enough, Groff says. We need sound global regulatory frameworks to keep current forms of capitalism from destroying our livelihoods.