Dimensiuni politico-juridice ale acțiunii internaționale a Uniunii Europene privind protecția mediului și combaterea schimbării climatice
Political-legal Dimensions of the European Union's International Action Regarding Environmental Protection and Combating Climate Change

Summary/Abstract: The inclusion of the environment in the constitutive treaties by the Single European Act (1986) also meant the explicit provision, for the first time, of external European competences in the matter; thus, the Community could ensure "the promotion, on an international level, of measures designed to deal with regional or global environmental problems". This competence will be strengthened and extended by the Treaty of Lisbon (2009) to the issue of climate change presented as an "existential threat to humanity". Out of a concern for soft power and through an exemplary effort, the EU promotes on this legal basis in its external relations with different partners the demands of combating climate change, the objectives of preserving biodiversity, those of the degradation of the marine environment or specific regional cooperation. In this context, innovative tools are used to reveal global environmental challenges and to take into account the needs of ecological transition, such as the carbon adjustment mechanism at borders or new climate clauses inserted in trade agreements in which climate conditionality is present. Such approaches show us how the Union understands how to use legal innovation to favour developments towards sustainable development models, with a vigorous ecoclimatic dimension. In addition to the direct concrete effects, related developments contribute to the consolidation and particularization of the specific international legal regime of climate change.

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