International Law-Making: Actors in Shipping and Climate Change (InterAct)
InterAct aims to provide an account of the actors involved in the international law-making processes addressing climate change impacts of shipping, elucidating about their role and the incentives, barriers, interactions and synergies for sustainable shipping. InterAct will contribute to new academic insights into the theory of actors in international law and law-making, while providing an understanding and a way forward to address maritime transport climate-related impacts. Specifically, InterAct focuses on market-based measures and the energy transition for international maritime transport, and the regulation of shipping in the Artic.
If they could be accounted as a country, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from international maritime transport would not only be one of the top ten world largest emitters, but the fastest in growth, since the sector’s emissions are forecasted to increase between 50% and 250% by 2050 (Smith, S.; O’Keeffe et al. 2014). Moreover, the contribution of shipping to climate change will intensify, as routes in the Arctic become available. In spite of this, and while all the other sectors are reducing their emissions, shipping remains largely unregulated, being the last sector of the economy to contribute to climate change mitigation targets in line with the Paris Agreement. In understanding this anomaly, the literature has looked into different aspects and dynamics of the regulation of shipping (Oberthür 2003, Martinez Romera 2016, Martinez Romera 2017), where a key component has lingered unexplored, namely, the role of different actors in international climate related law-making for the sector. InterAct aims to fill this gap.
InterAct’s main objective will be addressed through the project as a whole, although informed by two sub-projects, which address two convergent objectives:
- Understanding the role of actors in law-making processes regarding market-based measures and technology and energy transition for international maritime transport. (Sub-project 1)
- Understanding the role of actors in the regulation of shipping induced climate change in the Arctic (Sub-project 2)
Researchers
Name | Title | Phone | |
---|---|---|---|
Martinez Romera, Beatriz | Associate professor | +45 353-23180 |
Funding

International Law-Making: Actors in Shipping and Climate Change (InterAct) has received funding from Carlsberg Foundation.
Project: International Law-Making: Actors in Shipping and Climate Change (InterAct)
(Grant number: CF20-0600)
Period: 01-09-2021 – 31-08-2024
Contact
Associate Professor on Environmental and Climate Change Law
Beatriz Martinez Romera
Centre for International Law and Governance (CILG)
Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen
Karen Blixens Plads 16
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark
DIR +45 35323180
MOB +45 29700410
beatriz.martinez.romera@jur.ku.dk