Climate Change Agreements: Sue Biniaz Describes How Negotiators Got to Yes

John Bellinger
Saturday, July 23, 2016, 5:30 PM

Former State Department Deputy Legal Adviser Sue Biniaz, who has served as the Department's top environmental lawyer for more than twenty-five years and is now teaching at Columbia Law School, has written a fascinating new paper entitled "Comma But Differentiated Responsibilities: Punctuation and 30 Other Ways Negotiators Have Resolved Differences in the International Climate Change Regime," in which she describes some practical devices

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Former State Department Deputy Legal Adviser Sue Biniaz, who has served as the Department's top environmental lawyer for more than twenty-five years and is now teaching at Columbia Law School, has written a fascinating new paper entitled "Comma But Differentiated Responsibilities: Punctuation and 30 Other Ways Negotiators Have Resolved Differences in the International Climate Change Regime," in which she describes some practical devices negotiators have used to reach international climate change agreements, from using the vague "inter alia" to strategic use of the comma.

Although her paper focuses on climate agreements, Sue is a veteran treaty negotiator, and her practical examples are relevant to many treaty negotiations.

If you ever wondered how 190-plus countries could reach agreement on issues where they have real policy differences, this paper tells you how.

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John Bellinger

John Bellinger

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John B. Bellinger III is a partner in the international and national security law practices at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC. He is also Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as The Legal Adviser for the Department of State from 2005–2009, as Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council at the White House from 2001–2005, and as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice from 1997–2001.

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