The Kyoto Protocol was a milestone event in the process of getting global climate change on to the political agenda and taking the first tentative steps towards internationally co-ordinated action. This book brings together researchers from the disciplines of law, economics, political science and sociology to analyse the instruments which have been set up to manage climate change and the institutional shifts that are required for the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The authors highlight the need for an adequate implementation structure and well designed flexible instruments to enable emissions targets to be achieved. They discuss the level of international coordination which is required for the smooth operation of flexibility mechanisms and the importance of ensuring these instruments fit within existing national structures. In some countries, there are concerns that the introduction of cap and credit trading programmes may require an overhaul of existing environmental legislation. Technical innovations will also have a critical role to play in preparing the ground for increasingly ambitious controls of GHGs. The authors emphasise the need for an evolutionary development of instruments to support such innovations and the potentially vital roles of firms and governments to help their quick diffusion. This book presents an unusual, fascinating and highly instructive mixture of approaches which will be readily accessible to a broad array of readers from a variety of scientific backgrounds. It will prove invaluable to economists, political and social scientists, lawyers, practitioners and decision-makers involved with climate change policy and international environmental law.

The essays collected in this "liber amicorum" or "Festschrift" were written in order to pay respect to Gerrit Meijer, a genuine scholar who will retire as reader from Maastricht University on October 17, 2003. His career has involved extensive teaching at all levels, characterized by great erudition, diligence, empathy, and willingness to speak his mind. This stubbornness not to go with intellectual fashions is an extremely important asset in the social sciences. It was his lonely voice in a hostile environment that held up the recognition of European traditions in economic thought which others were willing to either forget or set aside or else never learn. In this sense, the current intellectual landscape in the Netherlands, but not only there, is different from what it would have been had Gerrit Meijer not exerted his influence. Hence, it is no surprise that such a large group of scholars, all somehow related to Gerrit's efforts, have contributed to this volume.