59:2 STANFORD JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 136 that we may be approaching or have already entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. 2 In 1988, the United Nations General Assembly recognized that the effects of climate change "could be disastrous for mankind if timely steps" were not taken to address it. 3 States began engaging in multilateral negotiations to address the threat of climate change shortly thereafter. 4 These negotiations culminated in the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. The objective of the Convention and any instrument negotiated pursuant to the agreement is to achieve the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."15 While a binding treaty, the UNFCCC contains no binding limitations on greenhouse gas emissions. 6 Several agreements have been negotiated pursuant to the UNFCCC, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement." The goal of the latter is to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, but it lacks any mechanisms of enforcement. 8 Rather, countries make pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through what are called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Thus far, state parties are 2 There is no scientific consensus on when the geological epoch began. Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin argue that the Anthropocene era began in 1610, when the first geological evidence of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas can be observed. SIMON L. LEWIS & MARK A. MASLIN, THE HUMAN How PLANET: WE THE CREATED ANTHROPOCENE 318 (2022). The International Law Association (ILA) used the change in geological epochs as a framing device to emphasize the magnitude of the context in which these challenges in international law are occurring: Scientific evidence increasingly indicates that, due to the nature and size of on-going and predicted changes, the Earth may already be undergoing a shift from the conditions of the current officially accepted geological time interval, the Holocene, to a new planetary state. The Holocene is the latest, and formally still current, geological epoch. It comprises the past 11,700 years, which have been marked by an exceptionally long period of relative environmental stability, especially during the last few thousand years. As such, the conditions of the Holocene were a key factor facilitating the development of human civilization and, ultimately, the territorial divisions of the political world as we know it today. It has been argued that, because of the interaction between the global environmental effects of economic development and the increased human population, the Earth system has already left the Holocene and has entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene. So far, the 'Anthropocene' is an unofficial scientific term referring to the human imprint on the Earth system that is already so profound as to have reached geological significance. ILA JOHANNESBURG CONFERENCE INTERIM REPORT, supra note 10, at 7-8; see also INT'L LAW ASS'N, WHITE PAPER 02: ANTHROPOCENE (2022) [hereinafter ILA WHITE PAPER]; Rakhyun E. Kim & Klaus Bosselmann, InternationalEnvironmental Law in the Anthropocene: Towards a Purposive System of MultilateralEnvironmentalAgreements, 2 TRANSNAT'L ENV'T L. 285, 286 (2013). 13 G.A. Res. 43/53, Protection of Global Climate for Present and Future Generations of Mankind (Dec. 6, 1988). 14 Daniel Bodansky, The UnitedNations Framework Convention on Climate Change: A Commen- 18 tary, 15 YALE J. INT'L L. 451, 471-75 (1993). U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change art. 2, adopted May 9, 1992, 1771 U.N.T.S. 107. 16 Hunter, supra note 7, at 144 ("[T]he UNFCCC's language was intentionally negotiated to avoid any specific binding mandates, at least with respect to reducing GHG emissions."). But see Bodansky, supra note 14, at 516 ("Indeed, it is questionable whether the Convention creates a legally binding target and timetable at all."). 17 PHILIPPE SANDS, JACQUELINE PEEL, ADRIANA FABRA & RUTH MACKENZIE, PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 300 (4th ed. 2018). 11 Daniel Bodansky, The Legal Characterof the ParisAgreement, 25 REV. EUR. CMTY. & INT'L ENv'T L. 142, 142 (2016). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4321214