ABSTRACT
The legal purists reject the notion of 'soft law', insisting that international law should always be 'hard', based on binding obligations. The soft law can be expressed in treaties consisting only soft legal obligations, or non-binding resolutions or codes of conduct of international and regional organizations. The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Secretariat keeps an international transaction log to verify that transactions are consistent with the rules of the Protocol. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was a classical 'hard law' and, not surprisingly, states had difficulties accepting top-down imposition of its targets and the Protocol faced serious implementation problem. The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change emerged as a new type of international law, based on bottom-up commitments. The Agreement establishes a committee facilitating its implementation by sharing information and technologies, which is a radically different body from the 'sanctions committees' known from the 'hard law'.
