ABSTRACT
Climate change presents great challenges to tropical states because they are much more exposed to its effects than those located in temperate zones. Indonesia is an archipelagic state of circa 240 million people located on the equator, so we already must look seriously at both mitigation and adaptation. The question is what to do in a legal sense, which is how we come upon the precautionary principle. There are fairness issues which we consider part of legitimacy, but we see the precautionary principle for climate change purposes also as backed up by the well-recognized sic utere liability principle (as in Trail Smelter).
