Climate change, emergency situations and the response of Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to examine the relationship between climate change and emergency situations in the legal systems of three states: Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia. The first part of the paper presents the attitudes of Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia towards climate change and emergency situations. The author analyzes the laws regulating the field of climate change (from the standpoint of potential relevance for emergency situations) and the laws regulating the field of emergency situations (from the standpoint of potential relevance for climate change). The second part of the paper points to the membership of Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia in relevant international agreements in the field of environment. The author discusses the position that the relationship between the climate change and emergency situations is not regulated in a comprehensive manner, and that this issue has been partially and inconsistently recognized in international law regulations. In that regard, there is room for a significant clarification on their correlations. The character of the links between climate change and emergency situations should be viewed in light of the development of international law and the specific features of the legal systems of the three countries, including their status within the EU integration process.