Reasons for Agreeing, Reasons for Complying: The Paris Agreement and the Compliance Issue

Abstract

How should we deal with noncompliance in the context of the Paris Agreement? After having delimited the scope of noncompliance as a motivational issue, I will argue that two kinds of reasons can motivate agents to comply, moral and prudential reasons. Then, I will show that moral and prudential reasons can motivate compliance, although in different ways, as moral reasons require the institutions, whereas prudential reasons are thought to be self-sufficing. Prudential reasons come with the assumption that they have ample motivational force to elicit compliance. I will contend that, for what concerns climate treaties, this assumption does not hold. To do so, I will argue that, from an interest-based perspective, reasons for agreeing on a treaty rarely conflate with the reasons that motivate agents to complying with it, so, if we want to ensure compliance, the international climate regime should establish institutions to oversee compliance when prudential reasons fails to motivate.