The Rule of Law Program for Africa-Sub Sahara of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Law Faculty of the University of Stellenbosch, represented by Prof. Oliver Ruppel jointly organized two international conferences on climate change and its legal challenges in Stellenbosch (SA) from 25th September to 28th September 2012. The first conference’s theme was “Climate Change and Global Governance”, the second’s “Climate Change, Legal Responses and Global Responsibility”.

The conferences focused on the imminent threat of climate change to humankind and the need for an internationally coordinated climate change regime in order to provide an adequate legal framework for reducing noxious greenhouse gas emissions and their detrimental impact.

After a keynote speech by H.E. Justice Ariranga Pillay, Chairman of the UN Council for Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, leading academics, politicians and members of the judiciary were discussing a variety of legal climate change aspects, also with a view to the upcoming COP18 meeting in Qatar and two comprehensive publications on the issue published by the Rule-of-Law Program and edited jointly by Prof. Oliver Ruppel, Prof. Christian Roschmann and Dr. Katharina Ruppel-Schlichting.