Law, climate change and the arctic: legal governance of climate change induced risks in the arctic ecosystems

Climate change is the cause of a variety of new environmental risks, which profoundly affect the Earth's ecosystems. Maintaining fragile regions, such as the Arctic and protecting them against threats is in this context of utmost importance, as their ecosystems provide many valuable goods and services human well-being depends upon. This thesis offers a definition of climate change induced risks and outlines how they are being governed under existing international, regional and domestic law pertaining to the Arctic. Based on these findings it furthermore tries to propose ways and means to enhance the existing legal regime in order to warrant an effective governance of climate change induced risks in the circumpolar North.