Il sistema di risoluzione delle controversie previsto per il Protocollo di Kyoto

The conclusion of several multilateral environmental agreements (MEA's) is one of the greatest achievements of the past few decades in the area of international environmental law. What is however their effective degree of enforcement by the contracting Parties? Recent analyses in this sense showed a negative trend, labelled the « enforcement deficit». Which are the reasons for such a trend not to fulfil the obligations stemming from international multilateral treaties? And which are the most appropriate instruments which can be relied upon in order to try and prevent or reduce to the minimum the negative consequences which might arise from such cases of non-fulfilment? The present article attempts to answer these questions through the analysis of the decline of the traditional dispute settlement procedures and the parallel and correspondent rise of the non-compliance procedures in the field of international environmental law. In such a context, a special attention is devoted to the analysis of the non-compliance procedure foreseen for the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.