International legal foundations for regulating climate change and ways to enhance the effectiveness of international cooperation

The subject of the study is the international legal mechanisms for regulating climate change and their interaction with national legal regimes, particularly the legal practices of the Russian Federation. A systematic analysis of international climate law has been conducted, revealing key gaps: fragmentation of enforcement and accountability mechanisms, challenges in fairly distributing burdens between developed and developing countries, insufficient coherence between international and national legal regimes, limited accessibility to procedures for compensating transboundary climate damage, and difficulties in proving causal links in climate disputes. The achievements in secondary and strategic acts (strategies, "roadmaps" for the Paris Agreement, carbon accounting methodologies) in the Russian Federation are noted, but there is a lack of coordination, absence of unified climate legislation, and not always effective integration of "hard" and "soft" law. A synthetic interdisciplinary approach has been applied, combining systemic-legal, comparative-legal, and doctrinal analyses, institutional and functional-legal approaches with elements of climatology, political science, and economics. Methods of analyzing the treaty framework, monitoring and financial mechanisms, comparing national practices (Russia, EU: Germany, France), and studying judicial precedents have been used. The work combines a comprehensive legal and institutional analysis of international climate norms with a detailed assessment of their implementation practices in Russia and comparable jurisdictions, proposing unified approaches to standardizing the evidentiary basis in climate disputes and formulating specific mechanisms for translating elements of "soft" law into national legislation. New practical and legal tools have been identified: centralized scientific-legal commissions for unifying expertise, methodological standards for establishing causation, and hybrid funding models for adaptation measures. Based on the conducted research, eight priority measures are proposed to enhance the effectiveness of climate regulation: from creating national climate councils and formalizing "soft law" standards to developing unified standards of proof in climate disputes, expanding access to justice, harmonizing extraterritorial regulation, and strengthening international financial mechanisms. The necessity of a comprehensive, multi-level approach is emphasized, combining legal harmonization, institutional reform, civil society participation, and fair distribution of resources and responsibilities. Such an approach is viewed as a prerequisite for forming a sustainable and legitimate global climate legal order that responds to the challenges of the 21st century.

international climate law, Paris Agreement, UNFCCC, transboundary damage, historical pollutants, mild legal norm, implementation, Russian Federation, extraterritorial regulation, climate justice