Shaping the law for global crises

In the course of the last one hundred years, quite a lot has been achieved especially in the 'Western' world. Life standards have risen considerably. All kind of serious diseases belong to the past. People get older than ever before; the progress of technology has proven beneficial to mankind. Primarily the 'developed' countries have gained a lot from all this, although these developments have also had spin-off effects on the 'developing' countries. For example, extreme poverty has been eradicated to quite some extent. The BRICS-countries have become new economic powers in the world. Despite all these advances, the world still faces many threats and challenges. This book aims to provide thoughts about the role the law could possibly play to ward off man-made crises. The focus will be on global threats which are, unless checked in due time, going to stir the world at large. What follows tries to provide stepping stones for shaping the law to cope with the major challenges of our time, such as climate change, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.