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A Tale of  Two Architectures: The Once and Future UN Climate Change Regime / Dan Bodansky, Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, March 2011, 18 p. (working paper)http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1773865International  agreements vary widely in the latitude that they give participating  states. Some take a top-down approach, defining particular policies and  measures that parties must undertake. Others adopt a more bottom-up  approach, allowing each participating state to define its own  commitments unilaterally. In the climate change regime, the Kyoto  Protocol reflects a top-down approach. Although it gives states freedom  in how they implement their commitments, it does not give them similar  flexibility in defining the form, nature and content of their  commitments. Going forward, the climate change regime faces a choice:  continue down the road blazed by Kyoto, or shift to a more bottom-up  architecture, focusing on nationally-defined measures. Although the  Copenhagen Accord and Cancun Agreements in theory leave this question  open, they embrace a bottom-up approach, allowing countries to make  national pledges unilaterally. The paper argues that this bottom-up,  incremental approach makes sense politically, in order to provide time  for countries to learn from experience and to develop trust in the  system. Although it is unlikely, in itself, to produce the necessary  level of emissions cuts, it represents a useful step forward, by  unblocking an apparently stalemated process and by helping to build a  foundation for stronger action in the future. (© Bodansky)