Distributive justice in international environmental policy: Axiomatic foundation and exemplary formulation

Proceeding on a limited number of general, widely accepted equity criteria, we develop a proposal for distributing common resources. In particular. th e proposed fair division mechanism is individually rational, envy-free, Par eto-efficient and satisfies the stand alone test, which follows as a minimu m requirement from the resource and population monotonicity criteria. Appli ed to international climate policy, the thrust of this proposal is that the South should initially be fully compensated for the greenhouse gas abateme nt measures it is to undertake as a result of efficiency considerations.