In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was established as the first global treaty imposing legallybinding targets on the developed countries, imploring countries to curb greenhouse gases emissions from 2008 to 2012. In 2012, the Doha Amendment was agreed upon to extend KP for seven more years, from 2013 to 2020. However, it is not yet in force due to lack of ratification. The UN is trying to build a new international climate change system to succeed KP, which will encompass both the developing countries and the developed countries after 2020. The US, China, the EU and Japan are the four largest GHG emitters. Through the first period of KP, the international climate change system became an international political and economic network, creating new paradigms for energy resources, ways of life, carbon market, and economic development, et cetera. This article will show some of the underlying political and economic dynamics and responses of those four countries and Korea around the Post- KP negotiations.

This paper examines the early operation of the Kyoto Protocol’s non-compliance procedure since 2006. Several important non-compliance cases recently or currently before the Kyoto Compliance Committee of the procedures and mechanisms deserve to be analysed and discussed. As we may see, the enforcement branch of the Compliance Committee has dealt with some important cases of non-compliance; Among them, from the viewpoint of interpretation or application of international environmental treaties, the question of compliance by Croatia would be particularly interesting. What must be noticed is that the Kyoto Protocol’s NCP has prepared a multilateral forum which enables both the parties and the enforcement branch to base their arguments on international legal perspectives. This examination will also contribute to contested theories of compliance with international legal rules.