Samenvatting

Climate change forces to a fundamental reconsideration of our strategic policy, and especially of the relationship between policy and law. With regard to political urgent topics, a tendency towards policy instrumentalism always lies in wait. In the current policy practice this problem manifests itself in the application of law (in many detailed norm prescriptions) and – curiously – also in its policy counterpart: the search towards informal but even goal specific policy processes.

The authors plead for dealing with spatial climate challenges by creating room for a strategic policy perspective and a sustainable approach of the relation between law and policy. A qualitative approach of policy and law necessitates an innovative juridical transformation: the use of general normative rules which give direction to flexible policy processes in multiple, specific policy situations.