What international governance frameworks have been proposed to manage cross‑border risks from geoengineering like SAI?

1. Strengthen existing international law and moratoria: use CBD, London Protocol and the No‑Harm Rule as guardrails

One stream argues that existing instruments already supply a restrictive architecture that must be upheld and fortified — notably the Convention on Biological Diversity’s de facto moratorium on geoengineering activities affecting biodiversity and the customary international No‑Harm Rule obliging states not to cause transboundary environmental damage — and advocates call for these to be interpreted and applied rigorously to SAI and marine approaches ^{[1] [6] [7]}. Proponents emphasize that the oceans and atmosphere cross borders and point to CBD decisions and London Protocol language as legal levers to block deployment absent consent and adequate assessment ^{[1] [2]}.

2. New multilateral treaty or institutional mechanism: a dedicated governance regime for SRM/CDR

Many analysts and policy scenarios conclude there is no single, overarching treaty for the full spectrum of geoengineering and therefore propose negotiating a dedicated international regime — a treaty or specialized body under the UN system that would set rules for authorization, liability, dispute resolution and possible prohibition or conditional use — because piecemeal reliance on existing agreements lacks comprehensive scope, universal participation and enforcement tools ^{[2] [7] [4]}. Proposals vary from legally binding non‑use agreements to a framework convention with protocols for SRM research and deployment; the U.S. Congressional review likewise notes that to date no multilateral treaty exists exclusively governing solar geoengineering ^[5].

3. Research governance, transparency and reporting: practical interim measures

A second, less absolutist school calls for operational rules to govern experiments and build shared scientific capacity: international registers, reporting requirements, independent review panels, limits on field trials, and monitoring and verification systems to detect and attribute SAI activities — measures intended to reduce the unilateral temptation and manage the “termination problem” and uneven regional impacts while political agreements evolve ^{[4] [7] [8]}. Domestic laws such as the U.S. Weather Modification Reporting Act point to the type of reporting architecture advocates would scale up to an international level ^[5].

4. Liability, redress and security arrangements: preventing escalation from disagreement to conflict

Security‑minded scholarship warns that SAI’s cross‑border climatic effects could be perceived as hostile acts and even provoke military responses absent clear norms and redress channels, prompting proposals that governance include dispute resolution, compensation mechanisms and even arms‑control–style confidence measures to prevent escalation of unilateral deployments into interstate conflict ^{[3] [9] [10]}. Regional arrangements and “domain awareness” systems to detect large‑scale operations are suggested as pragmatic complements because formal punishment regimes remain politically elusive ^{[11] [10]}.

5. Political reality and contested visions: moratoria, non‑use campaigns and equity demands

Political traction for any model is unpredictable: civil society, Indigenous groups and many lower‑income states press for strict non‑use and justice‑centered governance—illustrated by public resistance that halted tests and by calls for non‑use open letters—while some scientists and policymakers argue for regulated research to reduce uncertainty ^{[12] [13] [5]}. International forums have struggled — UNEA failed to reach consensus on SRM governance and COP29 decisions and voluntary carbon mechanisms have been criticized for potentially creating backdoors to commercialization — underscoring that proposals range from reinforcing restrictive norms to negotiating conditional, transparent governance with robust participation from the Global South ^{[12] [1]}.

There is no settled blueprint; the literature converges on three necessities — clear legal limits rooted in existing principles, a multilateral mechanism for authorization and liability, and operational transparency and monitoring — but the political will to convert these proposals into an enforceable, universal regime remains the central gap in current reporting ^{[2] [7] [5]}.