The Paris Agreement and the Future of the Climate Regime

Author(s):  
Annalisa Savaresi

This chapter discusses how international law has responded to climate change, focusing on the challenges that have faced implementation of existing climate treaties, and on the suitability of the Paris Agreement to address these. Expectations of this new treaty could scarcely be greater: the Paris Agreement is meant to provide a framework to improve international cooperation on climate change, and to keep the world within the global mean temperature-change goal identified by scientists as safe. Yet, whether and how this important objective will be reached largely depends, on the one hand, on the supporting political will and, on the other, on the redesign of the international architecture for climate governance. This chapter specifically reflects on international law-making and on the approach to climate change governance embedded in the Paris Agreement, drawing inferences from the past, to make predictions on what the future may hold for international climate change law.

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit Mayer

AbstractThis article analyzes the international law obligations that arise in relation to nationally determined contributions (NDCs). It argues that distinct and concurrent obligations arise from two separate sources. On the one hand, treaty obligations arise under the Paris Agreement, which imposes an obligation of conduct on parties: they must take adequate measures towards the realization of the mitigation targets contained in their NDCs. On the other hand, communications such as NDCs may constitute unilateral declarations that also create legal obligations. These unilateral declarations impose obligations of various types, which may extend beyond mitigation. For example, they may specify measures of implementation or demand the achievement of a particular result. The potential ‘double-bindingness’ of NDCs should be a central consideration in the interpretation of international law obligations regarding climate change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-175
Author(s):  
Ngozi Chinwa Ole ◽  
Onyekachi Eni

The Paris Climate Change Agreement 2015 represents a vindication of environmental multilateralism given that for the first time in the history of international climate change law, over 196 sovereign states voluntarily subscribed to be bound by a treaty for the mitigation of climate change. The Nigerian government has ratified the Paris Agreement, and subsequently undertakes in its National Determined Contributions (NDCs) to adopt some measures for the mitigation of climate change. The usefulness of the Paris Agreement 2015 in mitigating climate change in Nigeria is contingent on the actual implementation of the Agreement, including the Nigerian NDCs. The Paris Climate Change Decision 2015 recognises and, emphasises that non-party stakeholders including civil societies have some vital roles to play in the successful implementation of the Agreement. This paper examines the role that the Network of Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI) Nigeria can play in the successful implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement 2015 in Nigeria, in the light of the recognised role of civil societies in this context. It argues that NULAI can use the instruments of litigation, street lawyering and advocacy to catalyse the successful implementation of the Agreement in Nigeria. On the one hand, it argues that there are possible limitations to the role of NULAI. One such defect is the absence of any justiciable right emanating solely from the Paris Agreement 2015 and, Nigerian NDCs. Another limitation is the low level of awareness of the international climate change law among student law clinicians and staff within the Nigerian universities. The paper concludes by making recommendations on how to surmount the identified problems. A key recommendation is the use of human-right based approached litigation to secure the enforcement of the provisions of the Nigerian NDCs and, the establishment of climate change focused law clinics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-312
Author(s):  
Andrea C. Simonelli

AbstractThe future for people becoming displaced due to climate processes is still unknown. The effects of climate change are more apparent every day, and those most acutely impacted are still unable to access an appropriate legal remedy for their woes. Two new books evaluate the limits to international legal protections and the application of justice. Climate Change, Disasters, and the Refugee Convention, by Matthew Scott, investigates the assumptions underpinning the dichotomy between refugees and those facing adversity due to climate-induced disasters. Climate Change and People on the Move: International Law and Justice, by Fanny Thornton, goes further by examining how justice is used—and curtailed—by international instruments of protection. Thornton's legal analysis is thorough and thoughtful, but also demonstrative of the limitations of justice when confined by historical precedent and political indifference. With so little still being done to hold industries to account, is it any surprise that the legal system is not yet ready to protect those harmed by carbon pollution? Demanding justice for climate displacees is an indictment of modern Western economics and development; it implicates entire national lifestyles and the institutions and people that support them.


Author(s):  
Maria Ulfah

Community service order is one of the alternative sanctions from short-term imprisonment and light fines as regulated in Article 65, Article 82, and Article 85 of the Draft of Indonesia Criminal Code on the September 2019 (RUU KUHP). Community service order is expected to be the one solution for the overcrowded state of Correctional Institutions in Indonesia due to the large number of articles with imprisonment. Community service order as a new criminal sanction in the future requires further arrangements that can support its implementation in the future and it is possible that several challenges arise in its implementation. The contents of further regulations related to community service order in this research are explored through general guidelines in the international law, namely the Tokyo Rules (UN General Assembly Resolution Number 45/110). This research uses qualitative research with normative juridical research methods in the form of analytical descriptive. The result of this study is twenty-two provisions in the Tokyo Rules can be used as a guide in determining the contents of further regulations related community service order. In addition, the factors can become challenges must be carefully considered by legal policy makers so that they are minimized in the implementation of community service order in the future. Pidana kerja sosial adalah salah satu sanksi alternatif dari pidana penjara jangka waktu pendek maupun sanksi pidana denda ringan yang diatur dalam Pasal 65, Pasal 82, dan Pasal 85 Rancangan Undang-Undang tentang Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana September 2019 (RUU KUHP). Pidana kerja sosial diharapkan menjadi salah satu solusi dari keadaan overcrowded Lembaga Pemasyarakatan di Indonesia akibat banyaknya pasal dengan sanksi pidana penjara. Pidana kerja sosial sebagai sanksi pidana baru di masa mendatang membutuhkan pengaturan lebih lanjut yang dapat mendukung implementasinya di masa mendatang dan dimungkinkan muncul beberapa tantangan dalam implementasinya. Isi dalam pengaturan lebih lanjut terkait pidana kerja sosial dalam penelitian ini dapat digali melalui pedoman umum dalam dunia internasional yakni Tokyo Rules (Resolusi Majelis Umum PBB Nomor 45/110). Penelitian ini menggunakan penelitian kualitatif dengan metode penelitian yuridis normatif berbentuk deksriptif analitis. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah adanya dua puluh dua ketentuan dalam Tokyo Rules yang dapat menjadi panduan dalam menentukan isi pengaturan lebih lanjut terkait pidana kerja sosial. Selain itu, faktor-faktor yang dapat menjadi tantangan harus dipikirkan secara matang oleh pembuat kebijakan hukum agar terminimalisir dalam pelaksanaan pidana kerja sosial di masa mendatang.


Author(s):  
Alix Dietzel

Chapter Five assesses to what extent multilateral actors enable the three demands of justice developed in Part I of the book. Taking each demand of justice in turn, the chapter focuses on normative commitments made in the Convention as well as assessing the policies set out in the Kyoto Protocol and examining what has been achieved so far by multilateral actors. Finally, the chapter assesses to what extent the Paris Agreement presents a shift from existing policies. In this way, the chapter provides a historical overview of multilateral climate change action, as well as looking to the future. Chapter Five puts forward that although there has been some progress made, none of the demands of justice come close to being met, and that there is an urgent need for change in the multilateral regime.


Author(s):  
Rajamani Lavanya ◽  
Werksman Jacob D

This chapter provides an overview of international regulatory efforts to address climate change. It focuses on the UN climate change regime, which comprises the 1992 UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, and decisions of parties under these instruments. However, the universe of climate change law extends well beyond the UN climate change regime. There are rules and principles of general international law, such as the harm prevention principle, due diligence, and state responsibility, which apply to climate change. There are treaty regimes and institutions, including those addressing other areas of international environmental law or other fields of international law, which intersect with, complement, and function to implement the UN climate change regime. There are also a multiplicity of rules, regulations, and institutions at the regional, sub-regional, and national levels that directly or indirectly address climate change, many of which have been put in place in response to the UN treaties.


Science ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 318 (5850) ◽  
pp. 629-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard H. Roe ◽  
Marcia B. Baker

Uncertainties in projections of future climate change have not lessened substantially in past decades. Both models and observations yield broad probability distributions for long-term increases in global mean temperature expected from the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with small but finite probabilities of very large increases. We show that the shape of these probability distributions is an inevitable and general consequence of the nature of the climate system, and we derive a simple analytic form for the shape that fits recent published distributions very well. We show that the breadth of the distribution and, in particular, the probability of large temperature increases are relatively insensitive to decreases in uncertainties associated with the underlying climate processes.


Climate Law ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Zahar

This article is the fifth in a series of papers on the International Law Association’s assertion that the principle of prevention (i.e. the obligation of states in international law to prevent transboundary harm, also known as the no-harm rule) properly belongs to the corpus of international climate change law.1 I have been the only participant in the debate so far to refute the ila’s position. Here, I respond to the fourth article in the series, by Benoit Mayer. While Mayer has produced a lucid and helpful argument, he commits several errors in the process of defending and elaborating the ila thesis. I address them under this essay’s broad title because they are essentially errors of method.


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