scholarly journals The Nation Ex-Situ: On climate change, deterritorialized nationhood and the post-climate era

Climate Law ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxine Burkett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Analogous Structure ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

It is plausible that the impacts of climate change will render certain nation-states uninhabitable before the close of the century. While this may be the fate of a small number of those nation-states most vulnerable to climate change, its implications for the evolution of statehood and international law in a “post-climate” regime is potentially seismic. I argue that to respond to the phenomenon of landless nationstates, international law could accommodate an entirely new category of international actors. I introduce the Nation Ex-Situ. Ex-situ nationhood is a status that allows for the continued existence of a sovereign state, afforded all of the rights and benefits of sovereignty amongst the family of states, in perpetuity. In practice this would require the creation of a government framework that could exercise authority over a diffuse people. I elaborate on earlier calls to use a political trusteeship system to provide the framework for an analogous structure. I seek to accomplish two quite different but intimately related tasks: first, to define and justify the recognition of deterritorialized nation-states, and, second, to explain the trusteeship arrangement that will undergird the ex-situ nation. In doing so, I introduce the notion of a post-climate era, in which the very structure of human systems—be they legal, economic, or socio-political—are irrevocably changed and ever-changing.

Climate Change-related Displacement of Persons

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane McAdam
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
International Borders ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

This chapter examines the scope of existing international law to address ‘climate change-related displacement’, a term used to describe movement where the impacts of climate change affect mobility decisions in some way. It looks into the role of international refugee law, human rights law, and the law on statelessness in protecting people displaced by the impacts of climate change. The extent to which international law and international institutions respond to climate change-related movement and displacement depends upon: whether such movement is perceived as voluntary or forced; the nature of the trigger; whether international borders are crossed; the extent to which there are political incentives to characterize movement as linked to climate change or not; and whether movement is driven or aggravated by human factors, such as discrimination. The chapter also considers the extent to which existing principles on internal displacement provide normative and practical guidance.

Innovativeness and Paralysis in International Climate Policy

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Streck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
To Come ◽  
Private Actors

AbstractThis article describes the challenges of using the constrained tools of international law to negotiate a sustainable framework to address climate change. It sets out to show how the particularities of the problem have led to creative and innovative solutions expanding the borders of international law. To this end, the article discusses carbon market mechanisms, the compliance regime of the Kyoto Protocol, and the emerging framework to create incentives to reduce land-based emissions in developing countries. These examples illustrate that the recognition of the role of sub-national and private entities in mitigating climate change has had significant impact on the rules of the climate regime. But the article also asserts that the un process, while recognizing the role of private actors, is still inadequately equipped to involve non-state actors in a meaningful way. The climate regime therefore challenges the traditional thinking about interstate relationships. No longer solely a matter for international environmental law, contemporary environmental governance has become a global affair, which makes the lens of transnational law a useful tool to think about these issues in practice in a more intellectually fruitful and relevant way. This article thereby provides a snapshot of the type of issues and discussion that readers of this journal can look forward to in the years to come.

scholarly journals "Migration with Dignity": Towards a New Zealand Response to Climate Change Displacement in the Pacific

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Farquhar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
International Law ◽  
Temporary Migration ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Migration Flows ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

The impacts of climate change threaten to cause the displacement of millions of people worldwide by the middle of this century. Despite this looming crisis, international law provides insufficient protection to those who will be forced to migrate. In most cases, those who are displaced will fall outside of current protection frameworks. This article examines why this protection deficit should be of particular concern to New Zealand, and argues that there are significant incentives for New Zealand to develop a response to the issue of climate change displacement in the Pacific. The article concludes that in order to ensure Pacific peoples are able to migrate with dignity, migration schemes which are pre-emptive and voluntary should be put in place to facilitate migration flows. These should build upon New Zealand's current immigration framework, and include the extension of current permanent and temporary migration schemes, as well as the introduction of labour-training migration schemes. 

9 Addressing the Marine Environmental Impacts of Climate Change and Ocean Acidification

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harrison James
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
International Law ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Global Regulation ◽  
Marine Environmental ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Chapter 9 addresses the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on the marine environment and the extent to which international law has reacted to this emerging threat to the ecological integrity of the oceans. These issues are particularly challenging to regulate because of their wide-ranging causes and effects. This chapter, therefore, takes into account both how the global legal regime relating to climate change, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, has taken into account the oceans, as well as how sectoral treaties dealing with specific maritime activities have addressed climate change and ocean acidification within their normative framework. In this latter respect, the chapter focuses on the global regulation of carbon emissions from shipping and the way in which the international community has responded to proposed carbon sequestration activities at sea, including sub-seabed storage and geo-engineering.

Climate Change and People on the Move

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanny Thornton
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Change Context ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
People Movement ◽  
Disproportionate Burden ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

The book applies a justice framework to analysis of the actual and potential role of international law with respect to people on the move in the context of anthropogenic climate change. That people are affected by the impacts of climate change is no longer doubted, including with implications for the movement of people (migration, displacement, relocation, etc.). The book tackles unique questions concerning international responsibility for people movement arising from the inequities inherent to climate change. Corrective and distributive justice provide the analytical backbone. They are explored in a substantial theoretical chapter and then applied to subsequent contextual analysis. Corrective justice supports analysis as to whether people movement in the climate change context could be conceived or framed as harm, loss, or damage which is compensable under international law, either through fault-centred regimes or no-fault regimes (i.e., insurance). Distributive justice supports analysis as to whether such movement could be conceived or framed as a disproportionate burden, either for those faced with movement or those faced with sheltering people on the move, from which duties of redistribution may stem. The book contributes to the growing scholarship and analysis concerning international law or governance and people movement in response to climate change by investigating the bounds of the law where the phenomenon is viewed as one of (in)justice.

‘Eaten by the sea’: human rights claims for the impacts of climate change upon remote subnational communities

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-193
Author(s):  
Miriam Cullen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

The low-lying islands and atolls of the Pacific have been among the first places to experience the most severe impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Some of the affected islands are nation-states possessing the capacity to negotiate treaties and to directly participate in international forums such as the United Nations (UN). Others, however, are subnational jurisdictions, made up of people who live remote from the governing majority and yet are extremely vulnerable to national policy decisions, especially when it comes to climate change and its impacts. This article examines one potential avenue for redress for minority populations living in remote subnational jurisdictions where national policy on climate change arguably compromises their human rights: a communication to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC). The article takes as its primary case study the people of the Torres Strait Islands, which form part of the state of Australia.

Climate Change and Damages

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Voigt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
International Law ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Loss And Damage ◽  
Legal Understanding ◽  
Climate Change Damages ◽  
Slow Onset ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

This chapter explores the legal understanding of climate change damages in public international law. It shows that international law has been dealing with transboundary damages since its inception. Damages, whether material or immaterial, have been subject to many inter-state disputes presided upon by international courts and tribunals. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change established the Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage to address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, under the Cancún Adaptation Framework. The Warsaw international mechanism is also tasked with the promotion and the implementation of approaches addressing loss and damage associated with those adverse effects. The chapter also describes the growing trend of states who suffer from climate change seeking remedy from other states for their losses.

scholarly journals Oceans, IUU Fishing, and Climate Change: Implications for International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 377-388
Author(s):  
Christina Voigt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
International Law ◽  
Integrated Management ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Fish Stocks ◽  
Iuu Fishing ◽  
Adverse Impacts ◽  
Migratory Routes ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Abstract Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing poses a significant threat to marine fisheries and biodiversity only outpaced by the projected impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Ocean warming might affect fish stocks, their health and migratory routes. Ocean acidification and de-oxygenation are another two phenomena that might affect certain marine species as well as entire marine ecosystems. Rebuilding of overexploited and depleted fisheries and managing fisheries sustainably will require comprehensive governance structures for port, flag, coastal and market states, which also address the causes and impacts of climate change. Addressing those concerns could open for opportunities for comprehensive and synergetic regulation. This article addresses potential synergies between oceans and climate governance; focusing on the role of oceans in addressing climate change and its adverse impacts. Suggestions to this end include (i) increasing ocean-based renewable energy, (ii) decarbonizing ocean-based transport, and (iii) pursuing integrated management of fisheries and aquaculture.

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