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Adjudicating States’ International Climate Change Obligations Before International Courts and Tribunals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 December 2019

Paula F. Henin
Paula F. Henin*
Affiliation:
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
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Extract

States have undertaken increasingly ambitious climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)1 and instruments adopted thereunder, notably the 1997 Kyoto Protocol2 and the 2015 Paris Agreement.3

Type
Litigating Climate Change: New Legal Challenges
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 113 , 2019 , pp. 201 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by The American Society of International Law

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Footnotes

The views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of her employer or any of its clients. The author thanks Kathy Ibarra (Freshfields) for her assistance. Any errors or omissions are the author's own.

References

1 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted May 9, 1992, entered into force Mar. 21, 1994) (UNFCCC).

2 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 10, 1997, UN Doc FCCC/CP/1997/7/Add.1, 37 ILM 22 (1998) (Kyoto Protocol).

3 Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 12, 2015, TIAS No. 16-1104 (Paris Agreement).

4 Id. Art. 2.1(a).

5 UNFCCC, Paris Agreement – Status of Ratification, at https://unfccc.int/process/the-paris-agreement/status-of-ratification.

6 Paris Agreement, supra note 3, Arts. 2.2, 3, 7.

7 Id. Art. 2.1(c).

8 Id. Art. 6.8(b).

9 Id. Art. 13.

10 Id. Art. 14.

11 Id. Art. 15.

12 Id. Art. 24.

13 UNFCCC, supra note 1, Art. 14.1.

14 Id. Art. 14.2.

15 Id. (limiting its application to disputes among parties accepting the same obligation). The Netherlands, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu have made Article 14.2 declarations. UNFCCC, Declarations by the Parties, at https://unfccc.int/process/the-convention/status-of-ratification/declarations-by-parties.

16 Convention on the Law of the Sea, pts. XII, XV, Dec. 10, 1982, 1833 UNTS 397 (UNCLOS). See Alan Boyle, Addressing Climate Change Impacts through UNCLOS Part XV Dispute Settlement Mechanisms, available at https://cil.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Panel-7-Session-1-Alan-Boyle.pdf; Seokwoo Lee & Lowell Bautista, Part XII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Duty to Mitigate Against Climate Change: Making Out a Claim, Causation, and Related Issues, 45 Ecology L. Q. 129 (2018).

17 UNCLOS, supra note 16, Part XV.

18 Id. Art. 287.

19 Id. Art. 192.

20 Id. Art. 194.1.

21 Id. Art. 194.3(a).

22 Id. Art. 194.2.

23 Id. Arts. 207.1, 212.1.

24 Supra note 16. See also Philippines v. China, PCA Case No. 2013-19, Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility, paras. 941–49, 956–60 (Oct. 29, 2015).

25 See Climate Change and the International Court of Justice: The Role of Law, available at http://environment.yale.edu/envirocenter/files/ICJ_Brochure_Revised_11_22_12_smaller(1).pdf.

26 See, e.g., Rockhopper Exploration Plc et al. v. Italy, ICSID Case No. ARB/17/14; Lone Pine Resources Inc. v. Canada, ICSID Case No. UNCT/15/2.

27 See, e.g., NextEra Energy Global Holdings B.V. and NextEra Energy Spain Holdings B.V. v. Spain, ICSID Case No. ARB/14/11; Greentech Energy Systems A/S & Ors. v. Italy, SCC Arbitration V (2015/095); Antaris Solar GmbH et al. v. Czech Republic, PCA Case No. 2014-01.

28 See, e.g., David R. Aven and Others v. Costa Rica, ICSID Case No. UNCT/15/3; Burlington Resources Inc. v. Ecuador, ICSID Case No. ARB/08/5, Decision on Ecuador's Counterclaims (Feb. 7, 2017) (providing examples of states seeking to introduce environmental counterclaims in investment arbitration).

29 See, e.g., Annette Magnusson, Foreword: The Story of the Stockholm Treaty Lab, 36 J. Int. Arb. 1 (2019).

30 Judith Levine, Adopting and Adapting Arbitration for Climate Change-Related Disputes: The Experience of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Dispute Resolution and Climate Change: The Paris Agreement and Beyond 26–28 (Wendy Miles ed., 2017).

31 International Bar Association, Climate Change Justice and Human Rights Task Force, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption 68 (2014).

32 Id. at 118.

33 Id. at 68.

34 The Environment and Human Rights, Advisory Opinion OC-23/18, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R., (Ser. A) No. 23, paras. 62–63 (Nov. 15, 2017).

35 Id., paras. 81–82, 93, 95, 101–02.

36 See, e.g., Monica Feria-Tinta & Simon Milnes, The Rise of Environmental Law in International Dispute Resolution: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Issues a Landmark Advisory Opinion on the Environment and Human Rights, EJIL:Talk! (Feb. 26, 2018), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-rise-of-environmental-law-in-international-dispute-resolution-inter-american-court-of-human-rights-issues-landmark-advisory-opinion-on-environment-and-human-rights.