Law Commons^™

The Contact Group On Somali Piracy: An Unlikely Model For Protecting The Environment?, Susan Biniaz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

International environmental law covers a wide range of subjects, is extremely detailed, and evolves very rapidly. No wonder it is challenging for practitioners to keep up with developments. An expert in marine pollution regimes may be unaware of the latest initiatives on forest conservation. Given how hyper-specialized the climate world has become, an expert on mitigation may be only mildly aware of recent advances in adaptation. And neither may be in a position to keep up with innovations in international law more broadly.

Deep knowledge has its advantages, but also some drawbacks. When we are faced with the need to …

Changing International Law For A Changing Climate, Daniel C. Esty, Dena P. Adler

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

After more than two decades of inadequate international efforts to address climate change resulting from rising greenhouse gas emissions, the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement shifted gears. That agreement advances a “bottom-up” model of global cooperation that requires action commitments from all national governments and acknowledges the important role that cities, states, provinces, and businesses must play in delivering deep decarbonization. Given the limited control that presidents and prime ministers have over many of the policies and choices that determine their countries’ carbon footprints, the Paris Agreement missed an opportunity to formally recognize the climate change action commitments of mayors, …

Human Rights And Article 6 Of The Paris Agreement: Ensuring Adequate Protection Of Human Rights In The Sdm And Itmo Frameworks, Romany M. Webb, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement recognizes the right of Parties to cooperate in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) through both market- and non-market-based approaches. One market-based approach is outlined in Article 6.2 which provides for “the use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes [(ITMOs)] towards” NDCs. This is widely seen as establishing a “bottom-up” approach, whereby “mitigation outcomes,” representing emission reduction credits, can be transferred internationally and then become ITMOs. It can be contrasted with other market-based approaches that are “top-down,” involving centralized programs supporting emission reduction projects. One such program is created in Article 6.4 of …

Act Locally, Reflect Globally: A Checklist Of Options For U.S. Cities And States To Engage Internationally In Climate Action, Susan Biniaz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

U.S. cities and states are increasingly asking how they can play a more visible and active role in international climate change efforts.

Cities and states have obvious incentives to take action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. But why engage internationally? They may seek to demonstrate leadership or gain appropriate recognition for “doing their part.” They may want to inspire others to follow suit or support them in doing so, such as through exchanging best practices. They may seek to join the global march toward low-emission and resilient societies. Or they may want to show the world that U.S. …

I Beg To Differ: Taking Account Of National Circumstances Under The Paris Agreement, The Icao Market-Based Measure, And The Montreal Protocol’S Hfc Amendment, Susan Biniaz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This paper explores the different ways in which negotiators to three recent environmental instruments accounted for different national circumstances in formulating commitments and other aspects of cooperation in the instruments. The author finds that the negotiators of these instruments have significantly expanded the arsenal of differentiation tools based on considerations pertaining to logic, fairness, limited capacity, and negotiating leverage.

Comma But Differentiated Responsibilities: Punctuation And 30 Other Ways Negotiators Have Resolved Issues In The International Climate Change Regime, Susan Biniaz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

International climate change negotiations have a long history of being contentious, and much has been written about the grand trade-offs that have allowed countries to reach agreement. Issues have often involved, for example, the level of ambition, differentiated treatment of Parties, and various forms of financial assistance to developing countries.

Lesser known are the smaller, largely language-based tools negotiators have used to resolve differences, sometimes finding a solution as subtle as a shift in the placement of a comma. These tools have operated in different ways. Some, such as deliberate imprecision or postponement, have “resolved” an issue by sidestepping it …

Forced Migration After Paris Cop21: Evaluating The "Climate Change Displacement Coordination Facility", Phillip Dane Warren

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change represents, perhaps, the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century. As temperatures and sea levels rise, governments around the world will face massive and unprecedented human displacement that international law currently has no mechanism to address. While estimates vary, the scope of the migration crisis that the world will face in the coming decades is startling. In addition to losing their homes, climate change migrants, under current law, will encounter a refugee system governed by a decades-old Refugee Convention that offers neither protection nor the right to resettle in a more habitable place. Armed with the most recent developments …

Designing A Climate Change Displacement Coordination Facility: Key Issues For Cop 21, Jessica A. Wentz, Michael Burger

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

There have been several proposals to include a “climate change displacement coordination facility” in the upcoming UNFCCC agreement, but there has been very little public discussion about what this facility would entail and how it would operate. This briefing note highlights some of the functions that the displacement coordination facility could fulfill, as well as some key questions for negotiators in the lead-up to COP 21 and subsequent talks. The note is not intended to be a proposal for how the facility should operate, nor do the functions highlighted below necessarily reflect what is politically or economically feasible. Rather, the …

Climate Change And Human Rights, Michael Burger, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This report, commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), describes the nexus between climate change, environmental degradation, and the impairment of fundamental human rights, such as the rights to food, water, housing, and life. It explains how governments and other actors can address climate change in a manner consistent with their obligations to respect, protect, promote and fulfill human rights. The report was released during COP21 to help inform the development of the Paris Agreement.

Climate Change And Forced Displacement, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This note, written at the request of former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, calls on policy-makers to initiate a more concerted dialogue on how to prepare for and respond to displacement and migration caused by climate change.

Technology Transfer And Dissemination Under The Unfccc: Achievements And New Perspectives, Stéphanie Chuffart

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Response to climate change will critically depend on the cost, performance, and availability of technologies that can lower emissions, mitigate, and adapt to climate change. Technological innovation can furthermore lower the cost of achieving environmental objectives. However, data from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice flag that although issues of technology transfer have been central to the UNFCCC since the negotiation of the Convention, there is still an urgent need for effective environmental technology diffusion. Building upon lessons learned from technology transfer activities under the Clean Development Mechanism and the …

Painting Redd Offsets Green: A Case For Statutory Deuteranopia, Rommel Casis

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Offsets generated by projects for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (“REDD”) is a particularly controversial form of carbon offset. Excluded from the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms, REDD offsets are now making a comeback ever since the Bali Action Plan specifically referred to REDD. Most recently, the Copenhagen Accord recognized the crucial role of REDD and the need to enhance removals of GHG emissions by forests and agreed on the need to provide incentives to such actions to enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries.4 It would seem therefore that the issuance and trade of REDD offsets may finds …