IBA takes leading role in increasing awareness of climate change justice

Abstract

This article surveys the key recommendations in the IBA's 2014 report, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption. The author highlights the report's focus on creative and practical ideas for developing international law's response to the challenge of climate change, with particular attention to the importance of recognising ‘climate change justice’ – considering those who have contributed least to climate change, but who will be the most affected. The report contains over 50 recommendations spanning international environmental law, human rights law, international trade and investment law, and the law of state responsibility, as well as providing recommendations for the UN, the UNFCCC negotiations, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) together with corporations, states and individuals. The article also reviews the IBA's work in the 12 months since the report was released on developing and implementing some of the key recommendations and invites environmental and human rights lawyers to join the IBA's work in this area.

Notes

1 David Estrin is currently a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, as well as a partner at Gowling Lafleur Henderson (Toronto), and is recognised as one of Canada's leading experts on environmental law. International Bar Association, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption (IBA, 2014), available at http://www.ibanet.org/PresidentialTaskForceClimateChangeJustice2014Report.aspx, last accessed 21 December 2015.

2 Baroness Kennedy QC is a leading English barrister and expert in human rights. She is currently Chair of Justice, the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists, Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, and President of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

3 International Bar Association, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption (IBA, 2014), available at http://www.ibanet.org/PresidentialTaskForceClimateChangeJustice2014Report.aspx, last accessed 21 December 2015.

4 Task Force members listed www.ibanet.org/PresidentialTaskForceCCJHR2014.aspx last accessed 21 December 2015.

5 See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/SREnvironment/Pages/SRenvironmentIndex.aspx, last accessed 21 December 2015.

6 See for example MC Mehta v Union of India, AIR 2001 SC 1948.

7 See Öneryildiz v Turkey (2005) 41 EHRR 20 (App No 48939/99, 30 November 2004); Guerra v Italy 1998-I ECHR (1998) [60]; Lopez Ostra v Spain (1995) 20 EHRR 277 (App No 16798/90, 9 December 1994) [58].

8 See generally David Richard Boyd, The Environmental Rights Revolution: A Global Study of Constitutions, Human Rights, and the Environment (University of British Columbia Press 2011) 233.

9 African Charter on Human and People's Rights, Article 24.

10 Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘San Salvador Protocol’), Article 11.

11 155/96 Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) v Nigeria, Comm No 155/96 (ACHPR 2001).

12 See www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPCESCR.aspx, last accessed 21 December 2015.

13 See www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/arbitration/1985Model_arbitration.html, last accessed 21 December 2015.

14 See www.pca-cpa.org/ENVIRONMENTAL(3)d0a4.pdf?fil_id=590, last accessed 21 December 2015.

15 United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, United Nations, 2011, HR/PUB/11/04.

16 UK Companies Act 2006 (Strategic Report and Directors’ Report) Regulations 2013, SI 2013/1970.

17 Report of the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, A/HRC/4/35, para 18, cited in Report of the Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, A/HRC/25/53, para 58.

18 See www.upr-info.org/en/upr-process/what-is-it, last accessed 21 December 2015.

19 See www.ibanet.org/IBAHRI.aspx, last accessed 21 December 2015.

20 See for example Olivier De Schutter, ‘Trade in the Service of Climate Change Mitigation: The Question of Linkage’ (2014) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 65; Pascal Lamy, ‘Energy Policy and the WTO’ (Speech delivered at Workshop on the Role of Intergovernmental Agreements in Energy Policy organised by the Energy Charter Secretariat, 29 April 2013) www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl279_e.htm last accessed 21 December 2015; Ludivine Tamiotti and others, Trade and Climate Change: A Report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Trade Organization (WTO 2009); Kate Miles, The Origins of International Investment Law (CUP 2013); Aaron Cosbey and Petros C Mavroidis, ‘A Turquoise Mess: Green Subsidies, Blue Industrial Policy and Renewable Energy: The Case for Redrafting the Subsidies Agreement of the WTO’ 17(1) Journal of International Economic Law 28.

21 The CDM was established to encourage funding for carbon reduction projects in developing countries, allowing Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol to receive credits for projects that reduce emissions in non-Annex I Party states. Although over 7,000 CDM projects have been established to date, there have been concerns raised that the CDM has failed to effectively safeguard human rights (see, eg, Lavanya Rajamani, ‘Developing Countries and Compliance in the Climate Regime’ in Lavanya Rajamani, Jutta Brunnée and Meinhard Doelle (eds), Promoting Compliance in an Evolving Climate Regime (Cambridge University Press 2011) 391.

22 See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IDPersons/Pages/Standards.aspx, last accessed 21 December 2015.

23 See displacementsolutions.org/peninsula-principles/.

24 See www.unhcr.org/4ea969729.pdf, last accessed 21 December 2015.

25 See www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/pressbriefings/pages/assessment-framework-for-scientific-research-involving-ocean-fertilization-agreed.aspx#.VigQSNpwamQ, last accessed 21 December 2015.