The nature, origin and impact of legally binding consequences: The case of the climate regime

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics

Volumn 6, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 157-171

  Halvorssen, Anita ^a,b,c   Hovi, Jon ^d,e  

^a Global Legal Solutions LLC   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF DENVER   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

^d UNIVERSITY OF OSLO   (Norway)

^e CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH OSLO CICERO   (Norway)

Author keywords

Enforcement; Kyoto protocol; Legal bindingness; Marrakesh accords; Non compliance; Punitive consequences

Indexed keywords

CLIMATE CHANGE; ECONOMICS; IMPACT; KYOTO PROTOCOL; LAW ENFORCEMENT; LEGISLATION; POLITICS; UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE;

AFRICA; MARRAKECH [MARRAKECH (PRV)]; MARRAKECH [MOROCCO]; MOROCCO; NORTH AFRICA;

EID: 33746256551     PISSN: 15679764     EISSN: 15731553     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10784-006-9003-5     Document Type: Article

References (95)

1. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, United Nations Conference on Environment & Development, June 12, 1992,
2. reprinted in 131 I.L.M. 849 (1992). As of February 14, 2006, 188 states and the EU were parties to the UNFCCC. See status of ratification, 〈http://unfccc.int/resource/conv/ratlist.pdf〉 (visited 14/2/06) [hereinafter UNFCCC].
3. Conference of the Parties (COP) is the meeting of the Parties as stipulated in Article 7 of the UNFCCC. It meets annually and the COPs are numbered accordingly. The first Conference of the Parties is abbreviated as COP-1, the second COP-2, etc.
4. Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change,
5. reprinted in 37 I.L.M. 22 (1998). As of February 14, 2006, 160 states and the EU were parties to the Kyoto Protocol. See status of ratification, 〈http://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/kyoto_protocol/application/ pdf/kpstats.pdf 〉 (Visited 14/2/06) [hereinafter Kyoto Protocol].
6. Annex I Parties denotes industrialized States which are listed in Annex I of the UNFCCC.
7. See Kyoto Protocol, supra note 3, Article 3 and Article 18 respectively.
8. Marrakesh Accords, Decision 24 CP.7 Procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance under the Kyoto Protocol in Report of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on its Seventh Session, U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add.3 (2002), 〈http:// unfccc.int/resource/docs/cop7/13a03.pdf.〉 (visited February 12, 2004) [hereinafter Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7].
9. J. Brunnée, "A Fine Balance: Facilitation and Enforcement in the Design of a Compliance Regime for the Kyoto Protocol", Tulane Environmental Law Journal 13 (2000), pp. 223-270, at p. 224.
10. Marrakesh Accords Decisions 24/CP.7, supra note 6 at Annex, Section 11(2).
11. D.A. Wirth, "Current Development: The Sixth Session (Part Two) and Seventh Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change", Am.J.Int'l.L. 96 (2002), No. 3, pp. 648-660, at p. 655.
12. See the "Implementation Committee" of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Article 8 Sept. 16, 1987, (entered into force Jan. 1, 1989),
13. 26 I.L.M. 1541 [hereinafter Montreal Protocol] and 4th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, UNEP/OzL. Pro4/15, Annex IV (1992).
14. Other objections include the following: First, it does not include any enforcement provisions addressing failure by a non-compliant country to accept the punishment. Second, there is nothing that prevents a country from postponing the punishment for yet another period, and one might therefore suspect that it will be delayed indefinitely. Third, the anticipation of being punished is likely to induce countries to hold out for a generous allowance in the upcoming negotiations on emission targets for the next commitment period, which would reduce the de facto punishment. Fourth, any party is entitled to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol giving 12 months' notice, meaning that a non-compliant country can escape punishment by pulling out of the climate regime. Fifth, the punitive consequences can produce negative effects for compliant countries as well, because they will entail an increase in the price of emissions permits. For details, see S. Barrett, Environment and Statecraft. The Strategy of Environmental Treaty-making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), at pp. 385-386,
15. and C. Hagem and H. Westskog, "Effective Enforcement and Double-Edged Deterrents", in O. S. Stokke, J. Hovi and G. Ulfstein (eds), Implementing the Climate regime: International Compliance (London: Earthscan, 2005), pp. 107-120, at pp. 112-115.
16. Kyoto Protocol, supra note 3, art. 18.
17. J. Werksman, "Responding to Non-Compliance under the Climate Change Regime", OECD Information Paper, ENV/EPOC (99)21/FINAL (1999), at p. 21.
18. Marrakesh Accords, Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6. COP/MOP denotes the Conference of the Parties (COP), the supreme body of the UNFCCC, serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Protocol, Kyoto Protocol, supra note 3, Art. 13(1). Parties to the UNFCCC that are not Parties to the Protocol can only participate as observers in the proceedings of COP/MOP and only Parties to the Protocol can make decisions under the Protocol, Kyoto Protocol Art. 13(2).
19. Procedures and mechanism relating to compliance under the Kyoto Protocol, (December 7, 2005), FCCC/KP/CMP/2005/L.5. See also COP11 and COP/MOP1 Montreal, Pew Center on Climate Change, at p. 2, http://www.pewclimate.org/ what_s_being_done/in_the_world/cop11/index.cfm (Visited December 16, 2005). [Hereinafter Pew Center Summary].
20. Marrakesh Accords, U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add.3 (2002).
21. See Pew Center Summary, supra note 15, at p. 2.
22. Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6, Annex, Section II(1).
23. Id, Section II(3).
24. Id, Section II(2)(3).
25. Id, Section IV(4).
26. Id, Section V and IX.
27. Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6, Annex, Section IV(1) and V(1).
28. Id, Section II(6).
29. Id, Section 11(9).
30. Id.
31. Id.
32. Expert review teams are specifically mentioned in Art. 8 of the Kyoto Protocol as the entities that are to review the inventories, and national communications submitted by Annex I Parties. See Marrakesh Accords, Decision 23/CP.7, supra note 16.
33. M. Vespa, "Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resources Law: Climate Change 2001: Kyoto at Bonn and Marrakech", Ecology L.Q 29 (2002), pp. 395-432, at p. 414.
34. See Kyoto Protocol 3(14) and Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6, Annex, Section IV(5).
35. Id, Section IV(6).
36. Id, Section IV(7) and Section XIV.
37. The eligibility requirements for the Kyoto Mechanisms include the methodological and reporting requirements under Art. 5 and 7 of the Kyoto Protocol. See Marrakesh Accords, Decision 15/CP.7, Draft Decision (Mechanisms), 5;
38. Decision 16/CP.7, Draft Decision (Article 17), 2-4,
39. U.N. FCCC, U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add. 1-3 (21 January 2002) [hereinafter Marrakesh Accords, Decisions 15/CP.7 and 16/CP.7].
40. Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6, Annex, Section XV.
41. Id, Section XV(5)(a).
42. Id, Section XV(b) and (c).
43. Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6, Annex, Section X.
44. Id, Section XV(1).
45. Id, Section XV(4).
46. Id, Section X.
47. See Brunnée, "A Fine Balance", supra note 7, at p. 264.
48. Id.
49. Marrakesh Accords Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6 at Annex, Section XI(1).
50. Id, Annex, Section XI(3).
51. See Brunnée, "A Fine Balance", supra note 7, at p. 264.
52. Id.
53. See Marrakesh Accords, Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6, Annex, Section V(6).
54. I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), at p. 274.
55. P. Birnie and A. Boyle, International Law and the Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), at pp. 137-138.
56. Kyoto Protocol, supra note 3, Art. 27.
57. Id.
58. The Umbrella Group is an alliance of Annex I Parties, including among others, Canada, Australia, Japan, the Russian Federation, and New Zealand, see Earth Negotiations Bulletin 12 (2001), No. 189, at p. 1.
59. Id, at p. 7.
60. See Marrakesh Accords, Decision 24/CP.7, supra note 6.
61. X. Wang and G. Wiser, "The Implementation and Compliance Regimes under the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol", Review of European Community and International Environmental Law 11 (2002), No. 2, pp. 181-198, at p. 197.
62. Brunnée, "A Fine Balance", supra note 7, at p. 242.
63. Montreal Protocol, supra note 10.
64. See London Adjustments and Amendments to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, June 29, 1990, 30 I.L.M. 537.
65. Montreal Protocol, supra note 10, Art. 2(9). Yet the Parties are always free to withdraw from the Protocol as stipulated in Art. 19.
66. See J. Brunnée, "Reweaving the Fabric of International Law? Patterns of Consent in Environmental Framework Agreements", in R. Wolfrum and V. Roeben (eds.), Developments of International Law in Treaty Making (Berlin: Springer, 2005), pp. 101-126, at p. 107.
67. See Barrett, Environment and Statecraft, supra note 11, at p. 384.
68. See Wang and Wiser, "The Implementation and Compliance Regimes under the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol", supra note 55, at p. 197.
69. UN Charter, art. 6, 1 U.N.T.S. xvi, para. 1.
70. Id, Art. 19.
71. Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, Annex 2, WTO Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, article 22.2, 15, April 1994.
72. Reprinted in 33 I.L.M. 1126 (1994).
73. Brunnée, "Reweaving the Fabric of International Law", supra note 60, at p. 107.
74. There is also another difference between the UN and the WTO. Whereas suspension of UN member rights does not entail any costs on other members, the WTO practice of allowing a country to impose tariffs on a non-compliant country requires that the country imposing tariffs is willing to do this despite the fact that it would entail costs for its own consumers.
75. See S. Barrett, "Consensus Treaties", Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 158 (2002), No. 4, pp. 529-547, at p. 542,
76. and Barrett, Environment and Statecraft, supra note 11, at p. 386.
77. See Kyoto Protocol, supra note 3, Article 27.
78. Defection by Parties to the Protocol would in the long term clearly defeat the objective of Kyoto Protocol and the FCCC which is to stabilize the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.[0] See UNFCCC, supra note 1, art. 2.
79. Barrett, Environment and Statecraft, supra note 11, at p. 386.
80. Barrett, "Consensus Treaties", supra note 68, at p. 543.
81. G. Ulfstein and J. Werksman, "The Kyoto Compliance System: Toward Hard Enforcement", in Stokke et al. (eds.), International Compliance, supra note 11, pp. 39-62, at p. 58.
82. Id.
83. See also R.R. Churchill and G. Ulfstein, "Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Little-Noticed Phenomenon in International Law", Am. J. Int'l. L 94 (2000), No. 4, pp. 623-659, at p. 647.
84. Id.
85. Id.
86. Brunnée, "Reweaving the Fabric of International Law", supra note 60, at p. 113.
87. Ulfstein and Werksman also observe that, although the determination of non-compliance is likely to have a shaming effect, it does not in itself entail any consequences. Hence, it is less relevant if such a determination is considered binding. See Ulfstein and Werksman, "The Kyoto Compliance System: Toward Hard Enforcement", supra note 73, at p. 58.
88. Id.
89. See K. Raustiala and A.M. Slaughter, "International Law, International Relations and Compliance", in W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B.A. Simmons (eds.), Handbook of International Relations, London: Sage (2002), pp. 538-558, at p. 550.
90. See K. W. Abbott and D. Snidal, "Hard and Soft Law in International Governance", International Organization 54 (2000), pp. 421-456, at p. 423.
91. Raustiala and Slaughter, "International Law, International Relations and Compliance", supra note 80, at p. 551.
92. See A. Chayes and A.H. Chayes, "On Compliance", International Organization 47 (1993), No. 2, pp. 175-205, at p. 187.
93. See text accompanying note 61.
94. See J. Brunnée, "The Kyoto Protocol: Testing Ground for Compliance Theories?" Heidelberg Journal of International Law 63 (2003), No. 2, pp. 255-280, at p. 279.
95. This conclusion is valid if the impact of the consequences (and the political cost of evading them) is correctly estimated. If this impact is underestimated in the first place, it is possible that a country might deliberately choose non-compliance in the first commitment period, and yet return to compliance after the consequences have been implemented, and the country concerned has learned their true impact.