Abstract
Natural climate variations have existed for thousands of years, but since the industrial revolution and particularly after World War II, anthropogenic climate change has gradually emerged due to the availability of cheap fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and the dramatic rise in their consumption, especially in industrialized countries. Although historical and current global emissions of GHG have originated in developed countries, the negative effects of climate change have been unevenly and disproportionally visited upon mostly developing countries. Apparently, those who have generally contributed the least to anthropogenic climate change bear the most harm and responsibility stemming from its effects (i.e. managing climate-related human mobility, with the least capacity). However, international environmental law recognizes that those who contributed most to causing the harm bear both legal and moral obligations for mitigating it. The debate on shifting burdens for climate change pivots predominantly around three established principles of customary international law— the polluter pays principle, the principle of no-harm, and the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ (CDBR&RC). In this context, this chapter explores the responsibilities of the countries under international environmental law to provide compensation and assistance to the people displaced because of climate change and examine if the loss and damage mechanism within the Paris Agreement is an appropriate forum to ensure adequate compensation and assistance.
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Notes
- 1.
Gaan [1].
- 2.
Solomon et al. [2].
- 3.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, May 9, 1992, S. Treaty Doc. No. 102-38 (1992), 1771 UNTS 107 [hereinafter UNFCCC].
- 4.
Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the relationship between climate change and human rights, UN Doc. A/HRC/10/61 (2009), 5, para. 10.
- 5.
Docherty and Giannini [3].
- 6.
Id. at 383.
- 7.
Id. at 383-84.
- 8.
United Nations Millennium Declaration, UNGA res 55/2 8th plenary meeting (8 September 2000) https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_55_2.pdf
- 9.
Trail Smelter Arbitration (U.S. v. Can.), 3 R.I.A.A. 1911, 1963 (Arb. Trib. 1941). In the Trail Smelter case, an international arbitral tribunal condemned Canada for failing to prevent an enterprise on its territory from releasing fumes that damaged property in US territory. The tribunal stated in general terms that:
under the principles of international law, […] no State has the right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by fumes in or to the territory of another or the properties or persons therein, when the case is of serious consequence and the injury is established by clear and convincing evidence.
The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (1996) stated that, ‘the existence of the general obligation of States to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction and control respect the environment of other States or of areas beyond national control is now part of the corpus of international law relating to the environment’. The ‘no harm’ rule was re-stated and accepted by both parties (Hungary and Slovakia) in the Gabcikovo case, 1997, decided by ICJ.
At the regional level, the European Court of Human Rights found the Russian government negligent in preventing mud slides in the northern Caucasus and ordered it to pay compensation to the surviving relatives. The Court based its decision on the failure of the government to live up to its duty to ‘safeguard’ lives and take preventive measures against the consequences of a disaster (Kälin and Haenni Dale 2008).
- 10.
Corfu Channel (UK v. Alb.), Judgment, 1949 I.C.J. 4, 22 (April 9); see also Memorandum, U.N. Secretary-General, Survey of International Law in Relation to the Work of Codification of the International Law Commission: Preparatory Work Within the Purview of Article 18, Paragraph 1, of the International Law Commission 57, U.N. Doc. A/CN.4/1/Rev.1 (Feb. 1, 1949).
- 11.
See, e.g., UNFCCC supra note 3, recitals 8 and 9; U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 2, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.151/26/Rev.1 (Aug. 12, 1992) (“States have,…the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction..”); U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Principle 21, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.48/14/Rev.1 (June 16, 1972) (“States have,… and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.) Convention on Biological Diversity, Art. 3, Jun. 1992, 1760 U.N.T.S. 79, and Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, [Preamble 2nd paragraph], Mar. 22, 1985, 1513 U.N.T.S. 293. It has also been reiterated in the preamble to the UNFCCC [Preamble, 9th paragraph].
- 12.
- 13.
Pörtner and Roberts et al. [7].
- 14.
This principle already serves as a basis for liability and compensation for trans-boundary pollution in international law. The alternative proposition is the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle.
- 15.
Some international environmental treaty instruments, such as 1987 Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the 1991 protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air broadly applied the principle of CBDR. The UNFCCC’s preamble acknowledges the CBDR principle, which is reinforced in particular in articles 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 4.5.This principle recognizes historical differences in the contributions of developed and developing states to global environmental problems, as well as differences in their respective economic and technical capacities to tackle these problems (See e.g. Yuli Chen, Reconciling common but differentiated responsibilities principle and no more favourable treatment principle in regulating greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping 123 MARINE POLICY 3–4.
- 16.
Under the UNFCC framework, all states, especially developed countries, incur obligations to respect and protect human rights and channel resources towards the economic and social development of the poor countries to tackle climate change. This moral obligation arises because the developed world bears the greatest share of responsibility for climate change.
- 17.
Voigt and Ferreira [8].
- 18.
Paris Agreement (Dec. 13, 2015), in UNFCCC, Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Twenty-First Session [hereinafter COP Report and session number], Addendum, at 21, UN Doc. FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1.
(Jan. 29, 2016) [hereinafter Paris Agreement].
- 19.
Paris Agreement, supra note 18, Art. 15.
- 20.
Rajamani [9].
- 21.
Warner et al. [10].
- 22.
Naser [11].
- 23.
Id.
- 24.
Id.
- 25.
McMichael et al. [12].
- 26.
Id. at 325.
- 27.
Id. at 332.
- 28.
Tronquet [13].
- 29.
FE Team, Climate refugees to get new homes in Cox's Bazar, THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS, Aug 2, 2022 https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/home/climate-refugees-to-get-new-homes-in-coxs-bazar-1595422524?amp=true.
- 30.
Id.
- 31.
McDonnell [14].
- 32.
Id.
- 33.
Rahman and Bijoy [15].
- 34.
Id.
- 35.
Hirsch et al. [16].
- 36.
Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), Climate Change Adaptation Financing: Managing a Transparent and Pro-poor Fund in Bangladesh, Briefing Note, 3 CSRL, 2008); Displacement Solutions, Meeting Report on Climate Change, Human Rights and Forced Human Displacement (Displacement Solutions, 2008), 7.
- 37.
Warner [17].
- 38.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATION IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 62-64 (Draft Edition) (ADB, 2011).
- 39.
Mayer [18].
- 40.
Sands and Peel [19].
- 41.
Baatz [20].
- 42.
For details see Caney [21].
- 43.
Id. 753.
- 44.
Id.
- 45.
Ohdedar [22].
- 46.
Id.
- 47.
Eckersley [23].
- 48.
Tilton [24].
- 49.
Id.
- 50.
Id.
- 51.
Gonzalez [25].
- 52.
Id. at 420.
- 53.
Gonzelez [25].
- 54.
Pickering and Barry [26].
- 55.
Brownlie [27].
- 56.
Voigt [28].
- 57.
Id.
- 58.
Trail Smelter Arbitration, supra note 9.
- 59.
Id.
- 60.
Voigt, supra note 56 at 8.
- 61.
Id. at 15.
- 62.
Id. at 16.
- 63.
Pachauri et al. [29].
- 64.
Id. at 51.
- 65.
Warner [30].
- 66.
Global Report on Internal Displacement, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, (2021) https://www.internaldisplacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/grid2021_idmc.pdf.
- 67.
Field et al. [31].
- 68.
Gewirtzman et al. [32].
- 69.
Id.
- 70.
Ohdedar, Supra note 33, 23.
- 71.
Int’l Law Commn, Rep. on the Work of Its Fifty-Third Session, UN GAOR, 56th sess, Supp No 10, UN Doc A/56/10 (2001) ch IV(E).
- 72.
See ILC, Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Art. 30, in ILC Report 53rd Sess., at 31, UN Doc. A/56/10 (2001);
- 73.
See ILC, Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Art. 31, in ILC Report 53rd Sess., at 31, UN Doc. A/56/10 (2001).
- 74.
This principle originates from general principles of equity and is considered as a basis for ensuring cooperation, effectiveness, solidarity and fair treatment between states. In international environmental law, this principle places stronger obligations on developed countries while provides fewer obligations on developing countries. For example, Principle 7 of the 1992 Rio Declaration creates an obligation on all states to contribute towards environmental integrity emphasizing that ‘developed countries have a greater responsibility as a result of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.’.
- 75.
Rajamani [33].
- 76.
Voigt and Ferreira (2016).
- 77.
UNFCCC, supra note 3, Art. 4.4.
- 78.
UNFCCC, supra note 3, Art. 4.8.
- 79.
UNFCCC, supra note 3, Art. 11.5.
- 80.
Prys-Hansen [34].
- 81.
‘Adaptation Fund’, < https://www.adaptation-fund.org/about/ > .
- 82.
Prys-Hansen, supra note 81, at 361.
- 83.
Peel [35].
- 84.
Paris Agreement, supra note 18, Art. 2.2.
- 85.
Paris Agreement, supra note 18, Art. 7.
- 86.
Paris Agreement, supra note 18, Art. 9.1.
- 87.
Paris Agreement, supra note 18, Art. 9.8.
- 88.
Samuwai and Hills [36].
- 89.
Id. at 158.
- 90.
Brechin and Espinoza [37].
- 91.
LINDA SIEGELE, Loss and damage (Article 8) in THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE: ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY 224, 229.
- 92.
Burkett [38].
- 93.
Id.
- 94.
Id.
- 95.
Maxim [39].
- 96.
Id. 29–30.
- 97.
Kent and Behrman (2018).
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Reza, H.M., Naser, M.M. (2023). Climate Change and Human Mobility: Responsibilities Under International Environmental Law. In: Aston, J., Tomer, A., Mathew, J.E. (eds) Comparative Approaches in Law and Policy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4460-6_8
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