The global climate change conference in Paris has adopted the draft of an international treaty aimed at transforming the world's fossil fuel-driven economy within decades and slowing the pace of global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Many consider this text as “historic” and according to Mr Fabius, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, the text is "legally binding".
As someone familiar with two previous historic multilateral treaties, i.e. the Law of the Sea treaty (UNCLOS) and the WTO Agreement, I immediately took a look at the Paris Draft Treaty to see if, similarly to the previous mentioned ones, it includes dispute settlement provisions giving teeth to this treaty. Unfortunately, I did not find such provisions. This is definitely a Soft Law accord despite that it would be adopted formally as a treaty. The central compliance mechanism is described in Article 15:
A mechanism to facilitate implementation of and promote compliance with the provisions of this Agreement is hereby established. The mechanism… shall consist of a committee that shall be expert-based and facilitative in nature and function in a manner that is transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive. The committee shall pay particular attention to the respective national capabilities and circumstances of Parties.
In fact, the only way to pressure parties is an obligation on them (under Article 13.7) to provide the following information: (a) A national inventory report of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases (b) Information necessary to track progress made in implementing and achieving its nationally determined contribution.This Information will undergo a “technical expert review”:
The technical expert review under this paragraph shall consist of a consideration of the Party’s support provided, as relevant, and its implementation and achievement of its nationally determined contribution. The review shall also identify areas of improvement for the Party, and include a review of the consistency of the information with the modalities, procedures and guidelines referred to in paragraph 13 of this Article, taking into account the flexibility accorded to the Party under paragraph 2 of this Article. The review shall pay particular attention to the respective national capabilities and circumstances of developing country Parties
People specializing in International Environmental Law are familiar with this kind of soft law taking the form of a treaty. Should we be concerned, considering the stakes, or is it the usual way things work in International Environmental Law?
