A Universal Human Right to Shape Responses to a Global Problem? The Role of Self‐Determination in Guiding the International Legal Response to Climate Change

• Author: Amy Maguire,Jeffrey McGee
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12193
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017

A Universal Human Right to Shape Responses to a

Global Problem? The Role of Self-Determination in

Guiding the International Legal Response to

Climate Change

Amy Maguire* and Jeffrey McGee

International climate change law is at a critical

juncture. Two decades of international treaty nego-

tiations have delivered rising greenhouse gas emis-

sions and minimal adaptation funding. The pattern

of negotiations suggests that key States will often

only make significant commitments that are

aligned with their material interests and reci-

procated by their competitors. This ‘logic of

reciprocity’in international climate negotiations

has limited ambition such that vulnerable States

are facing existential threats from sea level rise,

storm surge and salt-water inundation. We con-

sider whether the international legal system offers

any alternative logics that might found a duty on

emitters to reduce their emissions in a timelier

fashion and respond to climate-change-induced

forced migration. We therefore focus on the foun-

dational principle of the self-determination of peo-

ples, a collective human right which has supported

movements towards decolonization and the emanci-

pation of oppressed peoples. We argue that self-

determination might offer an alternative logic of

duty on high-emitting States to the plight of popu-

lations who find their territory (and potentially

their nationhood) under threat from anthropogenic

climate change.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout human history, populations have moved

in response to natural disasters and their effects.

However, anthropogenic climate change is now

operating as a threat multiplier, increasing the

number of people susceptible to forced migration

and the degree of haste required to respond to their

needs.

1

Some of the most vulnerable populations

are concentrated in low-lying flood zones of South

and East Asia, and the small island developing

States (SIDS) in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

2

Since the negotiation of the 1992 United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC)

3

and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol,

4

it has

become clear that mitigation of greenhouse gas emis-

sions and the provision of financial resources for

adaptation to climate change impacts have become

mired in highly complex geopolitical tensions between

the Global North and South.

5

These geopolitical ten-

sions were again present at the 2015 Conference of

the Parties (COP) in Paris, but were partially diffused

by the non-legally binding nature of the ‘nationally

determined contributions’(NDCs) on mitigation

*Corresponding author.

Email: Amy.Maguire@newcastle.edu.au

1

J. McAdam, Climate Change, Forced Migration and International

Law (Oxford University Press, 2012), at 5.

2

K.S. Brown, ‘Top 3 Ways Sea Level Rise Threatens Asia-Pacific

Region’ (Asia Foundation, 2014), found at: <http://asiafoundation.org/

2014/06/04/top-3-ways-sea-level-rise-threatens-asia-pacific-region/>.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that ‘[d]is-

placement risk increases when populations that lack the resources for

planned migration experience higher exposure to extreme weather

events, in both rural and urban areas, particularly in developing coun-

tries with low income’; C.B. Field et al. (eds.), Climate Change 2014:

Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral

Aspects. Contribution of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergov-

ernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press,

2014), 1, at 20. There are mixed findings in relation to regions that will

be most affected by climate change. The Climate Change Vulnerability

Index produced by Maplecroft placed Bangladesh as the highest rank-

ing country by vulnerability. See Verisk Maplecroft, ‘Climate Change

and Lack of Food Security Multiply Risks of Conflict and Civil Unrest in

32 Countries –Maplecroft’ (2014), found at: <https://maplecroft.

com/portfolio/new-analysis/2014/10/29/climate-change-and-lack-food-

security-multiply-risks-conflict-and-civil-unrest-32-countries-maplec

roft/>. The vulnerability rankings by Notre Dame University rank

Bangladesh at 140/182. Notably the regions of South and East

Asia and the small island States are generally ranked within the ‘or-

ange’ and ‘red’ zones. See ‘Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index:

Country Rankings’ (2014), found at: <http://index.gain.org/ranking/vul

nerability>.

3

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (New

York, 9 May 1992; in force 21 March 1994) (‘UNFCCC’).

4

Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on

Climate Change (Kyoto, 11 December 1997; in force 16 February

2005).

5

See A. Hurrell and S. Sengupta, ‘Emerging Powers, North–South

Relations and Global Climate Politics’, 88:3 International Affairs

(2012), 463, at 481.

ª2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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RECIEL 26 (1) 2017. ISSN 2050-0386 DOI: 10.1111/reel.12193

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