Introduction The sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) finished last week in Colombia, kicking off the 2024 COP season. A large part of the international legal community turned its attention to the discussions held in Cali, and will now focus on the upcoming debates in the governing bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). However, limiting the relevance of COPs to their activities during this one part of the year would be seriously misleading, not in the least because it discounts COPs taking place year-round (CMS COP14 was in February), but also reduces COPs to being relevant only to global environmental challenges (a different approach is suggested here).
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
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The ITLOS Advisory Opinion: Human Rights as a Withered Branch of International Law?
On 21 May 2024, at the request of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS or Tribunal) delivered its long-awaited advisory opinion. While some scholars have welcomed the advisory opinion for its ‘contextual and systemic approach to interpretation’ [cf. Paine],…
“Stringent Due Diligence”, Duties of Cooperation and Assistance to Climate Vulnerable States, and the Selective Integration of External Rules in the ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and International Law
The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea's (ITLOS) 153-page 21 May 2024 Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and International Law is the first decision issued in the trifecta of advisory proceedings on climate change pending in international courts (the other two being the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human…
The ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change: Selected Issues of Treaty Interpretation
Introduction This post analyses selected treaty interpretation issues in the ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, delivered on 21 May 2024. The post does not seek to summarise nor address all issues raised by the Advisory Opinion. Instead, the aim is to analyse certain issues of treaty interpretation that arose at numerous points in the…
BBNJ Treaty and the ITLOS Advisory Jurisdiction
The Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, convened in New York, adopted the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (“BBNJ Agreement” or “Agreement”) by consensus on 19 June 2023. Currently,…
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