Annalisa Savaresi

Conservation with Justice: A Rights-Based Approach

This article suggests a rights-based approach (RBA) to conservation of environmental resources. The article points out benefits of an RBA model, such as identifying the causes of environmental impacts on citizens’ human rights and bettering the regulation of environmental resources. However, the RBA also poses challenges, such as resistance from non-State actors, comparing the importance of different rights, and a commitment of many resources. The article next identifies substantive and procedural rights provided by international law. An RBA implicates, among others, the right to life, the right to health, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to work, the rights to religion and culture, the right to property, the right to privacy and home life and the rights to information and participation. The article concludes by providing detailed guidance about how to implement an RBA, and the main steps include analyzing the situation, disseminating information, guaranteeing participation, making a decision about the activity, monitoring and evaluating the RBA, and ensuring the rights by enforcement of the commitments undertaken by various actors.

The United Nations Security Council's Legislative and Enforcement Powers and Climate Change

Since the adoption of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), international climate change law-making has chiefly been the prerogative of the treaty bodies established under the Convention and its Protocol. The adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015 is an important step forward for the multilateral climate change framework, but, despite its rapid entry into force, it is still too early to tell whether the Paris Agreement will prove to be an effective and successful intergovernmental framework for tackling climate change. Nor is it necessarily the only relevant institution in the climate change regime. Given the urgency of climate change and the glacial pace of multilateral climate law-making, the idea of exploiting the United Nations Security Council’s legislative and enforcement powers to lead global efforts on climate change therefore holds a significant appeal. This chapter focuses on the use of the Council’s legislative and enforcement powers to help states get out of the climate change law-making quagmire. Firstly, the chapter analyses the powers and practice of the Council both as a global legislator, and in enforcing states’ obligations. Secondly, the chapter considers how existing Council law-making and enforcement powers can be applied to climate change. The chapter concludes by reflecting on advantages and disadvantages of Council’s legislative and enforcement action in relation to climate change.