The Practice of Shared Responsibility in Relation to Climate Change
Forthcoming in: André Nollkaemper and Ilias Plakokefalos (eds.), The Practice of Shared Responsibility in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
SHARES Research Paper 71 (2015)
36 Pages Posted: 12 Aug 2015 Last revised: 1 Aug 2016
Date Written: July 27, 2015
Abstract
Climate change not only presents a problem of unrivalled complexity, but also a paradigmatic example of shared responsibility. Shared responsibility describes situations where multiple state actors contribute to a single harmful outcome. Traditional state responsibility rules are poorly suited to deal with such situations given the multiple actors (state and non-state) contributing to the harm, and lack of clear causal relationships between a particular state(s) and damage resulting from climate change. This paper considers the application of shared responsibility concepts in the context of climate change. The most important questions that arise in such situations concern how responsibility is to be shared amongst the multiple states and entities whose activities produce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. For instance, what is the nature of the responsibility that arises where some states have contributed more substantially to the problem than others through their past and present practices of greenhouse gas emissions? How is responsibility to be apportioned in the context of a global atmospheric problem that has multiple contributing sources (both state and non-state)? And how can responsibility for climate change damage be linked to the actions of major emitting states where both the causes and effects of climate change are so diffuse? Examining climate change through the lens of shared responsibility not only offers a way to explore and elucidate these questions, but also to reevaluate the value of traditional international legal rules of state responsibility for dealing with complex environmental pollution problems.
Keywords: state responsibility, climate change, shared responsibility, climate change litigation
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