The Global Pact for the Environment

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Guest blog by Ben Thomas

This year, President Trump’s first term comes to a close. These previous four years of his presidency were marked by policy debates over issues such as immigration, trade, and now a global pandemic. Another topic of concern for the Trump administration, and an agenda relentlessly pushing forward, is rolling back regulations enacted by his predecessor.  A great bulk of these Obama-era policies are composed of climate and environmental regulations, and the President has largely succeeded in dismantling them.

Whether rolling back rules on air and water quality, or slashing restrictions on power plant carbon dioxide emissions, the Trump administration’s actions are putting the health of people and our planet at risk. But despite these decisions from the top, many lower governing bodies such as states, cities, communities, and other stakeholders such as businesses remain committed towards policies focused on environmental protection, such as promoting shifts to renewable sources of energy or joining coalitions supporting the Paris agreement.

While these actions are inspiring, more large-scale approaches are necessary to deal with the climate crisis. It was only less than two years ago that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that a 2°C rise of global average temperatures above pre-industrial levels would be disastrous for the planet and its inhabitants.

For such an enormous feat, voluntary action on behalf of regional governments and the private sector will not be enough. We need a stronger approach from the international community, an agenda that can lay the path forward through strong, multilateral commitments between nations. One possible solution could be the Global Pact for the Environment, the world’s most encompassing environmental legal initiative.

THE GLOBAL PACT: WHAT IS IT, AND WHY IS IT NECESSARY?

Possibly the next major UN environmental initiative of the century, the Global Pact for the Environment proposes the adoption of a legally binding treaty whose draft text was based on the principals of the right to a healthy environment and the duty to take care of the environment. This would be an important step for international law, shifting the rights of nature closer to the rights of humans. 

Advocates of the Global Pact also argue that the such a comprehensive legal instrument is necessary to fill the “gaps” in international environmental law, clarify and define important environmental principals, and improve coordination between overlapping bodies. This type of umbrella text would ultimately ensure that its component principles are feasibly integrated and implemented in global and national legal systems.

The Global Pact’s adoption could also contribute towards global environmental constitutionalism. In essence, this means that as its principles are transformed into compulsory environmental actions, the process of environmental norms being integrated into national legal systems could be accelerated. The movement for Environmental constitutionalism has been growing around the world, and the Global Pact would only help accelerate the process of countries adding environmental protection to their lists of fundamental values of governance.

Another important quality of the Global Pact’s enshrined principles, based off the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, is that they would form binding obligations. These environmental covenants currently exist, but they lack the heft of being considered accepted norms. For example, due to being a soft-law instrument, some of the Rio Declaration’s principles, like the precautionary principle, have been subject to conflicting interpretations. This has consequently led to failures in effective implementation and enforcement. The Global Pact would settle the question of which principles are recognized as norms, fast-tracking their application across national legal systems.

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

50 YEARS IN THE MAKING

How did the Global Pact initiative come into being, and where is it heading? The movement for creating a global legal framework for environmental protection can be traced back to the Stockholm Conference of 1972. This landmark event led to the creation of domestic environmental laws around the world, and even the advent of multiple national environmental ministries. Despite this impact, the conference’s resulting declaration was a soft-law instrument with no legal force.

The next major leap forward for the movement was the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Setting forth constitutional principles for global environmental governance, the Rio Declaration catalyzed the adoption of customary norms, many of which were adopted into international treaties. The soft-law principles of the Declaration laid the groundwork for the Global Pact, igniting a worldwide debate on the necessity of an all-encompassing legal framework.

In 2015, the legal think tank Club de Juristes released a report recommending the adoption of a Universal Pact to combine environmental law into one all-encompassing instrument. The report piggybacked off the success of the recent Paris Agreement and international support continued to grow through 2017, when over 100 environmental law experts from more than 40 countries convened to finalize a draft text. Later that year, the group of experts, led by COP 21 president Laurent Fabius, published the white paper Toward a Global Pact for the Environment.

International favor continued to grow at this time, with over 40 heads of state expressing support at the Summit on a Global Pact for the Environment. Action on behalf of the UN General Assembly was finalized in May of 2018 with the adoption of the resolution “Towards a Global Pact for the Environment.” 143 states voted to adopt the resolution with only 5 against, one of those five being the United States.

One condition of the resolution was for the UN Secretary General to prepare a report, which upon release in November 2018 expressed that international environmental law could indeed be strengthened by a comprehensive and unifying legal instrument. A working group, established to make recommendations to the UN General Assembly on the matter, met for three substantive meetings in Nairobi during 2019.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

WHERE IS THE PACT NOW, AND WHAT’S NEXT?

As opposed to previous milestones within the Global Pact initiative, member states struggled to find consensus during the Nairobi meetings. The recommendations adopted by states were a firm setback compared to the original objectives of the initiative, taking the form of a vague declaration of encouraging actions that lack any binding substance. Most disappointingly, the recommendations proclaim that the path forward now lies in States making a “political declaration” on the matter in 2022, the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference.

So, what’s next? Well, supporters of the initiative are hopeful that continued efforts could lead to a formal adoption of the Pact in 2022. Here in the United States, shifting political tensions regarding climate change could also lead to future support for such action. If the US government wishes to address concerns, it should take the lead in multi-lateral negotiations and help formulate the discussion. Instead, if our political situation in two years mirrors that of today’s, we may see the United States sidelined as the international community moves forward with shaping global environmental law. The US might desire avoiding such a situation as the disastrous effects of climate change worsen globally. Perhaps the country may even want to lead the charge against the threat, as it has done with other post World War II crises. This is the opportunity to showcase it.