ABSTRACT
The second Protocol to the LRTAP Convention was adopted in response to evidence of widespread damage in parts of Europe and North America to natural resources, and to historical monuments and human health, caused by acidification of the environment from sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants from the combustion of fossil fuels. The 1985 Protocol established a ‘Thirty Per Cent Club’ by committing all Parties to a 30% reduction in their national annual sulphur emissions by 1993 at the latest, using 1980 levels as a basis. This inflexible approach to standard-setting has not been adopted in the subsequent protocols to this Convention because it fails to take account of the present and historic emissions and other differentials (Sands (1995) 251), such as local variations in pollution levels (Birnie and Boyle (1992) 400). Article 3 of the 1985 Protocol envisages further, more stringent reduction targets. These were duly introduced in the 1994 Oslo Protocol, in the form of sulphur emission percentage reductions, emission ceilings and a timetable for these objectives in Annex II (Art 2.2), as well as committing Parties to ensuring in the long term that depositions do not exceed critical loads specified in Annex I (Art 2.1). These specific standard setting measures stand in contrast to the more generally worded ‘soft’ obligations in the main text of the Convention itself, but may be used as evidence of the ability of a general framework type treaty regime to develop specific commitments within its terms and through the institutions it establishes (Birnie and Boyle (1992) 401).
