ABSTRACT
Provisions pertaining to fairness or equity are prominent features of international environmental agreements. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), for instance, states that “[t]he Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity” (UNFCCC 1992 Art. 3.1). The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC seeks to put this provision into operation through the adoption of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which distinguishes between developed (UNFCCC Annex I) and developing (UNFCCC non-Annex I) states with regard to targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and through the inclusion of a commitment to devising measures to protect particularly vulnerable societies, such as small island developing states (Kyoto Protocol 1997). Even the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, widely regarded as a political statement cobbled together following a failure of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC to agree on the terms of a new legally binding agreement on climate change, states clearly that “[w]e shall… on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable development, enhance our long-term cooperative action to control climate change” (Copenhagen Accord 2009).
