Last November, the United Kingdom was the centre of the international debate on climate change. Amidst tension in the negotiations, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, also known as “COP 26”, agreed on the Glasgow Climate Pact, a new international instrument whose legal impacts are yet to be seen.
As a closure of this year, we are delighted to bring together a few articles from legal experts who attended the conference in person. With different approaches to the climate change regime, the authors discuss the COP 26 outcomes and challenges for International Law.
Dr. Alexandra R. Harrington discusses the links between Climate Change and Human Rights Post-COP 26. She points out that the outcomes of “COP 26 reflected a significant advance for human rights concerns in several constituencies and in terms of general recognition of the role of human rights in climate change response”, However, she argues that “future refinement of the nexus will need to be more holistic and broad-based in order to advance climate change and human rights together”.
Dr. Stephen Minas, in turn, highlights the COP26 decisions on technology. He states that the Glasgow Climate Pact emphasised the ‘importance of strengthening cooperative action on technology development and transfer for the implementation of mitigation and adaptation action”.
Catherine Highman analyses the role of national legal systems in ensuring accountability for climate action. “It is likely that domestic legal systems will continue to be called upon to provide a harder form of accountability where trust-based processes appear inadequate”, she says.
Happy reading!
Cambridge International Law Journal (CILJ) Blog Team