Lefeber, René --- "Climate Change and State Responsibility" [2012] ELECD 748; in Rayfuse, Rosemary; Scott, V. Shirley (eds), "International Law in the Era of Climate Change" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: International Law in the Era of Climate Change

Editor(s): Rayfuse, Rosemary; Scott, V. Shirley

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800303

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Climate Change and State Responsibility

Author(s): Lefeber, René

Number of pages: 29

Extract:

13. Climate change and state
responsibility
René Lefeber

INTRODUCTION
At the 2009 Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, a United States
delegate stated that `[w]e absolutely recognize our historic role in putting
emissions in the atmosphere, up there, but the sense of guilt or culpability or
reparations, I just categorically reject that'.1 This statement reflects a widely
held view that the law of state responsibility does not have much to offer in
the fight against climate change. Tuvalu, a small-island developing state
that may disappear as a result of the rise of sea level related to climate
change, nevertheless planned, at the beginning of this century, to sue several
industrialised countries, including the United States, before international
courts.2 It has since abandoned this plan and now pursues multilateral
negotiations on an effective global climate-change agreement that
addresses risk-management and risk-reduction strategies, including risk-
transfer and risk-sharing mechanisms.3 It may have been political consid-
erations or legal obstacles that induced Tuvalu to forego the option of
litigation for now. Nevertheless, in a time when the injurious consequences
of climate change will be felt around the globe and the conclusion of
effective international agreements seems illusory, states, especially states
vulnerable to climate change, may want to pursue the option of litigation.

1
Statement made on 9 December 2009 by Todd Stern, United States delegate to
the 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Conven-
tion.
2
Statement made on ...