Adoption of the ‘arbitration annex’ at COP26, in Glasgow next week, would encourage states to act on their climate and environmental obligations, according to lawyers
COP26 is the 26th meeting of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Writing in a paper for LexisNexis, ‘COP26―the road to net zero’, Pinsent Masons partner Pamela McDonald said she hoped there would be discussion on arbitration at the conference.
The Paris Agreement set emissions targets but ‘implementation and enforcement mechanisms under both the agreement and the UNFCCC are either absent or weak’, she wrote. While the Paris Agreement allowed states to declare they accepted arbitration in accordance with procedures in an ‘annex on arbitration’, adoption of the annex ‘would provide a vital means of ensuring the Paris Agreement is respected’.
