Revision of Ratification of UNCLOS would expose U.S. to broad liability for environmental damage in international courts from Thu, 08/21/2014 - 20:35
By ratifying UNCLOS, the U.S. would be exposed to climate change lawsuits and other environmental actions brought against it by other members of the convention and the economic and political ramifications of such lawsuits could be dire.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Those who are concerned that the marine environment is being damaged by pollution could put their case before the Tribunal, but the obligations of Part XII would have a special effect on the United States, where citizens may sue to ensure the government follows its laws. Under the U.S. Constitution, international treaties have the force of law. Ratifying LOST would therefore enable environmental groups to sue to ensure the release of toxic substances is minimized “to the fullest possible extent” if there is a chance the material will enter the marine environment.
Consider: The nation’s coal-fired power plants release mercury into the atmosphere. Some of this mercury consolidates in rivers, and eventually reaches the ocean. As a result, fish that swim in the ocean have slightly higher levels of mercury in their systems. Sharks that eat these fish have even higher mercury concentrations. The concern that pregnant mothers who eat shark meat are damaging the cognitive development of their unborn children has led environmentalists to demand that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issue regulations to reduce the risk to unborn children.
However, consider what the Treaty text implies. There is no requirement to prove that the emissions actually cause significant harm. If the substance emitted is “harmful” to any degree, states are simply required to minimize emissions “to the fullest possible extent.” To all practical purposes, taking the Treaty at its word would require the closure of most if not all coal-fired electricity generation in the United States.
This kind of activism has not taken place in any of the other signatory states, likely because they offer fewer opportunities for concerned citizens to require their governments to follow the spirit and word of the Treaty. In the United States, however, environmental groups would probably sue the day after formal ratification, and the courts would be unlikely to throw out their challenges.
Acceding to UNCLOS would commit the U.S. to controlling its pollutants, including alleged “harmful substances” such as carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases (GHG), in such a way that they do not negatively impact the marine environment. The U.S. would also be obligated to adopt laws and regulations to prevent the pollution of the marine environment from the atmosphere and could be liable under international law for failing to enact legislation necessary to prevent atmospheric pollution. Moreover, such domestic laws and regulations “shall” take into account “internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices and procedures.” The “internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices” that could be invoked by UNCLOS litigants may include instruments such as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol.
A consensus has emerged within the international environmental and legal community that the United States is the best target for an international climate change lawsuit. One law professor has characterized the United States as a likely target because it is a developed nation with high per capita and total GHG emissions, adding that the “higher the overall historic and present contribution to global emissions by the defending party, arguably the better the chance of a successful outcome.”
The United States has a stake in working with other nations to protect the global environment. For that purpose, it has entered into a number of conventions and agreements, such as, for example, conservation agreements to preserve fish stocks in international waters. But it is one thing to agree to a common standard and another thing to be bound by the decisions of an ongoing regulatory council in which the United States can be easily outvoted. It is one thing to agree to submit particular disputes to international arbitration, with the consent of both parties. It is entirely another thing to establish an ongoing court, with mandatory jurisdiction over important matters and an open-ended claim to “advise” on the law apart from particular disputes. It is something else again to embrace a court that, being permanent, may be prey to all the temptations of judicial activism, to extending its authority by enlarging its jurisdiction and winning popularity by playing favorites in its judgments.
The United States has traditionally respected limits on what it can agree to do by treaty. In the past, it has refused to ratify treaties that delegate so much authority to international institutions. By ratifying UNCLOS, we would not only open ourselves to immediate risks and complications regarding actions on the seas, we would also make it harder to resist more ambitious schemes of global governance in the future. We have said in the past that we cannot submit to such impositions on our own sovereignty. President Reagan made this point in rejecting UNCLOS in 1982, pointing to the open-ended regulatory powers of the Authority. If we ratify UNCLOS, we make it much harder to explain—to others, as to ourselves—why we cannot embrace further ventures in “global governance,” like the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Protocol. We would feed demands for similar international control schemes for Antarctica or Outer Space.
Currently, there is no forum in which to initiate a viable international climate change lawsuit against the United States. The U.S. withdrew from the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1985 and is not as yet a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).2
However, if the United States accedes to UNCLOS, thereby reversing a 30-year policy of remaining outside of the convention, the U.S. would be exposed to climate change lawsuits and other environmental actions brought against it by other members of the convention. The eco- nomic and political ramifications of such lawsuits would be dire.
This paper demonstrates that accession to UNCLOS would unnecessarily expose the United States to baseless and opportunistic international lawsuits, including suits based on the theory of anthropogenic climate change.
A claimant in a climate change lawsuit against the United States would face several legal and evidentiary challenges in proving its case in an UNCLOS tribunal, including jurisdictional hurdles, causation issues, and the question of equitable apportionment of damages.126 Nevertheless, regardless of whether the U.S. might ultimately prevail in such a case, acceding to the convention is fraught with political danger. Advocates of international climate change lawsuits see them as an acceptable way to achieve their environmental ends, including U.S. capitulation to a comprehensive climate change treaty:
Litigation or the threat thereof would emphasise the urgency of the need to agree [to] binding commitments on climate change and would put additional pres- sure on the negotiations process. Negotiators may feel more of a responsibility vis-à-vis the international community and have an additional lever in relation to their national governments. A high-profile court case would also engage a variety of actors in the debate and provide new momentum to find consensual solutions inside and outside the UNFCCC talks ... . Inter-State climate change litigation may help to create the political pressure and third-party guidance required to re-invigorate the international negotiations, within or outside the UNFCCC.127
One law professor believes that “litigation will very likely play a role” in determining who will bear the costs of climate change and singles out the United States for special treatment, stating that “litigation efforts need to be primarily focused on the United States as the major hindrance to beginning the remedial process” (i.e., by failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol).128 Other proponents of the theory of anthropogenic climate change understand that there are precedents for using international courts to achieve purposes other than legal redress. For instance, the World Trade Organization “has similarly been strategically employed by governments to influence negotiations and clarify State obligations.”129
If the United States received an adverse judgment in an UNCLOS climate change lawsuit, the tribunal could order remedies similar to those imposed by the Trail Smelter tribunal—a regime of regulations, compli- ance measures, and even reparations. In anthropogenic climate change parlance, such a regime would be akin to mitigation measures (i.e., actions to reduce the level of U.S. GHG emissions).
A comprehensive GHG mitigation regime imposed on the U.S. would seriously affect the American econ- omy because carbon emissions and other GHG are produced throughout the United States by several signifi- cant sectors of the economy, includ- ing the electricity generation, transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. Like the “cap-and-trade” regulations that have been debated in Congress, the imposition of international Trail Smelter– style regulations on every U.S. power plant, refinery, automobile, chemical plant, and landfill would harm the U.S. economy.118
The domestic enforceability of UNCLOS tribunal judgments was confirmed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in Medellin v. Texas, a landmark case in 2008.27 In Medellin, Justice Stevens, writing in a concurring opinion, cited Article 39 of Annex VI for the proposition that UNCLOS members—presum- ably including the United States if it accedes to the convention—are obligated to comply with the judgments of the convention’s tribunals. The Medellin case concerned whether the ICJ’s judgment in 2003 against the United States in the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (the Avena case) is domestically enforceable. Justice Stevens concluded that the relevant treaties in the Avena case—the U.N. Charter and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR)—did not require the Supreme Court to enforce the ICJ’s ruling. Justice Stevens contrasted the permissive language of the U.N. Charter and the VCCR with the explicit language of UNCLOS and concluded that the convention would indeed oblige the Supreme Court to enforce the judgments of UNCLOS tribunals within the United States.28
In sum, by acceding to UNCLOS the United States would unnecessar- ily expose itself to baseless environmental lawsuits, including a claim that its GHG emissions have caused harm to other nations. Because of its membership in the convention, the U.S. could be compelled to appear before a tribunal to defend itself in any such lawsuit. International courts and tribunals, including those created by UNCLOS, have not hesitated to assert jurisdiction and pass judgment in controversial social, political, and environmental lawsuits. The judgment of an UNCLOS tribunal in a climate change lawsuit would be final, unappealable, and enforceable in the United States.
In sum, the United States is undoubtedly at the top of the list of potential defendants against climate change suits brought by environmental lawyers and academics, native peoples such as the Inuit, and UNCLOS states parties such as Tuvalu. Moreover, UNCLOS’s compulsory dispute resolution tribunals are regularly cited as viable international forums for bringing an international climate change action against the United States.101
Thus far, the United States has denied potential climate change claimants their day in international court by withdrawing from compulsory ICJ jurisdiction and by refusing to accede to UNCLOS. Clearly, accession to the convention would open the door to these litigants as well as to their advocates in the international academic, environmental, and nongovernmental organization communities.
The environment is another issue of interest. University of Miami law professor Bernard H. Oxman, a long-time LOST advocate, argues that, “The Convention is one of the rare treaties to articulate a basic environmental norm in unqualified form.”19 There is nothing intrinsically wrong with articulating environmental norms—if they are justified, are qualified to account for competing interests, and are in accordance with each participant country’s governing institutions. But that is unlikely to emerge from a highly political process like the LOST negotiations.
Indeed, the Treaty risks endorsing some very bad environmental policy approaches. For example, South African Ambassador Sandile Nogxina, speaking on behalf of the African Group to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the LOST system, declared that, “The concept of sustainable development is a principle which the African group embraces.”20 At the same ceremony, South Korea’s Jung Hai-ung, representing the Asian group, opined “that the precautionary approach set out in Agenda 21, chapter 17, should be applied to the seabed activities.”21 The Netherlands formally pushed the Council “to apply a precautionary approach to seabed exploration.”22
All of these terms incorporate much larger political agendas. Biasing the process against development globally would have profound impacts on all peoples, and especially those in the poorest lands who most need the results of economic growth, international investment and trade, and globalization. Serious application of the precautionary principle would halt economic development, since it is impossible to prove a negative— that a new process or technology involves no risk. Trade-offs are inherent to any economic endeavor, with a thoughtful balancing of potential costs and benefits.
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The United States should be held liable for violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over the destruction of the Tubbataha Reef, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said on Friday.
[ More ]Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute warns of the dangers of litigation if the United States joins the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, more commonly known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).
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