with Daria Shapovalova (Aberdeen) and Matteo Fermeglia (Amsterdam)

29 October, 9.30-10.30am, Halliday Room, Stair Building, 1st Floor (entry of either 8 or 5 professors’ square)

Abstract : The UNFCCC and Paris Agreement frame collective action against climate change as a challenge that should be achieved in a way that reflects intra- and intergenerational equity. It has been scientifically established that in order to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals a portion of fossil fuel reserves and assets must be kept ‘in the ground’. Legal scholarship has responded to this challenge by seeking to understand the role of international law in managing this ‘supply side’ of fossil fuels. Foundational to these enquiries is that the starting point for a legal response must be a ‘supply side’ treaty - in terms of which member states will agree to cease fossil fuel production - or the development of a universalised ‘no fossil fuels’ norm. However, developing an international regime addressing the extraction and production of fossil fuel reserves and assets has meaningful equitable implications.  Such a regime necessarily entails that some states will not be able to exercise sovereignty over their territorial resources, and the benefits that could flow from this. The modelling and social sciences literature that seeks to establish how a fossil fuel phase-out may be done equitably, has sought to present frameworks or criteria in terms of which choices can be made about which fossil fuels are still extractable. However, many of the proposed models and suggestions do not take into account the role of law in this process.

This paper starts the task of charting a principle-based framework to ensure that a regime for a fossil fuel phase out is equitable. Finding a fair settlement in this context presents an enormous challenge, but we argue that its content may already be found in existing principles and theories of international (environmental) law.  We explore existing principles including principles of prevention and precaution, sovereignty over natural resources, and differentiation.  We explain that the content of these principles can inform an understanding of what equity means in this context, but also, that relying on these principles can support the development of a fossil fuel phaseout with equity at its core.

Dr Kim Bouwer is an Associate Professor in the Law School and a Co-Director of the Energy Institute. She has held posts or visiting positions at a variety of global institutions, including UCL, the European University Institute, the University of the Witwatersrand, and KCL. Kim has published her research in leading generalist and specialist journals including Legal Studies and the Journal of Environmental Law; her research engages with climate litigation, the public functions of private law, energy law and policy. Since 2019 she led on a project exploring the meaning and nature of climate litigation and justice in Africa.  An edited book on this theme has just been published with Bristol University Press.  She has also been the UK Rapporteur for the British Institute for International and Comparative Law on their Global Perspectives on Corporate Climate Legal Tactics project.

Please register here. All welcome.

The event is organised by the Just Transitions Research Cluster, School of Law.