The role of the environmental treaties’ Conference of the parties in the development of international environmental law

Subject Areas : environmental low

Seyed-Abbas Poorhashemi ¹ , Azam Parandeh Motlagh ²

1 - Scientific Member & President of the Canadian Institute for International Law Expertise (CIFILE), Toronto, Canada. * (Corresponding Author)
2 - Ph.D Candidate, Environmental Law Department- Islamic Azad University- Science & Research Branch of Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2016-04-06 Accepted : 2016-06-13 Published : 2021-01-20

Keywords: International Treaties, Sustainable development, Environmental Treaties, International Environmental law, Conference of the Parties,

Abstract :

One of the most important international structures that play a major role in the development of international environmental law is the Conference of the parties in the environmental treaties. However, the Conference of the Parties’ status and legitimacy for environmental regulations, developing and restricting the parties’ obligations and requirements which contained in the environmental treaties and implementation of the treaties by its decisions and resolutions should be addressed. This study is based on analysis of legal inductive. According to this method, some environmental treaties from the 1970s until today which contained the Conference of the Parties’ structure has been collected, analyzed and evaluated. After studying the opportunities and legal capacity of the "Conference of the Parties" for development of international environmental law, the result of this study showed that the environmental treaties’ Conference of the Parties have faced some gaps and limitation. In this perspective, the paper makes some recommendation to sole these gaps and limitations.

References:

1. Framework Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea, Tehran 2003, available at: http://www.tehranconvention.org/


2. Poorhashemi, S. A., & Arghand, B. (2013). International environmental law. Nashr Dadgostar, 145-198.

1. Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat 1971. Ramsar, 2 February 1971, available at: http://www.ramsar.org/


2. Louise Kathleen Camenzuli, “The development of international environmental law at the Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ Conference of the Parties and its validity”, IUCN, for more information: https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/cel10_camenzuli.pdf


3. L.A. Kimball & W.C. Boyd, “International Institutional Arrangements for Environment and Development: A Post-Rio Assessment” (1992) Review of European Commission and International Environmental Law Journal p. 295.


4. The Antarctic Treaty, signed at Washington, on 1 December 1959, available at: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20402/volume-402-I-5778-English.pdf


5. Louise Kathleen Camenzuli, “The development of international environmental law at the Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ Conference of the Parties and its validity”, IUCN, for more information: https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/cel10_camenzuli.pdf


6. Qasemi. Ali, 2008, A Look at the Interpretation of Treaties in the Procedure of the Iran-US Court of Arbitration, International Law Journal, Journal of the Center for International Legal Affairs, Vice President for Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Affairs, Year 25, No. 39, pp. 13-27


7. Vienna Convention on the law of treaties (with annex). Concluded at Vienna on 23 May 1969, available at: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201155/volume-1155-I-18232-French.pdf


8. Tayebi, S., Moosavi, S. F., & Poorhashemi, S. A. (2017). International interaction and global peace in light of international convergence: a strategy to achieve environmental diplomacy. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 14(7), 1573-1582. And see Nouzha, C., « Réflexion sur la contribution de la Cour internationale de justice à la protection des ressources naturelles », RJE, 2000, vol.3. P.­391-420.


9. Rosemary Sandford (1994), ‘International Environmental Treaty Secretariats: Stage-Hands or Actors? ’, in Helge Ole Bergesen and Georg Parmann (eds.), Green Globe Yearbook of International Co-operation on Environment and Development 1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 17–29.


10. Poorhashemi, A. (2021). Quel développement pour le droit international de l'environnement au 21ème siècle?. CIFILE Journal of International Law, 2(3), 76-87. doi: 10.30489/cifj.2020.238827.1018


11. Poorhashemi, A. (2020). Emergence of “International Environmental Law”: as a new branch of International Public Law.”. CIFILE Journal of International Law, 1(2), 33-39. doi: 10.30489/cifj.2020.218985.1013.

5. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Signed at Washington, D.C., on 3 March 1973, available at: https://www.cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/disc/CITES-Convention-EN.pdf


6. The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, available at: http://ozone.unep.org/pdfs/viennaconvention2002.pdf


7. R. Churchill and G. Ulfstein, “Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral EnvironmentalAgreements: A Little-Noticed Phenomenon in International Law” (2000) American Journal of International Law,623 at 623.


8. Procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance under the Kyoto Protocol, Volume III, The Marrakech Accords:http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/cop7/13a03.pdf