Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T19:11:32.635Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Climate, Conflict, and International Law in the Middle East and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Usha Natarajan
Usha Natarajan*
Affiliation:
Edward Said Fellow, Columbia University; Global South Visiting Scholar, University of British Columbia; Senior Fellow, Melbourne Law School; usha.natarajan.khoday@gmail.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The last time there was this much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was three and a half million years ago. While our planetary history evidences cyclical climatic shifts, this time injustice is the cause. The lifestyles of the wealthy few are sustained not only by increasing economic inequality but the systemic collapse of ecosystems. The richest 20 percent consumes 80 percent of the world's natural resources and generates over 90 percent of its pollution and waste. For most people, the poorer 80 percent, their grossly unequal access to natural resources is compounded by also bearing the brunt of the pollution generated by the rich.

Type
Transitional Justice in a Hostile Climate
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 114 , 2020 , pp. 160 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 M. Willeit; A. Ganopolski; R. Calov & V. Brovkin, Mid-Pleistocene Transition in Glacial Cycles Explained by Declining CO2 and Regolith Removal, 5 Science Advances eaav7337 (2019).

2 Max Lawson, et al., Public Good or Private Wealth (Oxfam, Oxford, 2019); IPBES, Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Oxfam (2019), available at https://ipbes.net.

3 See UN Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2019; UNDP, Human Development Report 2007–08; UNDP, Human Development Report 1998.

4 Usha Natarajan, Environmental Justice and the Global South, in Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development (Sumudu A. Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez & Sara L. Seck eds., forthcoming 2021).

5 See Mengpin Ge & Johnannes Friedrich, 4 Charts Explain Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Countries and Sectors, World Resources Inst., at https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/02/greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-country-sector; Choose Energy, How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your State Produce?, at https://www.chooseenergy.com/data-center/carbon-dioxide-by-state; UNDP, Human Development Report 2019, supra note 3.

6 Deborah Hardoon, An Economy for the 99% (2017).

7 Usha Natarajan, Climate Justice, in Routledge Handbook of Law & Society (Mariana Valverde, Kamari M. Clarke, Eve Darian-Smith & Prabha Kotiswaran eds., 2020).

8 Natarajan, supra note 4.

9 Usha Natarajan & Julia Dehm, Where Is the Environment? Locating Nature in International Law, 3 TWAILR Reflections (2019) at https://twailr.com/where-is-the-environment-locating-nature-in-international-law.

10 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment Report (2014).

11 UNDP Regional Hub for Arab States, Transformation Towards Sustainable and Resilient Societies – Ecosystem Resilience for SDG Achievement and Human Security in the Arab Region (2018); Kishan Khoday, Climate Change, Peace and Security in the Middle East, Medium (Oct. 31, 2019) at https://medium.com/@UNDPArabStates/climate-change-peace-and-security-f5a290b6d28c.

12 Benjamin Cook, et al., Spatiotemporal Drought Variability in the Mediterranean Over the Last 900 Years, 121 JGR Atmospheres 2060 (2016).

13 UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Near East and North Africa – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition (2019).

14 See Arab Human Development Reports, at http://www.arab-hdr.org; Hardoon, supra note 6.

15 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends 2019.

16 Usha Natarajan, Measuring the Immeasurable: Nature, Loss and Damage, in Research Handbook on Loss and Damage from Climate Change (M. Doelle and S. Seck eds., forthcoming).

17 UNDP Regional Hub for Arab States, Arab Cities Resilience Report (2018).

18 Usha Natarajan & Kishan Khoday, Climate Change, in Tipping Points In International Law (Jean d'Aspremont & John Haskell eds., forthcoming 2021).

19 Michael Fakhri, Third World Sovereignty, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Food Sovereignty: Living with Sovereignty Despite the Map, 9 Transnat'l Legal Theory 218 (2018).

20 Christiane Wilke, Beyond Law and Numbers: Civilian Suffering and the ICC's Engagement in Afghanistan, 23 TWAILR Reflections (2020), at https://twailr.com/beyond-law-and-numbers-civilian-suffering-and-the-iccs-engagement-with-afghanistan/#easy-footnote-bottom-37-2565; Antony Anghie & B.S. Chimni, Third World Approaches to International Law and Individual Responsibility in Internal Conflicts, 2 Chinese J. Int'l L. 77 (2003).

21 Usha Natarajan, Forced Displacement in Syria or How to Institutionalize Regimes of Suffering, 2 ESIL Reflections (2013), at https://esil-sedi.eu/fr/forced-displacements-from-syria-or-how-to-institutionalize-regimes-of-suffering.

22 Philip Alston, Climate Change and Poverty: Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, UN Doc. A/HRC/41/39 (June 25, 2019); Ban Ki-moon & Patrick Verkooijen, Time Is Running Out to Stop the Forces Driving a New Climate Apartheid, DEVEX Opinion (Oct 18, 2019) at https://www.devex.com/news/opinion-time-is-running-out-to-stop-the-forces-driving-a-new-climate-apartheid-95841.

23 Ileana Porras, Appropriating Nature, 27 Leiden J. Int'l L. 641 (2014); Usha Natarajan & Kishan Khoday, Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law, 27 Leiden J. Int'l L. 573 (2014).

24 Natarajan & Khoday, supra note 23.

25 Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law (Usha Natarajan & Julia Dehm eds., forthcoming 2021).

26 Id.

27 Natarajan & Dehm, supra note 9.

28 Id. For a new law review dedicated to these aims, see Laura Betancur-Restrepo, et al., Introducing the TWAIL Review: TWAILR, TWAIL Rev. (Aug. 30, 2019) at https://twailr.com/introducing-the-twail-review-twailr.

29 Natarajan, Measuring the Immeasurable, supra note 16.

30 Will Steffen, et al., Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet, 347(6223) Science 1259855 (2015).

31 Telmo Pievani, The Sixth Mass Extinction: Anthropocene and the Human Impact on Biodiversity, 25 Rendiconti Lincei 85 (2014).

32 Usha Natarajan, Human Rights – Help or Hindrance to Combatting Climate Change?, Open Democracy (Jan. 9, 2015) at https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/openglobalrights-openpage-blog/human-rights-help-or-hindrance-to-combatting-climate-change.

33 Natarajan & Dehm, supra note 9.

34 Thoughts on the Planetary: An Interview with Achille Mbembe, New Frame (Sept. 5, 2019) at https://www.newframe.com/thoughts-on-the-planetary-an-interview-with-achille-mbembe/?fbclid=IwAR2eb_uEXuoTcyqXv5dXliP04a1ebt1Wx3D_8SRt_CwVJSZHsnIsmgQwqgI.

35 Kwame A. Appiah, Comprendre les reparations: Une réflexion préliminaire, 173–174 Cahiers D’études Africaines 25(2004).