Abstract
Chapter 2 showed that there is reasonable disagreement over some of the ends that the UNFCCC should achieve. This chapter builds on this finding by showing that, where there is reasonable disagreement over such ends, fair decision-making processes gain additional importance. That is, this chapter makes a case for the importance of fair procedures in the UNFCCC. It does so in three steps. First, it discusses the relative merits of fair procedures, arguing that, whilst fair procedures are important in themselves, there are sometimes trade-offs between designing a process that is procedurally fair and designing a process to meet other more pressing ends. Second, it argues that, whilst there is disagreement in the UNFCCC, there is also agreement over some of its ends, most importantly, that it should collectively limit emissions to avoid causing dangerous climate change. Further, given certain specific characteristics associated with climate change, achieving this goal requires meeting certain criteria, including stringency, urgency, and voluntary cooperation. This means that it is important to find a way of reaching agreement in the UNFCCC even when there is reasonable disagreement over some of the ends that it should bring about. Third, given these specific characteristics and requirements, and given the existence of reasonable disagreement, I show that fair procedures theoretically provide a way of reaching agreement in the UNFCCC even when there is reasonable disagreement over the ends that it should pursue.
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See: IISD 2010, p. 3.
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For more on the potentially catastrophic nature of climate change, see: Schneider and Lane 2006.
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See also, den Elzen 2010.
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See: Matthews and Solomon 2013.
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Allen et al. make this point, although not in support of Lomborg’s argument (Allen et al. 2009a).
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See: Joshi et al. 2011.
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I take this point from: Birnie 1988, p. 113.
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Thomas Franck argues that states obey international laws even when it is not in their interest to do so at least partly on account of the fairness of these laws (Franck 1995, p. 26). Peter Lawrence suggests that states may comply with an agreement if they feel that it is procedurally fair (Lawrence 2014, p. 16). For more on this point, see Barrett 2003.
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Barrett and Stavins 2003, p. 360.
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Bottom-up processes involve voluntary mitigation pledges that are defined unilaterally (Bodansky 2012, p. 1).
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Waldron suggests that two pragmatic procedures for decision-making might be tossing a coin or nominating one person to act as a leader (Waldron 1999, p. 113).
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Waldron 1999, p. 113. Note that continued deliberation and minilateralism may also fall short on this point.
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For discussion of perfect procedural justice, see: Kelsen 1955.
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See, Rawls 1971.
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In this sense, the outcomes generated by a fair procedure are themselves fair. A related view might hold that, whilst there is disagreement on substantive justice, there is agreement on procedural justice, and that the outcomes generated by a fair process should be accepted as second best alternatives to persistent disagreement. For more on this, see: Arneson 2004.
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Jeremy Waldron claims that the fact that there is disagreement about an issue does not necessarily imply that there is no objectively right or correct outcome (Waldron 1999).
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This is similar to Thomas Christiano’s account of ‘moderate proceduralism’, which recognises that democratic processes have intrinsic value whilst also placing limits on the substantive outcomes that these processes can achieve (Christiano 2008, p. 295).
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David Miller makes a similar argument about the role of deliberative democracy (Miller 2007). Thomas Christiano argues that democracy can provide a way of making decisions that treats each citizen equally when there are disagreements about justice and the common good in society (Christiano 2008, p. 75).
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Waldron notes that majority rule is not the only way of awarding sufficient respect in a decision-making process (Waldron 1999, p. 111).
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Richard Arneson takes this view (Arneson 2004).
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Several authors suggest that there are certain constraints on the outcomes that multilateral institutions should bring about, for example: Buchanan and Keohane 2006.
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Here I have in mind something along the lines of Gutmann and Thompsons account of reciprocity (Gutmann and Thompson 1996).
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For instance, Ronald Dworkin argues that reasonable citizens may disagree about what democracy requires (Dworkin 1996, p. 34).
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Tomlinson, L. (2015). Reaching Agreement Through Fair Process. In: Procedural Justice in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17184-5_3
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