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Getting a Seat at the Table: Fair Participation in the UNFCCC

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Book cover Procedural Justice in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Abstract

Having made a case for fair procedures, Chap. 4 now turns to the question of what procedural fairness requires in the UNFCCC by considering who should participate in its decisions. Procedural justice is often understood as requiring that all those who are affected by the outcome of a decision should have some say in the decision making process (the All Affected Principle). Yet, there are many objections to this approach, there are also many other principles of fair participation to consider, and it is not immediately apparent that this principle should be applied in the UNFCCC. Furthermore, increasing the number of participants in a decision is often detrimental to the ability to reach agreement on an issue. In this chapter, I discuss the merit of the All Affected Principle and consider how fair participation can be achieved in the UNFCCC. I analyse several alternative principles for fair inclusion in the decisions of the UNFCCC and argue that fair processes are those provide representation to states on a global scale. I then consider what procedural rules are required in order to achieve this in the UNFCCC.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See: UNFCCC 1992, Articles 4.1, 6 and 7. For discussion on the role of NSAs in COP negotiations, see: Gupta et al. 2007.

  2. 2.

    For discussion of the various roles that NSAs play in climate institutions see: Jagers and Stripple 2003; Bulkeley and Newell 2010; Kravchenko 2010.

  3. 3.

    UNFCCC 1992 Art. 4.1(i).

  4. 4.

    For discussions of deadlock in climate change negotiations, see: Victor 2006; Haas 2008; Dombrowski 2010, p. 413.

  5. 5.

    For discussion of this, see: Dimitrov 2010; Rapp et al. 2010.

  6. 6.

    For example: Archibugi et al. 1998; Palerm 1999; Bäckstrand 2006, 2010a, b.

  7. 7.

    UNCED 1992, Principle 10; UNECE 1998, Article 6.

  8. 8.

    In what follows, I draw from the discussions in Miller (2009) and Goodin (2007).

  9. 9.

    For discussion, see: Banuri et al. 1995, p. 86; Held 2004; Shelton 2007, p. 660.

  10. 10.

    For support of the AAP, see: Dahl 1975; Lijphart 1984; Goodin 2007. For discussion of the AAP, see: Whelan 1983; Arrhenius 2005, p. 6; Agné 2006.

  11. 11.

    Most notably the Aarhus Convention (UNECE 1998) the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (UNCED 1992).

  12. 12.

    Peter Lawrence advocates this principle for the UNFCCC on the grounds that it has the greatest chance of bringing about outcomes that are substantively just (Lawrence 2014, p. 188).

  13. 13.

    For criticism of the AAP see: Karlsson 2006; Miller 2009; Schaffer 2012.

  14. 14.

    Toth et al. 2001, p. 669; Goodin 2007, p. 53.

  15. 15.

    Note that some authors argue against this view: Goodin 2007; Dryzek and Stevenson 2012a.

  16. 16.

    David Miller convincingly argues that the plausibility of the AAP as a principle of justice diminishes in such cases (Miller 2009, p. 218).

  17. 17.

    Fraser 2008, p. 96; Karlsson 2008, p. 17, p. 80; see also: Goodin 2007, p. 42; Näsström 2011, p. 119. David Miller discusses this idea as an extension of the All Coerced Principle, which I discuss in the next section (Miller 2009, p. 222).

  18. 18.

    For example: Karlsson 2008, p. 17.

  19. 19.

    For accounts of legitimacy in international law, see: Bodansky 1999; Buchanan and Keohane 2006.

  20. 20.

    For discussion of this principle, see: Arrhenius 2005, p. 214; Abizadeh 2008; Miller 2009, p. 218.

  21. 21.

    Terry Macdonald also argues that actors are entitled to participate in decisions that have an impact on their autonomous capacities (Macdonald 2008, p. 40).

  22. 22.

    Robert Goodin suggests that people should provide compensation for any harm that they inflict upon those who are not part of a decision-making body (Goodin 2007, p. 68). Goodin’s argument concerns harms rather than coercion, but the same principle applies here.

  23. 23.

    Miller 2010b; see also, Abizadeh 2008.

  24. 24.

    See the contributions of Working Group II to the IPCC Assessment Reports.

  25. 25.

    Caney 2009; OHCHR 2009; Bodansky 2012.

  26. 26.

    For definitions of selected mitigation policy instruments, see: Gupta et al. 2007, p. 70.

  27. 27.

    Brandi 2010; Helm 2012, p. 12.

  28. 28.

    For discussions concerning the impacts of adaptation measures see: Thomas and Twyman 2005; Huq and Khan 2006.

  29. 29.

    Although, some authors have considered whether individuals on a global scale should have a direct vote in multilateral decisions.

  30. 30.

    See: Dryzek and Niemeyer 2006; Dryzek and Stevenson 2011, p. 1868, 2012a, b.

  31. 31.

    Dryzek and Stevenson 2011, p. 1868.

  32. 32.

    Karen Bäckstrand argues that NSAs have extremely important roles for multilateral institutions even if they lack formal power in these contexts (Bäckstrand 2006, p. 484.

  33. 33.

    For a discussion of the participation and accreditiation of NGOs in multilateral agreements, see: Oberthür et al. 2002, p. 130.

  34. 34.

    For more on this point, see: Scholte 2002; Moore 2006, p. 34.

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    Luke Tomlinson

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Tomlinson, L. (2015). Getting a Seat at the Table: Fair Participation in the UNFCCC. In: Procedural Justice in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17184-5_4

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