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The world’s attention has been refocused on the implications of climate change on our dady to day life following the AR5 Working Group Report 1 of the IPCC. It provides that climate change to be a human induced phenomenon, whereby humans are to be blamed for the adverse effects of it which have, are and continue to fall upon them.
As a small Developing nation, Sri Lanka's contribution to atmospheric pollution on a global scale is negligible. However, as an Island Nation it is disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change relative to its contribution therein. Therefore, maintaining credibility and legitimacy at international negotiating tables is vital for a country like Sri Lanka if it is to be heard in terms of international environmental law policy making. Thus it is important that Sri Lanka complies with the international obligations it is subject to it by international conventions.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations General Assembly established the International Negotiating Committee (INC) for a Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1990. The INC drafted the Convention and it was adopted at the UN Headquarters of New York. It was opened for signature at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit from 4th to 14th June 1992.The Convention on Climate Change sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other sources of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the "supreme body" of the Convention, and is its highest decision-making authority. It is an association of all the countries that are Parties to the Convention. The Convention established two permanent subsidiary bodies: the (SBSTA) and the (SBI). These advise the COP and each has a specific mandate. They are both open to participation by any Party and, governments often send representatives, who are experts in the fields of the respective bodies.
All Parties are obliged to report their GHG inventories on an annual basis. However, as there has been no clear agreed understanding of what Parties’ obligations are, Parties have not reached a high level of compliance under the UNFCCC. In fact, the term compliance does not appear anywhere in the UNFCCC or in the follow up decisions of the COP. Perhaps it is more accurate to label the fulfilment of the commitments under the UNFCCC as an implementation process rather than a compliance process, where the term implementation refers to measures taken by States to make an international treaty effective under their respectivedomestic law.
Sri Lanka and the UNFCC
The Initial National Communication of Sri Lanka was prepared and submitted to the UNFCCC Secretariat in October 2000. The Second National Communication of Sri Lanka was submitted in 2011. Sri Lanka has submitted its Initial Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory for 1994, and the Second National GHG Inventory for 2000, prepared generally in accordance with the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Sri Lanka is voluntarily participating in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was adopted by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. In furtherance of this, the Sri Lanka Carbon Fund (SLCF) was established to facilitate to obtain benefits under the CDM mechanism for Sri Lanka development.
The Climate Change Secretariat (CCS) was established under the Ministry of Environment & Natural Resources in view of the urgent need for adopting a comprehensive national approach to address climate change challenges. Additionally, the Center for Climate Change Studies (CCCS) of the Department of Meteorology was set up to take the lead in conducting research , training and awareness programmes on climate change.
Common Legal Past of South Asia
and the Legal System of Bangladesh
Cynthia Farid provides an overview of Legal System of South Asia in general and Bangladesh in particular.
Bangladesh shares a common legal past as well as significant secession history with India and Pakistan. Bangladesh had gone through British colonial rule (1757-1947) and then had been under the largely authoritarian rule of West Pakistan (1947-1971). A written Constitution declared the republic as a socialist democracy based on the rule of law and included, several entrenched and a wide spectrum of fundamental rights (Articles 27-45).The Bangladesh Legal System has inherited large parts of the normative and institutional feature of the British Indian Legal System. Accordingly, the resultant legal system is based on English Common law, a feature similar to other countries within the region . Some of this common legal history is discussed below in order to provide some historical context to the discussion on
Bangladesh.
Common Legal Past:
The present legal systems of most South Asian countries are largely derived from two hundred years of British rule,
that governed all of India as a Crown colony. The Government of India Act of 1858 transferred power and responsibility for Indian affairs to the Crown; represented by a cabinet minister, (the Secretary of State for India in London) and a Governor-General or viceroy, in Calcutta. Law Commissions developed laws on succession, contracts, negotiable instruments, evidence, transfer of property, and civil and criminal procedure, largely modeled on English common law. A series of organic acts established high courts (including one in Calcutta) as well as a hierarchy of district courts, session courts, and magistrates to hear civil and criminal cases. These laws and institutions created through British rule had a determinative influence on the law and the administration of justice throughout the Indian subcontinent. The majority of the former colonies, including India decolonized after the Second World War. As colonial legal systems were an instrumental part of the imperial project, European laws were in many cases established as the natural default for the decolonized world. This hegemony of European laws could also be seen in conquered, ceded and settled territories, and across various areas of law.
I. Emission Trading (ET)
ii. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
iii. Joint Implementation (JI)
Climate Change and Sri Lanka A Legal & Policy Based Analysis
Introduction
Kyoto Protocol
The Conference of the Parties (Article 7), the Supreme Body of the UNFCCC Convention, held its third session in December 1997 and adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which compels developed countries (Annex I parties) to reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 5% of the 1990 level by the period 2008 –2012.The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol compels them to do so.
Three Kyoto mechanisms have been proposed by the protocol to achieve the Kyoto targets in reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. These mechanisms guide developed as well as developing countries to take collaborative efforts to fulfil the protocol commitments.
These market based mechanisms include:
The (CMP) is the "supreme body" of the Kyoto Protocol. It is an association of those Parties to the Convention that have also ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The CMP meets every year during the same period as the COP. Sri Lanka and the Kyoto Protocol.