Revision of Ratification of UNCLOS would expose U.S. to broad liability for environmental damage in international courts from Thu, 08/21/2014 - 20:35
By ratifying UNCLOS, the U.S. would be exposed to climate change lawsuits and other environmental actions brought against it by other members of the convention and the economic and political ramifications of such lawsuits could be dire.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Finally, the LOST may encourage the UN to venture into unexplored territory. The UN’s Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea boldly announced that the LOST “is not . . . a static instrument, but rather a dynamic and evolving body of law that must be vigorously safeguarded and its implementation aggressively advanced.”69 If international jurists exhibit the same creativity as shown by some judges domes- tically, the LOST might prove to be dangerously dynamic.
In 2001 Douglas Stevenson, representing the Seamen’s Church Institute, an advocacy group for mariners, complained about “trends that erode traditional seafarers’ rights,” such as that to medical care, as well as to protection from abandonment by insolvent and irresponsible ship owners. Stevenson explained, “When mariners’ health, safety or welfare is in jeopardy, we look to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to protect them.”70 There are obviously real and tragic abuses of seamen, but what the “international community” should do as part of the LOST about such issues is not obvious. Washington might find itself facing unexpected obligations if it signs on.
Although LOST focuses on the high seas, it includes language covering domestic pollution. The provisions are surprisingly expansive, or “stunning in their breadth and depth,” as Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation observed in a new study. A decade ago Ireland relied on LOST to sue Great Britain over the commissioning of a mixed oxide plant because of the latter’s alleged impact on the Irish Sea. The plant had been approved not only by Britain, but also the European Union (EU). Ireland dropped the suit, but only because the EU sued Ireland for not filing its case in the European Court of Justice.
Many environmentalists believe that LOST could be used against the U.S. in the same way. A few years ago an environmental activist mistakenly sent me an email after our debate on the treaty. He acknowledged that it might be difficult to convince Americans that the treaty would not similarly bind America when the World Wildlife Federation and Citizens for Global Solutions were promoting LOST by claiming that the convention would stop Russia from polluting the Arctic. He worried that this inconsistency suggested that the treaty was in fact “some kind of green Trojan Horse.”
It is. Groves noted that “Some environmental activist groups have already demonstrated a propensity for supporting, participating in, and in some cases actually filing climate change lawsuits against U.S. targets, as well as taking other legal actions relating to the marine environment in U.S. courts and international forums.”
Two decades ago environmental lawyers Durwood Zaelke and James Cameron wrote about the possibility of low-lying islands suing industrialized states over rising sea levels. Unfortunately, the prospect of international lawsuits is more than the gleam of an academic’s eye.
The Pacific island state of Palau announced last September that it would seek a ruling from the International Court of Justice barring nations from allowing emissions from their territory to cause climate change affecting other countries. Palau indicated that it would rely on LOST as well as the Kyoto Protocol. A decade ago Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu, also Pacific islands, threatened to sue under LOST, though as yet have not filed. Groves suggested that mountainous nations could similarly sue over shrinking glaciers. One could imagine other states claiming damages based on drought, desertification, or other alleged consequences of global warming.
The issue of climate change is extraordinarily complex. The best evidence is that the planet is warming, but the role of human activity and impact on the environment are far less certain and remain highly controverted. Nor is it possible to demonstrate causation between any particular emission and any particular consequence. There may be good political reasons to mitigate the distress of island countries, but such matters belong in international negotiations, not international courts.
However, as Groves warned, acceding to the treaty “would expose the U.S. to lawsuits on virtually any maritime activity, such as alleged pollution of the marine environment from a land-based source or even through the atmosphere. Regardless of the case’s merits, the U.S. would be forced to defend itself against every such lawsuit at great expense.”
Litigation could occur in several venues: the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Court of Justice, an arbitral tribunal, and a “special” arbitral tribunal. There would be no appeals and all suffer from political elements which would interfere with the delivery of genuine “justice.” Indeed, noted Groves, the U.S. “has suffered adverse judgments in high-profile international lawsuits in the past.”
LOST would reinforce the litigation danger by creating obligations directly enforceable by U.S. courts. Annex III, Article 21(2) of the treaty states that tribunal decisions “shall be enforceable in the territory of each State Party.” In a 2008 case Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens contrasted another treaty with LOST, which, he wrote, did “incorporate international judgments into international law.” As a result, U.S. judges would become international enforcers.
Those who are concerned that the marine environment is being damaged by pollution could put their case before the Tribunal, but the obligations of Part XII would have a special effect on the United States, where citizens may sue to ensure the government follows its laws. Under the U.S. Constitution, international treaties have the force of law. Ratifying LOST would therefore enable environmental groups to sue to ensure the release of toxic substances is minimized “to the fullest possible extent” if there is a chance the material will enter the marine environment.
Consider: The nation’s coal-fired power plants release mercury into the atmosphere. Some of this mercury consolidates in rivers, and eventually reaches the ocean. As a result, fish that swim in the ocean have slightly higher levels of mercury in their systems. Sharks that eat these fish have even higher mercury concentrations. The concern that pregnant mothers who eat shark meat are damaging the cognitive development of their unborn children has led environmentalists to demand that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issue regulations to reduce the risk to unborn children.
However, consider what the Treaty text implies. There is no requirement to prove that the emissions actually cause significant harm. If the substance emitted is “harmful” to any degree, states are simply required to minimize emissions “to the fullest possible extent.” To all practical purposes, taking the Treaty at its word would require the closure of most if not all coal-fired electricity generation in the United States.
This kind of activism has not taken place in any of the other signatory states, likely because they offer fewer opportunities for concerned citizens to require their governments to follow the spirit and word of the Treaty. In the United States, however, environmental groups would probably sue the day after formal ratification, and the courts would be unlikely to throw out their challenges.
Acceding to UNCLOS would commit the U.S. to controlling its pollutants, including alleged “harmful substances” such as carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases (GHG), in such a way that they do not negatively impact the marine environment. The U.S. would also be obligated to adopt laws and regulations to prevent the pollution of the marine environment from the atmosphere and could be liable under international law for failing to enact legislation necessary to prevent atmospheric pollution. Moreover, such domestic laws and regulations “shall” take into account “internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices and procedures.” The “internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices” that could be invoked by UNCLOS litigants may include instruments such as the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol.
A consensus has emerged within the international environmental and legal community that the United States is the best target for an international climate change lawsuit. One law professor has characterized the United States as a likely target because it is a developed nation with high per capita and total GHG emissions, adding that the “higher the overall historic and present contribution to global emissions by the defending party, arguably the better the chance of a successful outcome.”
The United States has a stake in working with other nations to protect the global environment. For that purpose, it has entered into a number of conventions and agreements, such as, for example, conservation agreements to preserve fish stocks in international waters. But it is one thing to agree to a common standard and another thing to be bound by the decisions of an ongoing regulatory council in which the United States can be easily outvoted. It is one thing to agree to submit particular disputes to international arbitration, with the consent of both parties. It is entirely another thing to establish an ongoing court, with mandatory jurisdiction over important matters and an open-ended claim to “advise” on the law apart from particular disputes. It is something else again to embrace a court that, being permanent, may be prey to all the temptations of judicial activism, to extending its authority by enlarging its jurisdiction and winning popularity by playing favorites in its judgments.
The United States has traditionally respected limits on what it can agree to do by treaty. In the past, it has refused to ratify treaties that delegate so much authority to international institutions. By ratifying UNCLOS, we would not only open ourselves to immediate risks and complications regarding actions on the seas, we would also make it harder to resist more ambitious schemes of global governance in the future. We have said in the past that we cannot submit to such impositions on our own sovereignty. President Reagan made this point in rejecting UNCLOS in 1982, pointing to the open-ended regulatory powers of the Authority. If we ratify UNCLOS, we make it much harder to explain—to others, as to ourselves—why we cannot embrace further ventures in “global governance,” like the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Protocol. We would feed demands for similar international control schemes for Antarctica or Outer Space.
Currently, there is no forum in which to initiate a viable international climate change lawsuit against the United States. The U.S. withdrew from the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 1985 and is not as yet a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).2
However, if the United States accedes to UNCLOS, thereby reversing a 30-year policy of remaining outside of the convention, the U.S. would be exposed to climate change lawsuits and other environmental actions brought against it by other members of the convention. The eco- nomic and political ramifications of such lawsuits would be dire.
This paper demonstrates that accession to UNCLOS would unnecessarily expose the United States to baseless and opportunistic international lawsuits, including suits based on the theory of anthropogenic climate change.
A claimant in a climate change lawsuit against the United States would face several legal and evidentiary challenges in proving its case in an UNCLOS tribunal, including jurisdictional hurdles, causation issues, and the question of equitable apportionment of damages.126 Nevertheless, regardless of whether the U.S. might ultimately prevail in such a case, acceding to the convention is fraught with political danger. Advocates of international climate change lawsuits see them as an acceptable way to achieve their environmental ends, including U.S. capitulation to a comprehensive climate change treaty:
Litigation or the threat thereof would emphasise the urgency of the need to agree [to] binding commitments on climate change and would put additional pres- sure on the negotiations process. Negotiators may feel more of a responsibility vis-à-vis the international community and have an additional lever in relation to their national governments. A high-profile court case would also engage a variety of actors in the debate and provide new momentum to find consensual solutions inside and outside the UNFCCC talks ... . Inter-State climate change litigation may help to create the political pressure and third-party guidance required to re-invigorate the international negotiations, within or outside the UNFCCC.127
One law professor believes that “litigation will very likely play a role” in determining who will bear the costs of climate change and singles out the United States for special treatment, stating that “litigation efforts need to be primarily focused on the United States as the major hindrance to beginning the remedial process” (i.e., by failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol).128 Other proponents of the theory of anthropogenic climate change understand that there are precedents for using international courts to achieve purposes other than legal redress. For instance, the World Trade Organization “has similarly been strategically employed by governments to influence negotiations and clarify State obligations.”129
If the United States received an adverse judgment in an UNCLOS climate change lawsuit, the tribunal could order remedies similar to those imposed by the Trail Smelter tribunal—a regime of regulations, compli- ance measures, and even reparations. In anthropogenic climate change parlance, such a regime would be akin to mitigation measures (i.e., actions to reduce the level of U.S. GHG emissions).
A comprehensive GHG mitigation regime imposed on the U.S. would seriously affect the American econ- omy because carbon emissions and other GHG are produced throughout the United States by several signifi- cant sectors of the economy, includ- ing the electricity generation, transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. Like the “cap-and-trade” regulations that have been debated in Congress, the imposition of international Trail Smelter– style regulations on every U.S. power plant, refinery, automobile, chemical plant, and landfill would harm the U.S. economy.118
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The United States should be held liable for violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over the destruction of the Tubbataha Reef, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said on Friday.
[ More ]Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute warns of the dangers of litigation if the United States joins the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, more commonly known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).
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