Premium
The Compliance and Implementation Mechanism of the Paris Agreement
Author(s) -
Voigt Christina
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
review of european, comparative and international environmental law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 2050-0394
pISSN - 2050-0386
DOI - 10.1111/reel.12155
Subject(s) - compliance (psychology) , negotiation , function (biology) , agreement , framework agreement , competence (human resources) , work (physics) , mechanism (biology) , convention , modalities , political science , sort , law , law and economics , public relations , computer science , sociology , engineering , operations management , psychology , social psychology , epistemology , mechanical engineering , social science , philosophy , evolutionary biology , information retrieval , biology , linguistics
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change decided to include an in‐house compliance arrangement in the Paris Agreement. Article 15 of the Agreement establishes a mechanism to facilitate implementation of, and promote compliance with, the provisions of the Agreement. The mechanism consists of a committee whose exact competence and function have yet to be decided. However, the establishment of the mechanism clearly shows convergence among parties on the necessity and desirability of promoting compliance. This article tracks the negotiation history of the compliance arrangement and analyses the relevant provisions in the Paris Agreement. While the mechanism is in place, significant negotiation time will still be needed to sort out the details for the effective operation of the compliance arrangement. For that reason, the Paris Agreement has set up a work programme for the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement to develop modalities and procedures to be adopted by the first meeting of the Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. The article also discusses the work programme and suggests possible design choices.