Climate change is increasingly becoming a pressing global problem. In response to the growing concerns, established international organizations and new coalitions have attempted to create a number of agreements. These solutions aim to put limits on emissions, pollution, resources’ use, and other areas affecting the environment.1 However, the effectiveness of such international treaties remains questionable, and recent incidents increased the urgency of reviewing the current processes. In 2015, 196 countries signed the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming by restricting the levels of greenhouse gas emissions.2 Although the treaty appears to be legally binding, its constraints led to the United States leaving the agreement under former President Trump.3 This event exposes a great weakness of the existing system. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the limitations of current and past international environmental treaties and show that the recent agreements cannot effectively solve the global issue of climate change without centering the voices of the most affected groups in the treaties’ formation.
The paper will concentrate on the history of international environmental treaties. It will review examples of agreements such as the Paris Agreement, Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, and others.4 Then, it will delve into incidents that reveal their ineffectiveness or limited reach. The aforementioned example of the US leaving the Paris Agreement is a case that shows how individual views may destabilize global change. In the case of the Basel Convention, on the other hand, one may concentrate on the voices of countries majorly affected by ineffective restrictions and their attempts to adopt new treaties.5 As a result, one expects to discuss the current issues surrounding the creation of international environmental law and the ways in which it may be improved.
References
Henderson, Conway W. Understanding International Law. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
Jotzo, Frank, Joanna Depledge, and Harald Winkler. “US and International Climate Policy under President Trump.” Climate Policy 18, no. 7 (2018): 813-817.
Payne, Richard J. Global Issues: Politics, Economics, and Culture. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2017.
Footnotes
- Richard J. Payne, Global Issues: Politics, Economics, and Culture, 5th ed. (Boston: Pearson, 2017), 129.
- Frank Jotzo, Joanna Depledge, and Harald Winkler, “US and International Climate Policy under President Trump.” Climate Policy 18, no. 7 (2018): 813.
- Jotzo et al., 813.
- Conway W. Henderson, Understanding International Law (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 337.
- Henderson, 338.