CISDL Climate Change Programme
Responds to SDG 13 Climate Action, SDG 7 Affordable & Clean Energy, SDG 2 Zero Hunger
Maitre Ayman Cherkaoui, Lead Counsel
Dr. Antoinette Nestor B.C.L., LL.M., Ph.D. (Chile/Ireland) & Ms. Mrinalini Shinde B.A., LL.B., LL.M., M.Sc. (India), CLGI Programme Coordinators
Climate change is already reaching the threshold for significant impacts upon sustainable development. Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate that climate change will cost governments more than $100 billion a year in loss and damage – an estimate that includes the cost of rising sea levels, higher temperatures, crop losses, and freshwater shortages, but does not account for more devastating scenarios such as typhoons and floods. At least 12 trillion USD are needed over the next 25 years solely to hold the increase in the global average temperature to 2 degree above pre-industrial levels (Bloomberg New Energy Finance). Meeting a well below 2 degrees warming target, an objective of the Paris Agreement, increases substantially the financing needs and investment opportunities. Furthermore, adaptation financing needs for developing countries, are expected to reach up to 300 billion USD per year by 2030.
A global regime, based on the obligations of 197 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 2015 Paris Agreement, focuses on achieving climate mitigation, adaptation, capacity building, technology and financing across many sectors of law and policy for sustainable development. To ambitiously implement the new Paris Agreement, its ‘Paris Rulebook’ finalized in Glasgow COP26, and related pledges, through Nationally Determined Contributions and other mechanisms, there is a significant gap in capacity. Many countries are currently in the process of reforming their laws and institutions to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Of the 186 nationally determined contributions in the first-round of submissions, 169 Parties explicitly prioritised the need for legal or institutional reform to achieve their global contribution to climate change, with 99 Parties calling for increasing capacity-building for action. There is a pressing need for legal expertise, capacity building and advice in this emerging field of research and education. Further, Non-State Actors such as municipalities, local governments, academia, civil society and businesses are at the forefront of the global effort to tackle the challenges of climate change and knowledge sharing and capacity building is needed to integrate these efforts for sustainable development outcomes.
In contribution to global efforts, through our Climate Change Programme in 2022-2027, CISDL aims to:
- Advance knowledge of, understanding of and education on international law on climate change in the context of sustainable development, building international, national and sub-national legal research and advisory capacity, and disseminating key findings through the UNFCCC and other forums.
- Help drive the law and governance research and capacity building agendas to encourage and help facilitate innovations in legal and institutional responses to climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges, integration and complementarity between sectors and sources of governance, and full respect for transparency and safeguards in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
- Lead new legal research on international law for climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience, international mechanisms for loss and damage, integrated climate finance, and respect for human rights in climate change responses
- Lead new legal research on how innovative international environmental, human rights and economic instruments and processes can be strengthened and implemented to contribute to addressing climate change in the context of sustainable development.
- Contribute to activities under and alongside the UNFCCC negotiation process, engage with other initiatives and organisations to further climate action, and build effective partnership of the CISDL Climate Change Programme with other organisations, law firms, and UN institutions including the UNFCCC, and other fora.
Lead Counsel: Maitre Ayman Cherkaoui, B. Eng, LL. B., Msc. (Morocco/Canada)
CLGI Programme Managers: Dr. Antoinette Nestor, B.C.L., LL.M., Ph.D. (Chile/Ireland); Ms. Mrinalini Shinde B.A., LL.B., LL.M., M.Sc. (India)
Senior Research Fellowship: Prof. Christina Voigt LL.M., Ph.D. (Norway/Germany); Prof. Cosmin Correndea LLM., S.J.D. (Romania) Prof. Damilola Olawuyi LL.M., D.Phil. (Nigeria); Adv. James Cameron LL.B., LL.M. (UK).
Legal Research Fellowship: Adv. Hafijul Khan LL.M. (Bangladesh); Dr. Christopher Campbell-Duruflé Ph.D., LL.M. (Canada); Prof. Benoit Mayer Ph.D. (France); Ms. Maeve McDermott B.S., J.D., M.Phil. (USA); Ms. Valeria Zambianchi (Switzerland); Ms. Katherine Lofts, B.A. Hons, MA, B.C.L. / LL.B. (McGill); Adv. Emily Morison M.Phil., LL.B., B.A. (Australia); Mr. Miguel Saldivia LL.B., M.A., LL.M. (Chile); Tim Arvan M.A., M.Phil. (USA); Adv Magdalena Stryja LL.M., Ph.D. (Poland); Prof. Megan Bowman, LL.M., PhD (ANU) (UK); Wendy Miles KC, B.A., LL.B., LL.M. (UK).
CISDL Legal Specialist Award
CISDL Legal Specialist Award 2022: Prof. Francesco Sindico, University of Strathclyde, Scotland
CISDL Legal Specialist Award 2021: Adv. James Cameron, Pollination
CISDL Legal Specialist Award 2020: Prof. Dr. juris Christina Voigt, University of Oslo, Norway
CISDL Legal Specialist Award 2019: Adv. Magdalena Stryja, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
CISDL Legal Specialist Award 2018: Adv. Hafijul Khan, Centre for Climate Justice, Bangladesh
Key Publications
- Christina Voigt, ‘Loss, Damage and State Responsibility’ in M. Doelle & S. Seck (eds.) Research Handbook on Loss and Damages (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021): This Research Handbook reviews of how legal systems – whether domestic, international or transnational – can and should adjust to fairly and effectively support loss and damage (L&D) claims in climate change law. International contributors guide readers through a detailed assessment of the history and current state of L&D provisions under the UN climate regime and consider the opportunities to fund L&D claims both within and outside the UN climate system.
- Christina Voigt, ‘Chapter 59 – International Responsibility and Liability’ in L. Rajamani & J. Peel (eds.), Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford University Press 2021): This reference work discusses the dynamic field of international law concerned with environmental protection, thereby providing key principles underpinning international environmental law, its relevant actors and tools, and rules applying in its substantive sub-fields such as climate law, oceans law, wildlife and biodiversity law, and hazardous substances regulation..
- Christina Voigt, ‘Climate Change as a Challenge for Global Governance: Courts and Human Rights’ in W. Kahl and M. Weller (eds.), Climate Change Litigation – Liability and Damages from a Comparative Perspective (Verlag C.H. Beck/Nomos/Hart 2021): The handbook provides provides an overview of the latest news in cases and progress in the field of climate change litigation.
- Christina Voigt, ‘Climate Change at the Courts: The Role of the Judiciary in Cases related to Climate Change’ in S. Mount QC and M. Harris (eds.) The Promise of Law: Essays marking the retirement of Dame Sian Elias as Chief Justice of New Zealand (LexisNexis 2020): This book merges the nine significant topics of Law and Power on the Frontier, Common Law Constitutionalism, Indigenous Rights and Reconciliation, Environmental Justice and Climate Change, Private Law, Supervisory Jurisdiction and Administrative Justice, Criminal Law, Human Rights and Judging through the lens climate change jurisdiction and provides deep insights for every climate law lawyer, practitioner and specialist.
- The International Law on Climate Change by Benoit Mayer (Cambridge University Press, 2018): As more international treaties come into force, This textbook provides a survey of the international law on climate change, explaining how significant international agreements have sought to promote compliance with general norms of international law in order to provide universities with material to conduct courses specifically on climate change laws and policies..
- Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law by Benoit Mayer and François Crépeau (eds) (Edward Elgar 2017): This Research Handbook provides an overview of the debates on how the law does, and could, relate to migration exacerbated by climate change from a conceptual and a doctrinal and prospective point of discussion regarding legal developments in different domestic contexts and in international governance.
- Ayman Cherkaoui et al., ‘Climate Ambition and Sustainable Development for a New Decade: A Catalytic Framework’ (2021) Global Policy, Volume 12, Issue 3, 245–259.
- Sébastien Jodoin, Annalisa Savaresi, Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, ‘Rights-based approaches to climate decision-making’ (2021), Current opinion in environmental sustainability, 2021, Vol. 52, 45–53.
- Christina Voigt and John Knox, Introduction to the Symposium on Jacqueline Peel & Jolene Lin, ‘Transnational Climate Litigation: The Contribution of the Global South’ (2020) AJIL Unbound, 114, 35–39.
- Christina Voigt and Gao Xiang, ‘Accountability in the Paris Agreement: The Interplay between Transparency and Compliance’ (2020), Nordic Journal of Environmental Law, Volume 1, 31–57.