Introduction

This chapter explains provisions in the climate regime that facilitate compliance by Parties with their international commitments and, where necessary, correct cases of non-compliance. These provisions encompass traditional dispute settlement procedures and newer non-compliance procedures and mechanisms. Traditional dispute settlement provisions tend to be adversarial and bilateral in nature in that one state takes proceedings against another (or else suspends performance of its commitments), usually after an international obligation has been breached and damage to the environment has already occurred. For reasons explained in box 12.1, no Party to an MEA has actually used traditional dispute settlement procedures to correct non-compliance. Thus, since the earliest days of the negotiations on the Convention, the main emphasis in the climate regime, as with other MEAs, has been on the development of specialised non-compliance procedures. After several years of intense negotiations, these efforts resulted in the adoption of procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance under the Kyoto Protocol at COP-7 which many observers regard as the most advanced compliance system in international environmental law.

The essence of modern non-compliance approaches is that procedures to address compliance in a proactive, non-confrontational and preventative manner are established by the treaty body (such as the COP) which are then overseen by a specialised institution comprising state representatives from across the political spectrum.