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The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) increasingly integrated climate change into its 2023 state reviews and released General Comment No. 26, which establishes the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as implicit in the Convention. The CRC's work focused on state obligations for mitigation and adaptation, the regulation of private actors' contributions to environmental harm, and the protection of children's rights across various legal and procedural frameworks.

The document synthesizes the work of UN human rights treaty bodies (HRTBs) in addressing climate change, specifically focusing on Concluding Observations issued to States. It highlights that while climate change is not explicitly in key human rights treaties, HRTBs increasingly use their monitoring roles to argue that protecting human rights requires specific climate action. The report details recommendations across several themes, including the disproportionate impacts on women, children, and indigenous peoples, the need for gender-sensitive and child-sensitive climate strategies, and the obligation of some States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel extraction to meet human rights standards. It provides detailed analysis of the three most active bodies: CEDAW, CESCR, and CRC.

The report outlines how the CEDAW Committee interprets States' obligations to ensure gender-responsive climate action, emphasizing the particular vulnerabilities of rural and older women and the necessity of women's participation in decision-making.

The report examines the draft investment chapter of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), finding that it largely replicates NAFTA's Chapter 11. It warns that the proposed investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, broad definitions of expropriation, and restrictions on capital controls and performance requirements would empower corporations to challenge domestic laws and hinder sovereign economic and social development across the hemisphere.

The report examines the draft investment chapter of the FTAA, highlighting its reliance on the NAFTA model. It identifies several critical areas where the draft threatens democratic governance and environmental protection, specifically through investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms, broad definitions of expropriation, and restrictions on capital controls and performance requirements.

The briefing counters arguments from 'big polluters' regarding the ICJ's climate advisory proceedings, asserting that the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement do not displace customary international law, human rights obligations, or the duty to prevent transboundary harm. It argues that states have a legal obligation to phase out fossil fuels to meet these duties and that historical emissions since the 1960s are legally relevant due to scientific foreseeability. The document concludes that states must be held responsible for climate-related injuries through cessation of wrongful conduct and reparations, which could include debt cancellation and ecosystem restoration.

The report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) contends that the Korea-U.S. FTA violates the Trade Act of 2002 by providing foreign investors with greater substantive rights than U.S. investors. It specifically criticizes new expropriation tests, the classification of all contract rights as property rights, and the use of secretive investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. CIEL warns that these provisions allow ad hoc arbitral tribunals to override good faith public interest regulations, particularly in emerging technology sectors like biotechnology and nanotechnology, while lacking a general environmental exception.

The document advocates for a land-use framework in the post-2020 climate agreement based on four principles: rights, ambition, equity, and biodiversity. It warns that treating terrestrial carbon sequestration as fungible with fossil fuel emissions undermines climate ambition and risks human rights violations. The authors recommend separate targets for industrial and land-based emissions, the protection of tenure rights for indigenous peoples and local communities, and a per capita allocation of agricultural emissions to ensure global food security.

The document argues that exporting pesticides banned in their country of origin to Africa and Central America violates the Bamako Convention, the Central American Agreement, and the Basel Convention, as these substances are defined as hazardous waste by the importing nations. It asserts that European states and other Basel Convention parties (such as Canada, China, and Russia) are failing their international legal and human rights obligations by allowing this trade, which harms health and ecosystems in low- and middle-income countries.

The document examines the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), arguing that WTO negotiations should preserve MEAs as co-equal bodies of law. It suggests that the WTO's focus on 'least trade restrictive' measures may conflict with the core purpose of many MEAs, which is to regulate or restrict trade in hazardous materials or endangered species. To improve compatibility, the text proposes several practical steps, including sustainability assessments of trade rules, the transfer of environmentally sound technologies via the TRIPS Agreement, and increased coordination between national trade and environment officials. Ultimately, it calls for a multilateral process involving government and non-governmental organizations to ensure coherent international economic and environmental law.

The paper analyzes the convergence of human rights and environmental law, arguing that a healthy environment is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. It explores legal tools within the Inter-American System—such as precautionary measures, admissibility exceptions, and state responsibility for third-party actions—to address environmental degradation. Through a comparative analysis of jurisprudence from the Inter-American, African, and European systems, the author demonstrates how rights to life, integrity, property, and information are increasingly interpreted to include environmental dimensions, emphasizing the state's duty of due diligence to prevent harm from industrial activities.

The document analyzes the legal necessity of incorporating the Basel Convention's Plastic Amendment into the OECD Council Decision on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Wastes Destined for Recovery Operations. It asserts that any OECD agreement that limits the scope of plastic waste controls beyond what the Basel Convention requires would violate Article 11.2 of the Convention, which mandates 'environmentally sound management' (ESM). The paper rejects three current negotiation options, arguing they either allow for illegal derogations or replace negotiated safeguards with vague 'specifications'. It concludes that if the United States does not withdraw its objection to the amendment, a non-consensus decision is the only legal alternative, which would exclude all plastic waste trade from the OECD Decision's scope and restrict US trade of problematic plastics with Basel Parties.

The document argues that because the OECD failed to reach consensus on the Basel Plastic Amendments, plastic wastes classified as "other wastes" (Annex II) have fallen outside the scope of the OECD Wastes Trade Decision. Consequently, OECD members that are parties to the Basel Convention must apply Basel's prior informed consent (PIC) and ban mechanisms to these wastes. The analysis further concludes that recent arrangements between the US and Canada, and the EU's Waste Shipment Regulation, are invalid as Article 11 agreements because they do not provide an equivalent level of environmental protection and control to the Basel Convention.

The document examines the three pillars of the Public Participation Convention—access to information, access to decision-making, and access to justice—and argues that export credit agencies, as government agencies, should be subject to these transparency and accountability requirements. It notes that while the Convention is not yet in force, signatories are obligated not to act contrary to its purpose. The paper also discusses the Convention's limited direct application to multilateral development banks and its weak compliance review mechanisms.

The author analyzes the growing consensus among developing nations and some developed entities regarding the need for a 'disclosure of origin' requirement in the patent system to prevent the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. This effort is framed within the context of Paragraph 19 of the Doha Declaration, which tasks the TRIPS Council with examining the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the CBD. While countries like Brazil, India, and others advocate for mandatory disclosure and proof of prior informed consent and benefit-sharing, opposition remains from the United States and Japan, though the European Union and Switzerland have shown varying degrees of openness to such systems.

The report examines the difficulties in listing hazardous substances under Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention due to the requirement for consensus, which has blocked chemicals like chrysotile asbestos, Paraquat, and Fenthion despite scientific evidence. It evaluates three primary options: amending the Article 22.5 listing procedure, creating a new annex for non-consensus chemicals, or increasing information exchange. The analysis highlights that creating a new annex is procedurally easier than amending the voting procedure, as it enters into force one year after adoption without requiring ratification by three-fourths of the Parties. Amending the listing procedure could lead to a complex 'two-tier' system of parallel conventions until all parties ratify the change. While aligning Annex III with other annexes would remove the consensus requirement, the report warns this might eliminate the critical role of the Chemical Review Committee (CRC).

The briefing contends that addressing international drivers of deforestation is essential for the success of REDD+ and is legally permissible under both UNFCCC and WTO frameworks. It asserts that UNFCCC Article 3.5 does not prohibit trade-impacting measures as long as they are not arbitrary or disguised restrictions. Furthermore, it highlights that the WTO allows trade-related measures to protect the environment, specifically citing GATT Article XX exceptions for protecting life, health, and exhaustible natural resources. The authors point to at least fifteen existing Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) that incorporate trade measures as precedent, arguing that collective action within the UNFCCC would demonstrate the 'good faith negotiations' often required by WTO arbitration panels. The document concludes that ignoring international drivers due to perceived WTO conflicts risks 'leakage' and undermines the goal of halting forest loss.

The document examines the allocation of responsibility for non-compliance within the Kyoto Protocol's four cooperative implementation (CI) mechanisms: joint fulfillment, joint implementation, the Clean Development Mechanism, and international emissions trading. It proposes a 'traffic light' (green/yellow/red) hybrid model to balance risks between buyers and sellers, arguing that this approach promotes market stability and transparency while incentivizing seller compliance. The authors analyze the specific application of this model to each CI mechanism and suggest institutional improvements to the Article 8 review process to support real-time implementation monitoring.

This research paper, published in November 1999 by WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature and authored by experts from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), examines the conflict between World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and trade measures used in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). The authors argue that uncertainty regarding WTO consistency is used by some nations to 'chill' the development of effective environmental laws, specifically citing the Biosafety Protocol and the POPs Agreement. The paper recommends that WTO members adopt a political statement of consistency and negotiate a separate agreement to grant MEAs equal status with WTO rules.

The research paper argues that the effectiveness of international fisheries management depends on the support and input of non-governmental stakeholders. It analyzes the 'three pillars' of public participation—access to information, access to decision-making, and access to justice—as established by the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and the Aarhus Convention. The author compares the participatory practices of Rio-era conventions (Climate Change, Biological Diversity, and Desertification) with those of various RFMOs, such as the WCPOFC, NAFO, and ICCAT. The document concludes that broad NGO participation enhances decision-making quality and legitimacy, and recommends that RFMOs adopt open-access policies for meetings and documents to ensure sustainable resource management.