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Abstract
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) encompasses more than 40 low-lying and island developing states that are among the most vulnerable but also most vocal parties in international climate negotiations. Over the years AOSIS's strategies comprised of the building of scientific expertise, and leadership by example, but also a particular framing that puts emphasis on multilateral processes to deal with issues of common concern and established principles of the international community. The initial assumption of the paper is that a frame alignment of climate change and human rights concerns would strengthen the coalition's moral and legal arguments. However, as a frame analysis of close to 50 coalition submissions and statements reveals, such a linkage is not established. The paper concludes by outlining three possible explanatory factors for this observation: the nature of the issue area, the character of the coalition and the professional background of AOSIS negotiators.
Notes
1 As of 26 February 2014 AOSIS had 39 members and five observers: < http://aosis.org/members/>.
2 ‘Smallness’ is a context-sensitive concept (Panke Citation2012). In this article I assume that small states are those which have only ‘minimal external weight’ (Narlikar and Tussie Citation2004) due to severely limited substantive military or economic capacities and geopolitical significance.
3 For example, Grenada, AOSIS chair between 2009 and 2011, has eight representations abroad (as of 26 February 2014): < http://www.gov.gd/embassies_consulates.html>. The current chair, Nauru, has merely a handful of representations: < http://www.un.int/nauru/foreignaffairs.html>.
4 Frame alignment is different from issue linkage, which broadens the zone of possible agreement through negotiating different issues simultaneously (Haas Citation1980; Sebenius Citation1983; Davis Citation2004; Poast Citation2012). The former does not require the concurrent resolution of two separate negotiation items in package deals. Still, we can learn from the study of the latter that negotiations are hampered when impartible issues like recognition or moral values are introduced. Therefore, negotiators often focus on negotiable sub-items that can be resolved through trade, compromise and technical solutions (Hirschmann Citation1994; Aubert Citation1972; Zürn et al Citation1990; Mitchell Citation2006).
5 For a similar argument on compliance see Zürn (Citation2005). The distinction between applicatory and justificatory discourses was elaborated seminally by Habermas (Citation1992, 166—237).
6 Interview with AOSIS delegate, December 2009, Copenhagen.
7 For example, in 2004 Central America and Caribbean countries contributed only 1.82 per cent of global emissions. Altogether AOSIS members are responsible for less than one per cent of global emissions (Betzold Citation2010). Europe and North America, on the other hand, accounted for 21.67 per cent and 21.41 per cent in 2004, respectively (Anderson et al Citation2008, 14). The tremendous exposure to environmental changes and sea level rise is evident for example in the fact that the entire population of both the Maldives and Tuvalu live within only 5 meters above sea level (UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States [UN-OHRLLS] Citation2013, 10) and that, in the Pacific, more than 50 per cent of the population lives within 1.5 km of the shore (Pacific Small Island Developing States [PSIDS] Citation2009).
8 Twenty-seven (20) of AOSIS's members are among those 50 (21) countries with the lowest gross domestic product (GDP): < http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?order = wbapi_data_value_2012+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort = asc>.
9 Interview with member of the Committee on International Law and Sea Level Rise, June 2013, Oslo.
10 ‘Freedom in the World’, Freedom House Index, < www.freedomhouse.com>.
11 < http://aosis.org/about-aosis/>.
12 More recently, AOSIS has accepted a 1.5–2°C threshold for global warming; see submission of the coalition on Implementation of All the Elements of Decision 1/CP.17 and Matters Related to Paragraphs 7 and 8 (ADP), 12 March 2013.
13 Submission on Implementation of All the Elements of Decision 1/CP.17 and Matters Related to Paragraphs 7 and 8 (ADP), 12 March 2013.
14 Similar linkages have previously been constructed between climate change and development or security (Huq et al Citation2006; Grist Citation2008).
15 Core provisions of the ICESCR include rights to self-determination, physical integrity, an adequate standard of living, food, shelter, health, and participation in cultural life. Core provisions of the ICCPR include the right to life, personal freedom and security, property, and freedom of movement.
16 Both approaches follow a transformative approach to accountability and justice in global politics. They share the assumption that the grammar of national sovereignty is no longer synchronic with the structural causes of inequality, which often transcend the territoriality of national entities (Nussbaum Citation2008, 96–98).
17 The no-harm rule is a norm of customary international law. It declares that states have a duty to prevent, reduce and control the risk of environmental harm to other states. As regards its appropriateness for specific situations, an increase in risk is sufficient for the norm to apply. It was developed and applied in 1941 in an air pollution case between the United States and Canada, and subsequently enshrined in Principle 21 of the Stockholm Declaration. It has been endorsed by the UN General Assembly as a core norm of international environmental responsibility and has been incorporated into the Preamble of the UNFCCC and other multilateral environmental agreements (Verheyen 2005, 147–8).
18 I am aware of the limits that a focus on explicit language in submissions and statements entails for the study of international negotiations. For example, it is difficult to capture implicit knowledge reservoirs or tacit symbolic effects that international negotiators may be able to draw on in personal communication and when issuing or receiving submissions and statements. However, as those text documents are also targeted at a wider public, they are highly relevant for the overall demarcation of problem definition and recommendation of solutions within the issue area. The statements and submissions have been accessed through < http://aosis.org/climate-change-documents/>, < www.unfccc.int> and < www.grenadabroadcast.net>.
19 Percentage numbers are rounded.
20 Submission to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), 10 May 2012.
21 Statement at the AWG-KP Closing Plenary, 24 May 2012.
22 Statement at the ADP Closing Plenary, 5 September 2012.
23 Submission to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) (‘Proposed Durban Decision’), 2 December 2011.
24 Statement at the AWG-LCA Opening Plenary, 5 April 2011.
25 Statement at the COP/Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) Closing Plenary, 8 December 2012.
26 Statement at the CMP Opening Plenary, 26 November 2012; Submission on Loss and Damage, February 2011.
27 Submission on Loss and Damage, February 2011.
28 For an analysis of the increasing density and frequency of international environmental negotiations since 1992 see Depledge and Chasek (Citation2012).
29 Submission on Standards and Approaches, 2011.
30 Statement at the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) Closing Plenary, 25 May 2012.
31 Submission to the SBI on Loss and Damage, 28 September 2012.
32 Submission to the SBI on Loss and Damage, 28 September 2012.
33 Submission to the AWG-LCA, 21 March 2012.
34 Submission to the AWG-LCA on Standards and Approaches, 2012.
35 Statement to the AWG-LCA Closing Plenary, 24 May 2012.
36 Submission on Clean Carbon Storage, February 2011.
37 Submission to the ADP, 1 May 2012.
38 Submission to the AWG-LCA, 21 March 2012.
39 Statement at the AWG-LCA Opening Plenary, 5 April 2011.
40 Statement at the SBI Closing Plenary, 25 May 2012.
41 Statement at the SBI Opening Plenary, 14 May 2012.
42 Statement at the AWG-KP Opening Plenary, 5 May 2011; Statement at the AWG-LCA Opening Plenary, 5 May 2011.
43 Statement at the AWG-KP Opening Plenary, 5 April 2011.
44 Statement at the AWG-LCA Closing Plenary, 24 May 2012; Statement at the Opening Plenary of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), 14 May 2012; Statement at the AWG-LCA Opening Plenary, 30 August 2012.
45 Submission to the AWG-KP, 10 May 2012; Statement at the AWG-KP Opening Plenary, 30 August 2012.
46 Statement at the ADP Opening Plenary, 30 August 2012.
47 Statement at the AWG-KP Opening Plenary, 15 May 2012.
48 Submission to the AWG-KP, 10 May 2012, and AOSIS submission to the ADP, 14 November 2012.
49 AOSIS Leaders' Declaration, September 2012.
50 Statement at the CMP Opening Plenary, 26 November 2012.
51 < http://aosis.org/about-aosis/>.
52 For example: Expert Seminar on Human Rights and the Environment in 2008, including the participation of AOSIS member Tuvalu.
53 Duties are owed if the causality chain that connects my own behaviour to another person's suffering is evident, which is most often not the case in a globalized world of functionally multi-interdependent political, economic, cultural and bio-physical subsystems. Also, in the case of climate change, it is impossible to demonstrate that emissions of country X are exclusively and causally responsible for impacts in country Y.
54 Interview with AOSIS delegate, December 2009, Copenhagen.
55 Interview with AOSIS delegate, December 2009, Copenhagen.
56 Email correspondence with AOSIS delegate, March 2013.
57 Interview with AOSIS delegate, December 2011, Durban.
58 Email correspondence with AOSIS representative, March 2013.
59 Interview with former EU member delegate, May 2012, Bonn.
60 Email correspondence with AOSIS representative, March 2013.
I thank Tor Håkon Inderberg, Carola Betzold, Derek Bell, the co-editors and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article.
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Linda Wallbott
Linda Wallbott is research fellow at the chair for International Governance, University of Muenster, and PhD candidate at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Her main research areas include theories and empirics of normative change in global governance, global environmental politics and international negotiations. Email: [email protected]