International Cooperation and Responsibility Sharing to Combat Climate Change: Lessons for International Refugee Law

By examining high level statements by states at the past four sessions of the Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2013–16) and the UN General Assembly over the past decade, this article seeks to provide insights into the meaning of responsibility sharing, international cooperation, and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in international environmental law from the perspective of individual states. Its purpose is to elucidate more fully how these precepts might inform deliberations on responsibility sharing for international refugee protection. This article complements a recent piece by the same authors examining the concepts of ‘international cooperation’ and ‘responsibility sharing’ in international refugee law. Since these principles are at a more advanced stage in international environmental law (most notably through their inclusion in binding international agreements on climate change), the present article compares and contrasts how states understand and apply them in that context. While there are some fundamental differences between responsibility sharing in the two regimes, it is clear that no state alone can respond to the protection needs of the world’s refugees nor address the global impacts of climate change. The need for international cooperation and responsibility sharing in both cases is clear; indeed, it is a humanitarian imperative. Yet, the article shows that, ultimately, national interests tend to prevail when states determine how such global issues should be addressed.