A
group of preeminent international jurists have put together a
series of legal principles, called the
Oslo Principles on Global Obligations to Reduce Climate Change.
These principles demonstrate that the governments of the world are
breaching their legal duties to their citizens, by doing so little
about climate change.
The purpose in drafting the Principles was to generate momentum
for the next U.N. Climate Summit (to be
held in Paris in December) to forge an agreement with real teeth in
an effort to keep the earth's global temperature from rising
more than
2 degrees Celsius, which is projected to be the point of no
return for catastrophic climate change.
The group, called The Expert Group on Global Climate
Obligations, surveyed various principles of international human
rights law, environmental law, and tort law to articulate specific
obligations facing each of the world's nations, including those
considered to be lesser developed. The over-arching
