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Responsibility for climate change under the ILC Articles on the State Responsibility of States for International Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA)

Authors

  • Adrian Leonhard Klein

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/GroJIL.11.1.23-38

Keywords:

Public International Law, State Responsibility, International Wrongful Acts, ARSIWA, Climate Change

Abstract

The Articles on the Responsibility of States for International Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) create a framework for the attribution of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. There is ongoing legal and academic discussion of whether the ARSIWA can be applied to environmental issues. The Climate Crisis is one of the most pressing contemporary issues. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the ARSIWA can be applied to the issue of climate change. The results of the research are that responsibility for the causes and impacts of climate change can be attributed to individual states under the ARSIWA, resulting in state responsibility for climate change. But that the ARSIWA are not likely to be applied to this area of law until implementation is complete. Overall, this paper identifies significant opportunity for the application of the ARSIWA principles to the issue of climate change.

Author Biography

Adrian Leonhard Klein

Student at Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg (UHH) specializing In Public International Law and European Law with a personal focus on Environmental and Climate law. This Article is based on the authors work in a collaborative paper for the International Law+ Summer School with the Macquarie University of Sydney at UHH under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Markus Kotzur LL.M. (Duke) and organized by the International Office (Eva Leptien, Lea Zymelka and more).

Published

2024-09-23