Guilloux, Bleuenn (2016) Which International Law for Ocean and Climate?. Ocean and Climate Scientific Notes, 2 (2). pp. 79-88.

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shape the legal backbone of sea and climate law on the
international level. Framework conventions mark the beginning of specific legal systems that are destined to evolve. The UNCLOS takes into account only in an incidental manner certain aspects affecting climate in relation to the ocean. Climate change creates new challenges for the Law of the Sea, which then must adapt to tackle its impacts and showcase the ocean’s “regulating“ role. Regulation of GHG emissions in maritime transport, ice-melt in the Arctic, or even sea-level rise has become the object of international discussions and calls for further legal development. To affirm that
the ocean has been completely left out of international climate negotiations would be at very least imprecise. The ocean was inderectly mentioned at several occasions during debats and in international texts. These references are incomplete and the relative legal provisions suffer from a limited legal scope. The effects of scientific and political mobilization concerning the links between ocean and climate set conditions for a consolidation of the integration of the ocean in climate law. The inclusion of the term “ocean“ in the Paris Treaty, the IPCC special report on “Climate change and the oceans and the cryosphere”,
or the existence of an ocean session at COP22 – where the implementation of the treaty will be discussed – all foretell a strengthening of the ocean in the climate regime.

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