Climate Change and Peak Oil as Threats to International Peace and Security: Is It Time for the Security Council to Legislate
![handle is hein.journals/meljil9 and id is 499 raw text is: CLIMATE CHANGE AND PEAK OIL AS THREATS TO
INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY:
IS IT TIME FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL TO
LEGISLATE?
SHIRLEY V SCOTT*
[The need to take decisive, coordinated, global action on the twin threats of climate change and
peak oil is becoming increasingly urgent. There has been plenty of rhetoric and considerable
activity on climate change, but if measured in terms of global reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions or an improving climate prognosis, international legal governance measures taken to
date have failed. Although analysts tend to have dismissed Security Council action as
inappropriate to meet environmental security threats, the recent introduction of 'legislative'
decision-making on the part of the Council means that fresh consideration of a possible role for
the Security Council is warranted. This paper sees no legal impediment to the Security Council
becoming the 'peak' body on climate change and calls for fresh thinking as to just what sort of a
decision on the part of the Council could be both effective and politicallyfeasible.]
CONTENTS
I Introduction ........................................................................................................... 495
II The Nature of the Climate Change Crisis and Its Association with
Energy Policy ........................................................................................................ 496
III The Failure of International Law To Take Effective Action To Mitigate Climate
C hange ................................................................................................................... 500
IV Climate Change, Energy and the Chapter VII Mandate of the Security Council. 501
V The Security Council As the Peak Body on Climate Change ............................... 506
VI Would Security Council Legislative Action on Climate Change Be Politically
F easib le? ................................................................................................................ 50 8
VII Would Security Council Legislative Action on Climate Change Mitigation Be
E ff ective? ............................................................................................................... 5 10
V III C onclusions ........................................................................................................... 5 13
What is needed is an investment internationally of political imagination ... [T]he
window of opportunity is rapidly closing.I
I INTRODUCTION
It is, at the very least, sobering to read the Hague Declaration on the
Environment,2 a non-legally binding instrument signed by 24 countries on 11
* BMus, BA (Hons), PhD (UQ); MHEd (UNSW). Associate Professor, University of New
South Wales. This piece is based on the author's contribution to a plenary session at the 16th
Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law
(Canberra, Australia, 26-28 June 2008). The author would like to acknowledge the valuable
research assistance of Alexandra Walker and Tim Aistrope.
John Ashton, 'World's Most Wanted: Climate Change', BBC News (UK) 8 September 2006
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5323512.stm> at 23 September 2008.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/meljil9&div=24&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Climate Change and Peak Oil as Threats to International Peace and Security: Is It Time for the Security Council to Legislate
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