- Title
- The Asia-Pacific Partnership: a deepened market liberal model for the international climate regime?
- Creator
- McGee, Jeffrey; Taplin, Ros
- Relation
- Environmental Discourses in Public and International Law p. 308-330
- Relation
- http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/law/public-international-law/environmental-discourses-public-and-international-law
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- In December 2007 the nations of the world commenced a two-year period of negotiations under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to arrive at a new global climate agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC (Kyoto Protocol). However, the international dialogue on climate change over the last decade has extended well beyond the negotiation process under the UN climate regime. After withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, the United States (US) George W. Bush administration was active in forming and participating in a range of international climate-related agreements outside the UN climate change process. The US has joined bilateral climate change partnerships, multilateral technology partnerships, the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (Asia-Pacific Partnership), the GS Climate process, the APEC Sydney Declaration 2007 and also facilitated the US Major Economies Process. The Australian government of Prime Minister John Howard adopted a similar approach of favouring a proliferation of avenues for international dialogue on climate change. At the very least, these non-UN climate initiatives represent a significant fragmentation of the international dialogue on any post-2012 global climate agreement. At the domestic level this agnosticism to climate change commitments was reflected in a stagnation or outright opposition to the development or strengthening of public laws to address climate change. The US and Australia, at the time both opposed to the Kyoto Protocol, were key actors in engineering this fragmentation of the international dialogue on climate change. It is therefore important to critically examine the claims that these non-UN climate initiatives established by the Bush administration and Howard government were designed to act in consort with the UN climate treaties. Notwithstanding the change of government in the US and Australia, these claims persist, emphasising the continuing relevance of an inquiry as to whether these fora external to the UN climate regime are supportive or undermining of it. This question is brought into particularly sharp relief following the problems of international climate negotiations under the UN umbrella at Copenhagen in December 2009. This chapter focuses on the Asia-Pacific Partnership as one controversial example of fragmentation. Given that the Asia-Pacific Partnership emerged in the wake of US and Australian contestation of the Kyoto Protocol, it is important to focus on the political as well as legal doctrinal significance of the partnership. This chapter uses interpretative international relations theory to further understanding of the political significance of the Asia-Pacific Partnership. Interpretative theory analyses the ideas and inter-subjective meanings that underlie interaction between actors in international affairs, including in the formation of international agreements and institutions. Dryzek's discourse analysis, a form of interpretative theory, is used to explore the ideas, assumptions and inter-subjective meanings that lie behind the Asia-Pacific Partnership. The partnership is thereby situated within the wider political landscape of ideas regarding the architecture for post-Kyoto international climate change policy that will be influential on public law developments. Dryzek' s interpretative international relations theory is used to complement the more traditional analysis of legal policy principles. In this chapter we first outline Dryzek' s discourse theory and the theoretical concepts of 'market liberalism' and 'market failure' deployed in our analysis later in this chapter. Second, we provide a descriptive overview of the formation, structure and activities of the Asia-Pacific Partnership. Third, we provide an analysis and comparison of the key design principles of both the Asia-Pacific Partnership and UN climate treaties. Finally, we use Dryzek' s discourse theory to analyse and compare the normative structures of the Asia-Pacific Partnership and UN climate treaties and consider whether the Asia-Pacific Partnership represents a deepened market liberal discourse for the international climate regime.
- Subject
- Asia-Pacific Partnership; climate change; Kyoto Protocol
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1055158
- Identifier
- uon:15847
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781107019423
- Language
- eng
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