Fabian Cardenas (Pontifical Xaverian University) and Andres Felipe Amaya have posted Reclaiming Common but Differentiated Responsibilities Principle: A Southern Critique of Environmental Action on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This article approaches the CBDR principle as the cornerstone of the Global South’s current status in international law. In a differentiated world where neoimperialism and neo-colonialism remain, the CBDR principle constitutes one of the most powerful argumentative means through which the South can still uphold its own needs. This paper invites the Global South to direct its international legal efforts to promote the consolidation of the CBDR principle as customary international law; bindingness still provides strength in a transitioning legal world. To that end, it is firstly proposed how international law can be appropriated and how it has been appropriated by the North, which essentially projects the idea that mainstream international law tends to be the expression of the North’s agendas despite the euphemisms of universalism. In that vein, and after presenting the rise, fall, and rise of the CBDR principle, it is advocated that the CBDR principle can be reappropriated by those to whom it belongs. It is finally concluded that an argumentative campaign for the consolidation of the CBDR principle as customary law should start in the South and be spread throughout the world.
To receive new posts from Legal Theory Blog by email, get a free subscription to Legal Theory Stack.
Lawrence Solum