Researchers' Activities

CIL Research Associate Annabelle Teo participated in various events during the International Conference on the Safe and Secure Transport of Nuclear and Radioactive Materials, which was held virtually from 13 to 17 December 2021. The conference was organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and focused on issues relating to transport safety, transport security and the interface between them, with the objective of supporting Member States in further developing and strengthening their transport safety and security regulatory infrastructures.

Relevant topics covered over the course of the week include: (i) the main transport considerations and challenges for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in realising the prospect of global deployment of SMRs; (ii) the call for enhanced regional networks addressing transport safety and security in a coordinated manner, including within the Asia and Pacific Islands region; (iii) the exchange of good practices and experience, including presentations from ASEAN Member States such as Indonesia and Myanmar on the development of transport regulations and the exercise of regulatory oversight; and (iv) the IAEA’s past work and future plans to promote effective management of the transport safety-security interface. Details of the event and speakers are available in the conference programme.  

13 December 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to Speak at the Event

“Looking Ahead to the CBD COP15: Opportunities and Challenges Posed by Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs)” Organized in Conjunction with the Asian Environmental Law Congress

The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL), in partnership with the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law (APCEL) and the Centre for International Law (CIL) at the National University of Singapore are pleased to organize this webinar on ‘Sharing lessons and progress in identifying Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures’.

Background

At the fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP CBD 14) in 2018, Parties adopted Decision 14/8 on ‘protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs), containing scientific and technical advice for OECMs. The decision defines an ‘other effective area-based conservation measure´ as:

“a geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values.“

OECMs are expected to complement protected areas across landscapes and seascapes and enable the improved recognition and support for areas that are effectively and equitably managed as well as to achieve the long-term in situ conservation of biodiversity. OECMs are also referenced in Target 3 of the latest draft of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework . It is expected that many CBD Parties will consider OECMs in addition to protected areas to achieve this target, if it is agreed by CBD COP15 in Kunming, China, in 2022. This raises the need to advance the discussion about the legal and regulatory framework for OECMs to ensure that they deliver the outcomes required by CBD parties.

Aims and Objectives

This webinar aimed to generate knowledge sharing and discussion about the legal and policy basis and aspects of OECMs, addressed how laws and policies enable the recognition of OECMs, the associated challenges, and how they addressed to enable the long-term conservation of biodiversity within OECMs. The objectives included the introduction of the CBD guidance for OECMs, a number of country case studies and the facilitation of a discussion among participants to develop an understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by OECMs, the diverse approaches that may be considered for developing the legal and policy frameworks to support their recognition and their role in delivering biodiversity outcomes in the long-term.

More about the event at: https://law.nus.edu.sg/apcel/events/oecm13dec21/

8-9 December 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to Moderate at the Informal Intersessional BBNJ High Seas Treaty Dialogues

Day 1 of the December High Seas Treaty Dialogues picked up on October discussions related to Implementation, Compliance and Dispute Settlement, it also focused on the relationship between the Institutional Arrangements under the future BBNJ agreement and relevant legal instruments frameworks and relevant global, regional, subregional and sectoral bodies. Day 2, which is moderated by Dr Nilufer Oral, focused on Marine Genetic Resources, including questions on the Sharing of Benefits and Transfer of Marine Technology.

8 December 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to be a Panellist at the Book Launch Event of Caroline Foster’s New Book “Global Regulatory Standards in Environmental and Health Disputes: Due Regard, Due Diligence and Regulatory Coherence”

Global regulatory standards are emerging from the environmental and health jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, the World Trade Organization, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and investor-state dispute settlement. Most prominent are the three standards of regulatory coherence, due regard for the rights of others, and due diligence in the prevention of harm. These global regulatory standards are a phenomenon of our times, representing a new contribution to the ordering of the relationship between domestic and international law, and a revised conception of sovereignty in an increasingly pluralistic global legal era.

However, the legitimacy of the resulting ‘standards-enriched’ international law remains open to question. International courts and tribunals should not be the only fora in which these standards are elaborated, and many challenges and opportunities lie ahead in the ongoing development of global regulatory standards. Debate over whether regulatory coherence should go beyond reasonableness and rationality requirements and require proportionality stricto sensu in the relationship between regulatory measures and their objectives is central. Due regard, the most novel of the emerging standards, may help protect international law’s legitimacy claims in the interim. Meanwhile, all actors should attend to the integration rather than the fragmentation of international law, and to changes in the status of private actors.

The session was chaired by Christina Voigt and panellists include Dr Nilufer Oral, Gleider Hernandez and Geir Ulfstein.

8 December 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to give a lecture at Maastricht University Law School on the topic “Peremptory Norms of International Law and the Environment”

The event was chaired by Dr Craig Eggett.

More on the lecture at the link: Jus Cogens and Environmental Law – events – Maastricht University

10 December 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to Speak at 2nd World Environmental Law Congress – High-level Judicial Segment on A Critical Decade for Environmental Law

This hybrid event reaffirmed, further developed, and advanced the 2016 IUCN World Declaration on the Environmental Rule of Law and the 2018 Brasilia Judicial Declaration on Water Justice, in light of the Marseille Manifesto and outcomes of the 2021 IUCN World Conservation Congress (September 2021), the recognition of a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the United Nations Human Rights Council (October 2021), the Kunming Declaration of CBD COP 15 (October 2021), and the outcomes of UNFCCC COP26 in Glasgow (November 2021).

The High-Level Judicial Event included discussions on the following topics:

• Climate Change, Biodiversity and the Environmental Rule of Law
• The Water Crisis and the 2018 Brasília Declaration of Judges on Water Justice
• Judicial Education on Climate Change and Biodiversity Law

Dr Nilufer Oral spoke at the session: Judges and the Oceans Crisis

More about the event at the link: https://www.iucn.org/commissions/world-commission-environmental-law/events-wcel/upcoming-events/role-judges-environmental-law-2030-and-beyond

On 2–3 December 2021, Research Fellow Charalampos Giannakopoulos participated in the 2^nd TRICI-Law Conference on “Interpretation of CIL: Methods, Interpretative Choices and the Role of Coherence”, which was co-organised with the PluriCourts Centre and the University of Groningen’s Department of Transboundary Legal Studies.

Senior Research Fellow Denise Cheong and Research Fellow Nivedita S were invited to participate in the Tenth Meeting of the Working Group on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). They participated remotely in this three-day hybrid meeting which was held in Geneva, Switzerland from 1 to 3 December 2021.

Matters discussed included (i) the cases pertaining to nuclear power plants including the planned construction of units and lifetime extension of such plants pending before the Espoo Implementation Committee; (ii) the proposed modifications to the reporting template for the European Union for the implementation of the Espoo Convention on EIA and the Kyiv Protocol on SEA, which includes a component to assess whether EIA/SEAs contribute to achieving sustainable development goals; and (iii) the work being done to identify synergies and possible cooperation activities in marine regions (in particular, regional seas frameworks that include provisions on environmental assessments).

The meeting included a seminar on sustainable infrastructure, which discussed among others, good practices relating to the use of EIA/SEA in the context of infrastructure development plans and projects. As part of this discussion, the potential link between taxonomy-related assessments and the EIA and SEA processes was also considered. The meeting brought together representatives from state parties to these treaties and representatives from intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations and academia.

1 December 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to Speak at the Sixth International Conference on the Law of the Sea Hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and organized by Korea Society of International Law (KSIL) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted the Sixth International Conference on the Law of the Sea from November 30 to December 1, 2021 together with the Korean Society of International Law and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). The International Conference on the Law of the Sea has been held since 2016 to discuss the latest trends and progress in the research on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and to provide a venue for the judiciary and academia to share their invaluable insights on ways to develop the law of the sea.

This year, the conference was held under the theme of “Law of the Sea for the Next Generation: Challenges from New Technologies and Environmental Crises.” As Special Rapporteur Georg Nolte has duly put in his report to the International Law Commission in 2008, treaties change over time to adapt themselves to new situations and even evolve in some cases to meet the needs of the international community. UNCLOS is no exception. The convention, also referred to as “the Ocean Charter,” covered every aspect of the ocean, at least by the standards at the time of its conclusion. However, it has confronted a number of unexpected challenges during the last four decades. New marine technologies such as uncrewed maritime vehicles or autonomous maritime weapons have opened up new ways to explore the sea and conduct maritime activities, the strategic and legal implications of which were not accounted for when the states struck the deal for the convention. Also, environmental crises like global heating have shaken the very foundation of the convention, such as baselines or jurisdictional zones. The objective of this year’s conference was to deliberate on how the law of the sea has evolved in the course of addressing challenges since the conclusion of UNCLOS and whether such evolution has been a step in the right direction to ensure a healthy and resilient ocean for our future generation.

Dr Oral spoke at the session: “UNCLOS as the Nexus of Marine Protection Norms”

More information about the conference at this link: International Conference on the Law of the Sea | ICLS

26 November 2021: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was One of the Speakers at the Roundtable Discussion on the Outcomes of COP26 and the Road Ahead to COP27 and the Global Stocktake

This session provided a brief overview of developments during the Glasgow Climate Summit, and the speakers addressed the question of “where next” in terms of preparation for COP27 and the Global Stocktake.

The speakers were:

Dan Bodansky – Professor of Law, Arizona State University

David Freestone – Professor of Law, George Washington University

Saleemul Huq – Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)

Selam Kidane Ababe – Climate Change Legal Adviser and PhD Candidate

Stephen Minas – Associate Professor of Law, Peking University

Petra Minnerop – Associate Professor of International Law, Durham Law School

Nilüfer Oral – Director of the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore

Lavanya Rajamani – Professor of International Environmental Law, University of Oxford

Linda Siegele – Climate Change Legal Adviser and Phd Candidate

Amir Sokolowski – Associate Director, Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP

Christina Voigt – Professor of Law, University of Oslo