Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:16:53.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Asia-Pacific partnership and market-liberal discourse in global climate governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2014

Jeffrey McGee  and
Ros Taplin
Jeffrey McGee*
Affiliation:
Dr Jeffrey McGee, Senior Lecturer, Newcastle Law School, University of Newcastle, Australia. Email: [email protected].
Ros Taplin
Affiliation:
Professor Ros Taplin, Research Director, Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices, School of Mining Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Email: [email protected]
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper shows how international law scholarship might adopt a constructivist interdisciplinary research design to better engage with the political and social context of legal rules and institutions. In 2005 the Asia-Pacific Partnership was launched by the United States and Australia as a climate change institution outside the UN climate process. Controversially, the Member States claimed the Asia-Pacific Partnership was complementary to the UN climate process. This paper investigates the veracity of this claim by analysing the normative compatibility of the Partnership and the UN climate process. The paper adopts Dryzek's discourse theory to analyse the shared ideas and assumptions underlying both institutions. This analysis indicates that the Asia-Pacific Partnership embodied a deep market-liberal discourse that is in significant tension with the more interventionist and equity-based principles underpinning the UN climate process. This market-liberal discourse is important for understanding recent developments in global climate governance.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 338 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aarnio, Aulis (2011) Essays in the Doctrinal Study of Law. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Bäckstrand, Karin and Lövbrand, Eva (2007) ‘Climate Governance Beyond 2012: Competing Discourses of Green Governmentality, Ecological Modernisation, and Civic Environmentalism’, in Pettenger, Mary (ed.), The Social Construction of Climate Change: Power, Knowledge, Norms, Discourses. Farnham: Ashgate, 123–148.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Steven (2002) ‘Liberal Environmentalism and Global Environmental Governance’, Global Environmental Politics 2(3): 1–16.Google Scholar
Biermann, Frank, Pattberg, Philipp and van Asselt, Harro (2009) ‘The Fragmentation of Global Environmental Governance Architectures: A Framework for Analysis’, Global Environmental Politics 9(4): 14–40.Google Scholar
Boyle, Alan and Chinkin, Christine (2007) The Making of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clapp, Jennifer and Dauvergne, Peter (2005) Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, James and Koskenniemi, Martti (2012) The Cambridge Companion to International Law. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crouch, Colin (2011) The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Driesen, David M. (ed.) (2010) Economic Thought in US Climate Change Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S. (2005) The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, 2nd edn.New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S. (2006) Deliberative Global Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S. (2007) ‘Paradigms and Discourses’, in Bodansky, Daniel, Brunnée, Jutta and Hey, Ellen (eds), Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 44–62.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John S. (2010) Green Democracy, Occasional Paper 2/2010. Canberra: Academy of Social Sciences of Australia.Google Scholar
Finnemore, Martha (1996) National Interests in International Society. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, Brian, Ford, Melanie, Jakeman, Guy, Gurney, Andrew, Penm, Jammie, Matysek, Anya and Gunasekera, Don (2006) Technological Development and Economic Growth, ABARE Research Report 06.1–Inaugural Ministerial Meeting of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Research Economics.Google Scholar
Fisher, Dana R. (2010) ‘COP-15 in Copenhagen: How the Merging of Movements Left Civil Society Out in the Cold’, Global Environmental Politics 10(2): 11–17.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel (1972) The Archeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Garnaut, Ross (2008) The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, John (2002) False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, 2nd edn.London: Granta Books.Google Scholar
Gray, John (2009) ‘The Rudd Essay and The Global Financial Crisis’, The Monthly 45, Melbourne: Morry Schwartz, 30–31.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie, Victor, David and Lupu, Yonatan (2012) ‘Political Research on International Law: The State of the Field’, American Journal of International Law 106: 47–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Davis (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jaffee, Adam, Newell, Richard and Stavins, Robert (2005) ‘A Tale of Two Market Failures: Technology and Environmental Policy’, Ecological Economics 54: 164–174.Google Scholar
Jessup, Brad and Rubenstein, Kim (eds) (2012) Environmental Discourses in Public and International Law. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorgensen, Marianne and Phillips, Louise (2002) Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, Sylvia and van Asselt, Harro (2009) ‘Introduction: Exploring and Explaining the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, Economics 9: 195–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, David (1987) International Legal Structures. Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, Martti (2005) From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krisch, Nico and Kingsbury, Benedict (2006) ‘Introduction: Global Governance and Global Administrative Law in the International Legal Order’, European Journal of International Law 17(2): 1–12.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Peter (2009) ‘Australian Climate Change Policy and the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. From Howard to Rudd: Continuity or Change?’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, Economics 9(3): 281–299.Google Scholar
Lee, Simon and Mcbride, Stephen (eds) (2007) Neo-Liberalism, State Power and Global Governance. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Lohmann, Larry (2006) ‘Marketing and Making Carbon Dumps: Commodification, Calculation and Counterfactuals in Climate Change Mitigation’, Science as Culture 14(3): 203–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lövbrand, Eva, Rindefjäll, Teresia and Nordqvist, Joakim (2009) ‘Closing the Legitimacy Gap in Global Environmental Governance? Lessons from the Emerging CDM Market’, Global Environmental Politics 9(2): 74–100.Google Scholar
McGee, Jeffrey (2014) ‘The Influence of US Neoliberalism on International Climate Change Policy’, in Neil, E. Harrison and John, Mikler (eds), Climate Innovation: Liberal Capitalism and Climate Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 193–214.Google Scholar
McGee, Jeffrey and Taplin, Ros (2006) ‘The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate: A Complement or Competitor to the Kyoto Protocol?’, Global Change, Peace and Security 18(3): 173–192.Google Scholar
McGee, Jeffrey and Taplin, Ros (2008) ‘The Asia-Pacific Partnership and the United States' International Climate Change Policy’, Colorado Journal on International Environmental Law and Policy 19(2): 213–215.Google Scholar
McGee, Jeffrey and Taplin, Ros (2009a) ‘The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate: A Retreat from the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities?’, McGill Journal of International Sustainable Development Law and Policy 5(1): 11–43.Google Scholar
McGee, Jeffrey and Taplin, Ros (2009b) ‘The Role of the Asia-Pacific Partnership in Discursive Contestation of the International Climate Regime’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, Economics 9(3): 213–238.Google Scholar
McGee, Jeffrey and Wenta, Joseph (2014) ‘Technology Transfer Institutions in Global Climate Governance: The Tension between Equity Principles and Market Allocation’, Review of European Comparative and International Environmental Law (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Mickelson, Karin (2005) ‘Leading Towards a Level Playing Field, Repaying Ecological Debt or Making Environmental Space: Three Stories About International Environmental Cooperation’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal 43(1): 137–170.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Philip (2014) Never Let a Good Crisis Go To Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. London: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Morgan, Bronwen and Yeung, Karen (2007) An Introduction to Law and Regulation: Text and Materials. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Okereke, Chukwumerije (2008) Global Justice and Neoliberal Environmental Governance: Ethics, Sustainable Development and International Co-operation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pearse, Guy (2007) High and Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the Selling of Australia's Future. Camberwell: Penguin Group.Google Scholar
Quiggin, John (2012) Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rajamani, Lavanya (2000) ‘The Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and the Balance of Commitments under the Climate Regime’, Review of European Community and International Environmental Law 9(2): 120–131.Google Scholar
Rudd, Kevin (2009) ‘The Global Financial Crisis’, The Monthly 42, Melbourne: Morry Schwartz, 20–29.Google Scholar
Scott, Shirley (2004) The Political Interpretation of Multilateral Treaties. Heiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.Google Scholar
Shaikh, Anwar (2004) ‘The Economic Mythology of Neoliberalism’, in Saad-Filho, Alfredo (ed.), Neo-liberalism: A Critical Reader. London: Pluto Press, 41–49.Google Scholar
Stephens, Tim (2009) International Courts and Environmental Protection. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
UK HM Treasury (2006) The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change: Executive Summary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vihma, Antto (2009) ‘Friendly Neighbour or Trojan Horse? Assessing the Interaction of Soft Law Initiatives and the UN Climate Regime’, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, Economics 9: 239–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander (1999) Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
WCED (World Commission on the Environment and Development) (1987) Our Common Future: World Commission on the Environment and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar