The document summarizes key principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including: 1) The climate system is a common concern requiring cooperation by all countries according to their differentiated responsibilities and capabilities. Developed countries should take the lead in addressing climate change. 2) Developing countries' special needs and vulnerabilities must be considered. Policies should allow sustainable development and eradicating poverty. 3) Responses to climate change should balance environmental protection, economic development, and equity between nations. The UNFCCC is guided by the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

1. V O S I T H A W I J E N A Y A K E
O U T R E A C H A N D A D V O C A C Y C O O R D I N A T O R
C L I M A T E A C T I O N N E T W O R K S O U T H A S I A
Understanding UNFCCC
Legal Principles

2. Key Highlights of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- “Acknowledging that change in the Earth’s climate and its adverse
effects are a common concern of humankind,”
- “Noting that the largest share of historical and current global emissions
of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries, that per
capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low and that
the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will
grow to meet their social and development needs,”

3. Key Highlights of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- “Acknowledging that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest
possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and
appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but
differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and
economic conditions,”
- “Recalling also that States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United
Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their
own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies,
and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control
do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the
limits of national jurisdiction,”

4. Key Highlights of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- “Reaffirming the principle of sovereignty of States in international
cooperation to address climate change,”
- “Recognizing that States should enact effective environmental
legislation, that environmental standards, management objectives and
priorities should reflect the environmental and developmental context
to which they apply, and that standards applied by some countries may
be inappropriate and of unwarranted economic and social cost to other
countries, in particular developing countries,”

5. Key Highlights of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- “Affirming that responses to climate change should be coordinated with social and
economic development in an integrated manner with a view to avoiding adverse
impacts on the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of
developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the
eradication of poverty,”
- “Recognizing that all countries, especially developing countries, need access to
resources required to achieve sustainable social and economic development and
that, in order for developing countries to progress towards that goal, their energy
consumption will need to grow taking into account the possibilities for achieving
greater energy efficiency and for controlling greenhouse gas emissions in general,
including through the application of new technologies on terms which make such an
application economically and socially beneficial,”

6.  Principles of the UNFCCC
Article 3
1. “The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present
and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in
accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and
respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should
take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects
thereof.”

7.  Principles of the UNFCCC
Article 3
2. “The specific needs and special circumstances of developing
country Parties, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the
adverse effects of climate change, and of those Parties, especially
developing country Parties, that would have to bear a disproportionate or
abnormal burden under the Convention, should be given full
consideration.”

8.  Principles of the UNFCCC
Article 3
3. “The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or
minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where
there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty
should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account
that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so
as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost. To achieve this, such
policies and measures should take into account different socio-economic
contexts, be comprehensive, cover all relevant sources, sinks and reservoirs
of greenhouse gases and adaptation, and comprise all economic sectors. Efforts to
address climate change may be carried out cooperatively by interested Parties.

9.  Principles of the UNFCCC
Article 3
4. “The Parties have a right to, and should, promote sustainable
development. Policies and measures to protect the climate system
against human-induced change should be appropriate for the specific
conditions of each Party and should be integrated with national
development programmes, taking into account that economic
development is essential for adopting measures to address climate
change.”

10.  Principles of the UNFCCC
Article 3
5. “The Parties should cooperate to promote a supportive and open
international economic system that would lead to sustainable
economic growth and development in all Parties, particularly
developing country Parties, thus enabling them better to address the
problems of climate change. Measures taken to combat climate change,
including unilateral ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or
unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on
international trade.”

11. Sustainable Development
- Recognition of the climate system as a common natural resource is an emerging
concept of international (environmental) law. It builds on the preambular
designation in the FCCC of ‘change in the Earth’s climate and its adverse effects’
as ‘a common concern of humankind’.
- Conceptualising the global climate as a common natural resource may be seen to
run counter to established principles on the treatment of natural resources in
contemporary international law, starting with the principle of permanent
sovereignty of natural resources, enshrined in UN General International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights.

12. Sustainable Development
- Sustainable development requires States to balance economic and social
development and the protection of the climate system, which in turn requires that
policies and measures taken in response to climate change must integrate
environmental, economic and social matters. This balancing takes place in a
broader context, acknowledged in indirect terms in Principle 1 of the Rio
Declaration.
- International Law cases highlight the need to incorporate the concept of
sustainable development
-

13. Equity
- Article 3, paragraph 1 identifies equity as a basis, in addition to
CBDRRC, for sharing the burden of protecting the climate system. FCCC
Article 3, paragraph 1 does not define the notion of equity, either
generally or in its application to climate change.
-”The language (‘accordingly’) however suggests that an application of the
notion of equity would require developed countries to take the lead in
combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.
-

14. Equity
- Parties frequently invoke the notion of equity in their submissions and it
features in several Conference of Parties (COP) decisions, as for instance
in the Berlin Mandate that launched the process that led to the Kyoto
Protocol, the Copenhagen Accord, 2009, where those who associate with
the Accord agree ‘on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable
development’.
- Equity is a broader concept in that it arguably encompasses a range of
visions of justice, whereas the notion of common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities relates principally to burden
sharing between the Parties to the FCCC

15. Common But Differentiated Responsibility and
Respective Capabilities
- The CBDRRC principle is referred to in the Rio Declaration,56 the
FCCC,57 numerous FCCC COP decisions,58 the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation 2002,59 and the outcome of the Rio+20 UN Conference
on Sustainable Development
- Differential treatment with respect to implementation and assistance
are integral to the Vienna Convention,62 Montreal Protocol,63 CBD,
FCCC and Convention to Combat Desertification; five environmental
treaties with near-universal participation.

16. Common But Differentiated Responsibility and
Respective Capabilities
- In the climate change regime CBDRRC is an overarching principle
guiding the development of the regime.65 It is found in two operational
provisions, in addition to preambular, paragraphs of the UNFCCC and
reiterated in the preamble of the Kyoto Protocol.66 It is also routinely
referred to in FCCC COP decisions and Ministerial Declarations
- Even though this principle does not contain a defined legal obligation, it
forms the basis for the interpretation of existing obligations and the
elaboration of future obligations within the regime in question

17. Common But Differentiated Responsibility and
Respective Capabilities
- There is general understanding that such differentiated responsibilities
stem from real differences between Parties. However much less common
ground exists on the relevant criteria for differentiation.81 The principle
of CBDRRC explicitly indicates only one basis for such differentiation -
‘respective capabilities’.

18. Common But Differentiated Responsibility and
Respective Capabilities
- Rio Principle 7 by its terms assigns a leadership role to industrial
countries based on their enhanced contribution to environmental
degradation.
- The terms of UNFCCC Article 3 are, however, less clear. Article 3, unlike
Rio Principle 7, contains no reference to the enhanced contributions of
industrial countries to global environmental degradation, and it places
both common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
capabilities on the same plane.

19. - End-
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