Collectively, the current climate policy settings raise three important (and not hypothetical) questions.<\/p>\n
Does weakening domestic action on climate change risk New Zealand being found in breach of international law? Yes.<\/p>\n
Could other states take legal action against New Zealand for failing to comply with its international obligations? Yes.<\/p>\n
Does a failure to comply with those obligations undermine New Zealand\u2019s commitment to the international rules-based order? Yes.<\/p>\n
At the centre of this sits the landmark advisory opinion<\/a> issued by the International Court of Justice in July. This set out clearly and authoritatively the obligations on states to address climate change, and the rights of other states to take legal action against those that don\u2019t live up to their commitments.<\/p>\n While the opinion is not itself legally binding, the legal obligations identified by the court are \u2013 on all states, including New Zealand.<\/p>\n Climate climb-downs<\/p>\n As well as the most recent decision to reject the Climate Change Commission\u2019s emissions target recommendations, the government has also:<\/p>\n What international law says<\/p>\n While the International Court of Justice\u2019s advisory opinion is complex, five legal findings are particularly significant.<\/p>\n New Zealand must contribute to efforts to limit global temperature rise to no more than 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels. This replaces the target of \u201cbelow 2\u00b0C\u201d as set out in the Paris Agreement<\/a>, and reflects science-based consensus and subsequent practice and decisions since 2015.<\/p>\n New Zealand\u2019s Nationally Determined Contribution emissions target is legally binding. It must reflect the \u201chighest possible ambition\u201d and be developed to \u201cachieve the object and purposes\u201d of the Paris Agreement and the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It must be prepared with \u201cstringent due diligence\u201d. New Zealand has an \u201cactive obligation\u201d to pursue scientific information; the more certain the information is, the more stringent the level of obligation.<\/p>\n New Zealand\u2019s domestic measures to implement its NDC target can be independently assessed on the basis of its \u201cstringent due diligence\u201d obligation. Those measures must address production and consumption activities (including fossil fuel production) and apply to private actors under the jurisdiction or control of New Zealand.<\/p>\n As well as its commitments under the UNFCCC regime, New Zealand has obligations to address climate change under the law of the sea, biodiversity law, human rights law and customary international law (legal principles derived from state practice). Even if New Zealand takes action to comply with its obligations under the Paris Agreement, this may not be enough to comply with its customary duty to prevent significant harm to the environment or to cooperate to address climate change.<\/p>\n Any state may bring legal proceedings against New Zealand for failing to comply with climate change obligations under the general rules of \u201cstate responsibility\u201d. They will need to prove New Zealand failed to comply with a treaty or customary obligation. They will not need to prove such a breach of international law caused actual harm in order to hold New Zealand responsible (although a causal link would need to be established if that state demands reparation).<\/p>\n Undermining the rules-based order<\/p>\n New Zealand cannot simply ignore these obligations. They must be considered in the development of policy, the adoption of domestic climate change measures and by the courts if cases are brought against the government.<\/p>\n Legal action, while complex, could be brought by states unhappy with New Zealand\u2019s lack of meaningful climate action, including Pacific Island states such as Palau<\/a>, which recently criticised the lowering of methane targets.<\/p>\n It is hard to see how the recent policy announcements meet the standards of \u201chighest level of ambition\u201d and \u201cstringent due diligence\u201d.<\/p>\n More generally, however, New Zealand risks undermining the international rules-based order it relies on by framing those obligations as being merely about making \u201cbest efforts\u201d.<\/p>\n The rules-based order is like a game of Jenga<\/a>. The rules, including obligations to address climate change, are the building blocks. While some states are overtly taking a wrecking ball to the tower, others are undermining it by ignoring those rules, essentially removing individual blocks.<\/p>\n But small states need that tower to remain intact. Supporting the international rules-based order by complying with its climate obligations would allow New Zealand to show leadership when it is most needed. *Karen Scott<\/a>, Professor in Law, University of Canterbury<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Karen Scott* The New Zealand government\u2019s decision last week to reject all of the Climate Change Commission\u2019s emission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-173368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765182502_675_count.gif\")
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