Transparency Provisions in the Paris Agreement

This Legal Working Paper focuses on a key aspect of the outcomes of the Paris Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): transparency. Part 1 outlines the features of the transparency-related provisions of the new Paris Agreement – Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the Transparency Frameworks, the Global Stocktake, and the Implementation and Compliance Committee – and analyses how they interact with one another. Part 2 situates this nexus of provisions within international law on sustainable development, identifying overlap and convergence with the New Delhi Declaration on Principles of International Law relating to Sustainable Development. Part 3 presents four different national case studies to highlight key legal and governance issues for implementation of the transparency provisions in domestic contexts: Bangladesh, Canada, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The authors show the commonality of challenges faced by these countries in order for strong engagement with the transparency provisions and formulate law and policy recommendations based on international sustainable development law and the four country case studies. As UNFCCC Parties consider ratification of the Paris Agreement and as all stakeholders prepare for COP22 in Marrakesh, this Legal Working Paper contributes to the diffusion of legal knowledge on its transparency provisions and the identification of work avenues regarding an innovative approach to compliance under international law.

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