CiR2P Option 2 | Encourage membership to international organisations

DISCUSSION:

Encouraging states to join and participate in international organisations and regimes (global, regional, bilateral treaties and arrangements) can contribute to building a preventive structural safeguard against states committing mass atrocities.

Involvement in these forums help build trust, frameworks for dialogue and cooperation, as well as impose a multitude of good governance disciplines not just on existing members but aspiring ones.

The EU is perhaps the most effective structural conflict prevention measure in history.

The same could be said for the EU’s impact on its members in terms of climate action. For example, the EU Emissions Trading System (EUETS) was the first large scale carbon pricing mechanism in the world. Established in 2005, at present the EUETS places a limit on the overall emissions on approximately 11,000 power stations and manufacturing plants covering all 28 EU Member States plus Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein. The EU Member States are also required to comply with a range of other climate-related disciplines such as limits on transport emissions and improvements in land use practices.

GHG mitigation regimes, such as emissions trading schemes, protect vulnerable populations by limiting warming and therefore reducing the severity of the physical impacts over the longer term. 

NATO membership also has a domestic disciplinary function. Member countries are required to use new military equipment and infrastructure that, first, ensures NATO troops can effectively operate in tougher climatic conditions – such as in response to ‘climate-related disasters’; and second, helps to cut emissions from military activities – such as by using biofuels, developing hybrid vehicles and improving energy efficiency.

The UK, US, and the EU have numerous bilateral arrangements in place with developing countries to provide finance, technology, and administrative support, along with other assistance, to help vulnerable populations adapt to climate change as well as to encourage low carbon growth.