Published on 12 June 2023 in Client Alerts
In December 2022, 188 States from around the world reached agreement on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The Framework affirms the importance of biodiversity to human well-being and economic prosperity, playing a vital role as a source of food, medicine, energy, clean air and water and security from natural disasters. It sets out a number of goals and targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 both on land and at sea. Chief amongst these is a goal to protect 30 per cent of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030. (March 2023 saw a major step taken towards that goal, when States concluded a new international agreement on maritime biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.) They also include, for example, global targets to restore 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems, to reduce pesticide risk by at least 50 per cent and to mobilise at least USD 200 billion per year in biodiversity-related funding by 2030. The Framework provides for implementation primarily through the translation of these global targets into national-level policy, in the form of updates to National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans.
The Framework was adopted following a four-year consultation and negotiation process under the auspices of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. That Convention enjoys near-universal membership, with 195 States Parties as well as the European Union. The recent Global Biodiversity Framework was agreed at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention in December 2022. While not legally binding, the Framework calls on States to monitor and report on progress at five-year intervals.
In the lead-up to its adoption, the Global Biodiversity Framework had garnered support from some 150 financial institutions, including banks, investors, and insurers, representing over USD 24 trillion in assets. While focused primarily on State action to protect biodiversity, in particular through National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, the Framework also emphasises both a “whole of government” and “whole of society” approach.
Institutions that backed the Framework and other investors will be interested in new guidance on what the Framework means for responsible investment, issued jointly in April 2023 by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment and the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation. That guidance recommends three broad actions that investors can take on a voluntary basis to address the risks of biodiversity loss:
It remains to be seen to what extent this “soft law” guidance may be integrated by individual States into national-level laws or policies in ways that regulate the activities of financial institutions and other investors.
The Parties to the Framework’s overarching Convention on Biological Diversity are due to meet again at the Convention’s 16th Conference of the Parties in Türkiye in December 2024. There, the Parties will seek to finalise details of a new Global Biodiversity Trust Fund, expected to be financed through contributions by companies using digital sequence information on genetic resources.
In the brief 60 years of space flight, humanity has sent over 60,000 space objects and 1 million pieces of smaller debris into orbit around the planet. This has created the risk of a legal and physical log-jam in space. The congestion and space-junk problems are projected to become even more acute as the space race broadens its participants.
Learn moreDuring the 29th annual session of the International Seabed Authority (“ISA”), Malta, Tuvalu, Honduras, Guatemala and Austria declared their support for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining. To date, now over thirty States have called for a halt in the exploitation of the deep seabed minerals. These calls come as the ISA struggles to adopt a final set of regulations on mining exploitation.
Learn moreOn 30 May 2024, the European Council adopted decisions enabling the European Union (“EU”) to denounce (the proper international law term for ‘withdraw from’) the Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”).
Learn moreThe COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant gaps in the global health system, leading to immense human and economic losses. In response, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) and its member States decided to draft a comprehensive international treaty—the Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Accord.
Learn more