The negotiations of the Paris Rule Book are critical to ensuring that the promises made in the Paris Agreement will be met – including the commitment of governments to respect, protect and take into consideration existing human rights obligations. To enhance the likelihood that the Paris Agreement is effectively implemented, when developing the Paris Rule Book, parties should fully integrate human rights and the social and environmental principles reaffirmed in the preamble, including the rights of indigenous peoples, public participation, gender equality, safeguarding food security and ending hunger, a just transition, and ecosystem integrity.
Doing so is not only essential for the Paris Agreement implementation, but also for ensuring policy coherence. The parties to the Paris Agreement have numerous obligations under existing human rights agreements and other international agreements and declarations that relate to the Paris Agreement and how they should address climate change. By incorporating these obligations into the Paris Rule Book, parties are not creating additional burdens for themselves, but instead ensuring policy coherence and making it easier for them to meet their international obligations.
Key human rights and environmental and social principles set forth in the preamble of the Paris Agreement, including the linkages to existing international obligations, as well as how these principles should be integrated into four key elements of the Paris Rule Book: Nationally Determined Contributions, Adaptation Communications, the Transparency Framework, and the Global Stocktake (without precluding the relevance of other aspects of the work of the APA or work under other bodies in the UNFCCC).
The Paris Agreement is an important step to addressing climate change. Its effective implementation relies on the creation of a robust and rights-based Paris Rule Book.