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Law firms help developing states navigate climate talks

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:11 GMT

Source: alertnet // Tosin Sulaiman

People stand next to posters reading "Time for Climate Justice" in Cancunmesse, where climate talks are taking place in Cancun, Mexico, Dec. 4, 2010. REUTERS/Henry Romero

LONDON (AlertNet) - Developing nations and charities at the U.N. climate change talks taking place in Cancun, Mexico, have had the rare opportunity to tap into the expertise of some of the world's top law firms over the past two weeks.

While wealthy countries like Britain and the United States often turn up to such meetings with large delegations and their own legal teams, many poorer states can only afford to send one or two delegates, say lawyers with the Legal Response Initiative (LRI) who are assisting them.

"Some of these developing country delegations have very talented people, but because of the lack of staff and money, they can find themselves quite stretched in such complex and large-scale negotiations," said Nick Flynn, an environmental lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and a director of the LRI. "That can put them at a disadvantage when dealing with a planeload of EU and American delegates dazzling them with technology and science."

The LRI was set up last year by the British arms of Oxfam and WWF to address the huge disparity of access to resources between developed and developing countries at the U.N. climate change negotiations.

It was present at the Copenhagen summit last December, as well as at U.N. climate meetings in Barcelona, Bonn and Tianjin held over the past year or so. At the Cancun conference, which ends on Friday, around 150 lawyers from 19 international firms, as well as barristers and academics, have been providing free, real-time legal advice to delegates.

So far, the LRI has received 195 queries on a wide range of topics, said Niall Watson, a WWF environmental lawyer who is chairman of the LRI. Topics covered include the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the issue of vulnerability and a scheme to reduce deforestation by paying developing countries not to cut down trees.

There have also been questions about financial mechanisms for disbursing money to help poor countries adapt to climate change, and LRI lawyers have examined the various draft texts that have been produced to determine whether they are sufficiently binding.

'SITUATION ROOM'

The lawyers work behind the scenes from their offices in London, Paris, Hong Kong or Singapore, fielding queries that can come in at any hour of the day. This year, the LRI has five liaison officers in Cancun who have been participating in meetings and finding out what legal requests developing country and NGO delegations have.

The queries are then sent to a "Situation Room" in London, hosted by Simmons & Simmons, where a core team of volunteer lawyers develops them into a brief and relays them to the LRI's network of legal experts. While most are environmental lawyers, there are also experts in finance, public international law, international trade, human rights and carbon trading and regulation.

"In the situation room, depending on the volume of queries, we're ready and willing to operate a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week service," Watson said.

"The idea is that if a query comes in it might make more sense to forward it to Australia if you can take advantage of the time difference. From the perspective of those in Cancun, they often generate these queries at the end of their day. We like to have the answers for them by the time they reappear at the negotiations first thing in the morning."

Some queries may take longer but the LRI aims to respond within three days at the most. The short turnaround can pose challenges for the lawyers, said Silke Goldberg, an energy lawyer at Herbert Smith who is coordinating her firm's input into the LRI.

"Because these may have policy implications, the deadlines are very tight," she said. "Often you work without any precedent. Given the timeframes involved, it's very pressured and you have to come up with solutions very quickly and make them very practical."

Goldberg said the LRI is unique in bringing together law firms famous for their rivalry.

"Law firms do not naturally work together like that so the collaborative nature of the LRI is something special," she said. "I think we're all there to make a real difference to the least developed countries and make sure they have access to legal advice and the legal information they would not normally have."

BUILDING DEVELOPING-COUNTRY RESOURCES

Matrix Chambers barrister Kate Cook emphasised, however, that the initiative is not "a panacea".

"It's a small contribution in a much bigger picture," said Cook, who was previously a lawyer with the British government and has attended a range of international treaty negotiations. "Having an expert who can come in and give you advice at short notice is not the same as having your own lawyer on your delegation who knows all your policy concerns and understands your national priorities."

The LRI would like to expand its network to include more lawyers from developing countries, and also aims to help these countries build up their own resources.

"The least developed countries are very wary of people just coming along and offering to tell them what to do," said LRI chairman Watson. "They're very keen to develop their own capacity."

The LRI plans to sponsor selected lawyers from developing countries to attend a minimum of two conferences as part of their national delegation.

"We would not in any way try to influence how they advise their country delegations, but we would be there to offer them any kind of support that they wanted," Watson said.