I was invited to testify before the Senate of Canada, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, on issues relating to two pieces of legislation that form part of Canada’s economic sanctions laws. The full testimony can be found here (commencing half way through the full session), and a couple of clips of my answers to questions on the effectiveness of economic sanctions, and the lawfulness of secondary sanctions, were posted to YouTube by Senator Woo, and can be found here, and here. I was invited to testify in light of my report Economic Sanctions Under International Law: A Guide for Canadian Policy, published in 2021.
International Law
Climate Change as a National Security Issue at the ABA National Security Law Conference
It was an interesting experience to speak on a panel addressing the climate change crisis as a national security issue, at the ABA Annual Review of National Security Law Conference, on Nov. 17, 2022, along with Mark Nevitt of Emory Law, Erin Sikorsky of the Center for Climate and Security, and Marcus King of Georgetown University. With over 300 people in the room, mostly national security lawyers, there was a surprising mix of views on how seriously one should take climate change as a threat to national security, or as an issue that implicate national security thinking! Very interesting.
Climate Change as a Security Issue at ABILA
It was a real pleasure to moderate and speak on a panel at the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) in New York City in October, on the issue of how theclimate change crisis implicates various issues relating to international peace and security in international law. Joined by Mark Nevitt of Emory Law, Myram Jamshidi of the Univ. of Florida Law, and Jaya Ramji Nogales of Temple Univ. Law, it was such a rich discussion. My own presentation was based in large part on the short essay on this topic published a couple months earlier in AJILUnbound!
Climate Change and Global Security: Framing an Existential Threat
(Published in American Journal of International Law: Unbound, Aug. 15, 2022).
Abstract: Should the climate change crisis be framed in security terms? Many argue that it is dangerous to treat non-military threats as security issues. Such “securitization” is associated with the expansion of executive power and the exercise of exceptional measures involving the suspension of individual rights, secrecy, state violence, and a weakening of the rule of law. Nonetheless, climate change has already been identified as a security issue by many government agencies and international institutions. But, as Benton Heath explores in “Making Sense of Security,” the very concept of security is both ambiguous and contested. There are different and competing ideas about what it means, when and by whom it should be invoked, the kinds of law and policy responses it should trigger, and, crucially, who gets to decide these questions.
Heath argues that differing approaches to security reflect deeper struggles over whose knowledge matters in identifying and responding to security threats. He develops a typology for assessing these different approaches, and the implications they have for international law and institutions. But, while he notes that climate change is precisely one of those issues around which there are competing security claims, he leaves to others the question of whether, or how, to frame climate change in security terms.
This essay takes up that question, continuing the inquiry into how best to understand the concept of security, and how Heath’s typology helps think about the question. It argues that it may indeed be important to frame climate change in security terms, but as a matter of global security rather than national security.