As some of you might know already, the U.S. just joined the new Mercury Convention, a treaty that Henrik and Noelle Selin have single-handedly placed in the public consciousness of many of us through their writings! Below is a note that I sent to another list that seeks to explain how the heck we actually joined something that's both international and environmental! wil
Dr. Wil Burns, Associate Director Master of Science, Energy Policy & Climate Program Johns Hopkins University 1717 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036 650.281.9126 (Mobile) 202.452.8713 (Fax) http://energy.jhu.edu Skype ID: Wil.Burns Blog: Teaching Climate/Energy Law & Policy, <http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org/> http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org From: Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences [mailto:a...@listserv.ursinus.edu] On Behalf Of Wil Burns Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:49 AM To: a...@listserv.ursinus.edu Subject: [AESS_LIST] Minamata Convention: U.S. in the Lead! OK, here's a rare contemporary event that has to be celebrated. The U.S. is the FIRST country to become a party to a new international environmental convention, the Minamata Convention on Mercury (http://www.mercuryconvention.org/Convention/tabid/3426/Default.aspx), which, inter alia, bans new mercury mines, calls for phasing out current ones, and seeks to limit mercury air emissions. The convention is slated to come into force ninety days after the deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, which most project will take about three years. You can view the State Department press release here: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/11/217295.htm Now you may be asking yourself, how could the administration possibly have gotten such an agreement through the Senate's ratification process given its almost visceral antipathy over the past few decades to international agreements, and more specifically, environmental agreements? The answer is that the President "accepted" the convention via a " sole executive agreement," which does not require Senate ratification. In a nutshell, the agreement has been classified by the President as not being a "treaty." Moreover, a sole executive agreement doesn't even require a joint resolution of Congress, as does a joint Congressional-Executive agreement. There is no express constitutional provision that provides for such agreements; the authority has been carved out by Presidents throughout our history, and while challenged by Congress from time to time, it has never been able to pass legislation to rein the practice in, other than now requiring notice within 20 days under the Case Act. In this case, the President's authority for joining the Mercury Convention without submitting it for Senate ratification, where it assuredly would have met its death, is this provision of the U.S. State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual, Volume 11 outlining one of the circumstances under which sole executive agreements can be enter into: 11 FAM 723.2-2(B) Agreements Pursuant to Legislation (CT:POL-48; 09-25-2006) The President may conclude an international agreement on the basis of existing legislation, or subject to legislation to be adopted by the Congress, or upon the failure of Congress to adopt a disapproving joint or concurrent resolution within designated time periods. As you can see in the State Department press release above, the Administration is arguing that Minamata is essentially an embodiment of current U.S. law. Now if we could just make this argument in terms of some other treaties that many of us probably would like to see ratified by the United States :) It will be interesting to see domestic reactions to this decision. wil Dr. Wil Burns, President, AESS Associate Director, Master of Science, Energy Policy & Climate Program Johns Hopkins University 1717 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20036 650.281.9126 (Mobile) 202.452.8713 (Fax) http://energy.jhu.edu Skype ID: Wil.Burns Blog: Teaching Climate/Energy Law & Policy, http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org <http://www.teachingclimatelaw.org/> _____ To unsubscribe from the AESS list, click the following link: https://listserv.ursinus.edu:88/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM1MjA5IHdpbGxpYW1jZ2 J1cm5zQENPTUNBU1QuTkVUIEFFU1MgIIWdFM1DPaAK <https://listserv.ursinus.edu:88/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM1MjA5IHdpbGxpYW1jZ 2J1cm5zQENPTUNBU1QuTkVUIEFFU1MgIIWdFM1DPaAK&c=SIGNOFF> &c=SIGNOFF -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to gep-ed+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
