\n<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s long-anticipated decision this week to pull the US from the world\u2019s most important climate treaty may have been illegal, some experts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my legal opinion, he does not have the authority,\u201d Harold Hongju Koh, former head lawyer for the US state department, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
In a Wednesday presidential memorandum, the president said the US \u201cshall withdraw\u201d from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), along with 65 other organizations, agencies and commissions that it deemed \u201ccontrary to the interests of the United States\u201d. It marks the first time any country has ever moved to exit the agreement.<\/p>\n
The UN climate body requires one year\u2019s notice for withdrawal, so the United States will not cease being a party for a year. Trump\u2019s memo did not specify whether or not his administration will submit a formal notice of termination to the UN.<\/p>\n
Reached for comment, a state department spokesperson noted that Trump\u2019s memo said the agency will take all necessary \u201csteps to effectuate the withdrawal of the United States from the organizations as soon as possible\u201d. The person also referred the Guardian to secretary of state Marco Rubio\u2019s Wednesday statement, where he said the Trump administration is exiting institutions and treaties which it believes to be \u201credundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation\u2019s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Because the country entered the UNFCCC with the consultation and approval of the Senate in 1992, \u201cthere is an open question\u201d about whether or not the president can unilaterally exit the agreement, Michael Gerrard, a climate law expert at Columbia University, wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
The UNFCCC and the Paris climate agreement \u2013 the landmark 2015 climate pact underpinned by the UNFCCC, from which Trump pulled the US last January \u2013 both say that parties may withdraw with one year\u2019s written notice. But unlike the UNFCCC, the Paris agreement was never ratified by the US Senate, Gerrard noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Obama took the position that since the Paris agreement did not impose binding legal obligations on the US, it was not a treaty that required Senate ratification,\u201d he said. \u201cIn contrast, President George HW Bush submitted the UNFCCC to the Senate, which unanimously ratified it in 1992, and he then signed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some scholars argue that the president has the ability to unilaterally end treaties \u2013 if not legally, then practically, because Congress has previously acquiesced to the executive branch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn practice, presidents have long asserted the authority to withdraw the United States from treaties and other international agreements without seeking the approval of either the Senate or Congress,\u201d said Curtis Bradley, a University of Chicago law school professor and former counselor of international law at the state department.<\/p>\n
But in Koh\u2019s view, congressional silence should not be interpreted as consent to exit the treaty. A \u201cmirror principle\u201d should dictate that the same amount of congressional input needed to enter into a treaty should be required to withdraw from it, said Koh, now an international legal expert at Yale University.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I had an agreement that I made by myself, it would make sense that I could leave by myself,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if my wife and I made an agreement that both of us had to sign, could I withdraw from it by myself? I believe we would both have to withdraw.\u201d He said he expects groups to sue the administration over its memo.<\/p>\n
Rhode Island senator and climate hawk Sheldon Whitehouse also said Trump\u2019s withdrawal is \u201cnot just corrupt, it\u2019s illegal\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis polluter-driven stoogery shows the full extent of creepy polluters\u2019 control over the Trump administration. Trump\u2019s corrupt fossil-fuel interests threaten the wellbeing of millions around the world on the frontlines of climate disaster, defy the will of the American people, and damage US economic competitiveness,\u201d he said in a statement, adding that he believes \u201conce the Senate has ratified a treaty, only the Senate can withdraw from the treaty\u201d.<\/p>\n
The US constitution does not explicitly spell out such a mirror principle, only stating that the president \u201cshall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur\u201d.<\/p>\n
The supreme court has also never ruled on the topic: though it took up the issue of treaty exit in 1979 when then president Jimmy Carter withdrew from a treaty establishing diplomatic relations with China, the justices \u201csplintered and didn\u2019t come to a single rationale\u201d on which US governmental branch can exit treaties, and under what circumstances, said Koh.<\/p>\n
Jean Galbraith, an international law expert at the University of Pennsylvania Carey law school, said the issue of unilateral withdrawal is \u201chard\u201d and \u201ccomplex\u201d. Even when the Senate recommends entry into treaties, she said, the president has the discretion not to take their advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think about withdrawal, you can think about, what exactly is the president doing? Are they just ratcheting back that last step of ratification,\u201d she asked. \u201cMaybe the president would say, \u2018I\u2019m just pulling back the instrument of ratification.\u2019 Maybe the president would say, \u2018I have the power to do this withdrawal unilaterally, at least as far as I don\u2019t have anything from the Senate or Congress telling me explicitly that I don\u2019t have that power.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Experts also disagree on what it would take for the US to re-enter the UNFCCC. Some experts believe that Trump\u2019s exit nullifies the 1992 Senate vote in support of joining.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy own view is that a president would need to obtain a new approval,\u201d said Bradley. \u201cThe US constitution requires senatorial approval for joining treaties but does not clearly require senatorial approval for leaving treaties.\u201d<\/p>\n
That would mean the process of reentry would require a future president to secure the support of two-thirds of the Senate to agree to re-enter the treaty, which would be difficult to obtain in the contemporary political climate.<\/p>\n
Galbraith, however, believes the two-thirds Senate vote from 1992 remains in effect.<\/p>\n
Others, including Galbraith, believe that if Trump can unilaterally exit a treaty, a future president could rejoin it without a new two-thirds Senate vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou still have that on the books,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sue Biniaz, former principal deputy special envoy for climate at the state department, shares that perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/strong>Climate action won\u2019t stop because of the latest US treaty withdrawal, either in the US or globally. And the federal retreat is, hopefully, a temporary one. There are multiple future pathways to rejoining the key climate agreements,\u201d she said, adding that she specifically agrees that the US could \u201crather seamlessly rejoin the UNFCCC based on the Senate\u2019s approval in 1992\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s exit from the UNFCCC indicates to the rest of the world that the US is \u201can unreliable partner for long term commitments\u201d, said Galbraith.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a further signal of real antipathy to fixing what is a real and increasingly dire problem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The withdrawal from the agreement came on the one-year anniversary of devastating fires in Los Angeles, and days after the shocking capture of Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, after which the president outlined a vision of the US boosting fossil fuel extraction from the South American country.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s contempt for international efforts to build peace and solidarity continues to shred the nation\u2019s international credibility and will cause irreparable damage to current and future generations both at home and abroad,\u201d said Melinda St Louis, director of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen\u2019s Global Trade Watch. \u201cAs climate harms escalate, choosing withdrawal is a shortsighted, profoundly irresponsible retreat from international leadership when it is needed more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration\u2019s long-anticipated decision this week to pull the US from the world\u2019s most important climate treaty may have been illegal, some experts say. \u201cIn my legal opinion, he does not have the authority,\u201d Harold Hongju Koh, former head lawyer for the US state department, told the Guardian. In a Wednesday presidential memorandum, the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[794,186,320,408,788,1294,2838,7749,81,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-41375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-climate","10":"tag-experts","11":"tag-illegal","12":"tag-key","13":"tag-move","14":"tag-pull","15":"tag-treaty","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-trumps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}