Burkett, Maxine
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ItemSmall Island States and the Paris Agreement(Wilson Center, 2015)
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ItemIn Search of Refuge: Pacific Islands, Climate-Induced Migration, and the Legal Frontier(Honolulu: East-West Center, 2011)
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Item‘Drowning Nations’ Threaten New 21st Century Statelessness(ALERTNET, 2011)
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ItemJustice and Contemporary Climate Relocation: An Addendum to Words of Caution on ‘Climate Refugees(Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program, 2016)
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ItemShoreline Impacts, Setback Policy and Sea Level Rise(Center for Island Climate Adaptation, 2009)
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ItemReading between the Red Lines: Loss and Damage and the Paris Outcome(Climate Law, 2016)
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ItemLitigating Climate Change Adaptation: Theory Practice, and Corrective (Climate) Justice(Environmental Law Reporter News and Analysis, 2012)
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ItemClimate Disobedience(Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, 2016)
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ItemBehind the Veil: Climate Migration, Regime Shift, and a New Theory of Justice(Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 2018)
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ItemSmall Island States and the Paris Agreement(Wilson Center, 2015-12)Islands predominated in the Paris COP negotiations.[1] From metaphor to moral compass to declarations of kinship—like President Obama’s the small island developing states’ vulnerability, dignity, and ambitions served as a rudder. Among other significant provisions discussed below, the response of the Agreement and the decision text—the latter a supporting though not legally binding document—and to demands for capacity building and efficient, simplified procedures for accessing financial resources directly addressed small islands’ concerns. And so the closing movements of the meetings offered congratulatory and hortatory words from island representatives, including a spontaneous, harmonized chorus of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds stressing the refrain, “Every little thing is gonna be alright."[2] Small island states representatives are, however, clear-eyed about the potential of the Paris Agreement and understand that it is but a foothold in a much, much steeper journey. In Paris they were represented primarily by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) negotiating bloc, a coalition of small island and low-lying coastal countries that share similar development challenges and concerns about the environment, especially their vulnerability to the adverse effects of global climate change. AOSIS, with 44 members and observers from all regions of the world, works as a negotiating voice for small island developing states (SIDS). The small islands representatives demanded a number of elements, including a long-term temperature goal of “well below 1.5 degrees” Celsius above pre-industrial levels, an indicative pathway to achieve it, an international mechanism on Loss and Damage due to climate-related events, and scaled-up, reliable financial resources above the $100 billion per year by 2020 already promised by developed countries to developing nations, particularly the most vulnerable.