Contemporary issue: Australia's responses to international initiatives for global environmental protection: HSC Legal Studies

What this dot point is asking

Australia's responses to international initiatives for global environmental protection is the third contemporary issue that must be studied. You must identify and investigate how Australia has responded to international treaties, declarations, conferences and programs, and evaluate the effectiveness of legal and non-legal responses.

An international initiative is any international effort to protect the environment: a treaty (the Paris Agreement), a declaration or pledge (the Glasgow forest pledge), a conference process (the COPs) or a program (World Heritage listing). Australia's "response" includes whether it signs and ratifies, what targets it adopts, how it implements its obligations in domestic law (using the external affairs power, see Australia's federal structure), how it behaves in negotiations, and whether its actions match its commitments.

The answer

Identifying the issue

Australia is a wealthy developed country with a high level of emissions per person, some of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems, a large marine estate, and an economy heavily dependent on exporting coal, gas and minerals. That combination makes its responses to international initiatives both important and contested. Three questions structure an investigation:

1. Participation. Does Australia join initiatives, and on what terms?
2. Implementation. Does it turn international commitments into domestic law and action?
3. Consistency. Do its other policies (such as resource approvals) support or undermine those commitments?

World Heritage and the Great Barrier Reef

Australia was an early party to the World Heritage Convention (1972) and has many World Heritage properties, including the Great Barrier Reef (inscribed 1981) and, since July 2025, the Murujuga Cultural Landscape in Western Australia. The Convention gave the Commonwealth the constitutional basis to stop the Franklin Dam in Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983), and World Heritage properties are a matter of national environmental significance under the EPBC Act.

The Great Barrier Reef is the main test of Australia's World Heritage commitments. It is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 (Cth), the EPBC Act and the joint Commonwealth and Queensland Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan. Its main threat is climate change, which has caused repeated mass bleaching, including in 2024 and 2025. The World Heritage Committee has considered listing it as "in danger" several times: in 2021 its advisory bodies recommended in-danger listing, which Australia lobbied successfully to avoid; in July 2025 the Committee asked for a further report and flagged possible listing; Australia reported by 1 February 2026; and in July 2026, meeting in Busan, the Committee decided not to list the Reef as in danger. The response shows strong domestic management of local threats (water quality, fishing) but limited ability to address the global threat that matters most.

Ramsar, biodiversity and the oceans

• Ramsar Convention (1971). Australia designated the world's first Ramsar site, Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory, in 1974. Ramsar wetlands are protected under the EPBC Act and, for the Murray-Darling Basin, through the Water Act 2007 and the Basin Plan.
• Convention on Biological Diversity. Australia ratified in 1993 and supported the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022), committing to protect 30 per cent of its land and 30 per cent of its seas by 2030. Its State of the Environment 2021 report found the environment "poor and deteriorating", and the Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 (Cth) and the National Environmental Protection Agency (from 1 July 2026) are the Government's main response.
• The high seas. Australia signed the High Seas Treaty on 20 September 2023, passed implementing legislation (the High Seas Biodiversity Act 2026 (Cth)), and deposited its ratification on 23 September 2026. The treaty has been in force since 17 January 2026 and binds Australia from 23 October 2026, 30 days after its ratification.
• Whaling. Australia has consistently opposed commercial and "scientific" whaling in the IWC and brought Whaling in the Antarctic against Japan, winning in 2014. This is one of the clearest examples of Australia using international law to protect a global resource.

The ozone layer

Australia ratified the Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol and implemented them through the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989 (Cth), which licenses the import and manufacture of controlled substances and, since the Kigali Amendment (2016), phases down HFC imports. Australia has met its obligations, and this is an example of full, effective implementation.

Climate change: from Kyoto to Paris

Australia's response to international climate initiatives has changed with governments, which makes it a strong example of changing values and political will affecting the law.

The Pacific. Pacific Island states, which face existential threats from sea-level rise, have pressed Australia hard. Australia supported Vanuatu's General Assembly resolution requesting the ICJ advisory opinion (2023); in Daniel Billy v Australia (2022) the UN Human Rights Committee found Australia had breached Torres Strait Islanders' rights by failing to adapt to climate change; and the Falepili Union treaty with Tuvalu (in force 28 August 2024) created a climate mobility pathway for up to 280 Tuvaluans a year. Australia's bid to host COP31 with the Pacific led to the compromise under which Türkiye hosts and Australia leads the negotiations.

The contradiction: fossil fuel exports. Australia remains one of the world's largest exporters of coal and gas, and emissions from burning its exports are counted in other countries' inventories. The Government approved the North West Shelf gas project's extension to 2070 in September 2025 and has approved new and expanded coal mines. Courts have declined to require climate harm from exported coal to be weighed in EPBC decisions (Living Wonders, 2024). Critics, including Pacific leaders, argue this is inconsistent with the Paris 1.5°C goal, which the ICJ described in 2025 as the primary temperature goal, and with the ICJ's advice that a failure to protect the climate system, including through fossil fuel production and exploration licences, may be an internationally wrongful act.

Non-legal responses

• NGOs such as the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF-Australia, the Climate Council and the Australian Marine Conservation Society lobby the World Heritage Committee and government, and litigate.
• Media coverage of reef bleaching, bushfires and floods, and of Australia's reputation at COPs, shapes public values; climate policy was a major issue at the 2019 and 2022 federal elections.
• Business and investors increasingly support emissions reduction; mandatory climate-related financial disclosure for large entities began in 2025.
• Diplomacy. Australia's role at COP31 is a non-legal response that could shape the next round of international commitments.

Evaluating Australia's responses

Judgement. Australia's responses to international initiatives have been effective to a moderate extent. Where initiatives could be implemented through the external affairs power without threatening major economic interests, such as World Heritage, Ramsar, the ozone treaties, whaling and the high seas, Australia has often been a leader and has turned its commitments into enforceable domestic law. Its response to climate change, the most important initiative, has been slower and less consistent, shaped by its dependence on coal and gas: stronger legislated targets since 2022 and its role at COP31 show real progress, but continuing approvals of long-life fossil fuel projects mean its actions do not yet match the goal it has signed up to.

In one sentence

Australia has been a leader in implementing environmental initiatives that fit its interests, from World Heritage and Ramsar to the ozone treaties, whaling and the High Seas Treaty, but its response to climate change has been slow and politically unstable, and although it now has legislated targets, a 2035 target and a leading role at COP31, its continuing fossil fuel expansion limits how effective that response can be.

Try this

Q1. Outline Australia's response to the Kyoto Protocol. (4 marks)

• What the marker wants. The 108 per cent target, the refusal to ratify, ratification on 12 December 2007 and meeting its targets.

Q2. Explain how Australia has implemented its obligations under the World Heritage Convention. (6 marks)

• What the marker wants. The external affairs power and the Tasmanian Dam case, the EPBC Act, the Great Barrier Reef and Reef 2050, and the Committee's recent decisions.

Q3. To what extent has Australia's response to international climate initiatives been effective? (15 marks)

• What the marker wants. The history from Kyoto to the 2035 target, domestic law, COP31, fossil fuel approvals, and a sustained judgement.