Role of France in UN - Policies Making

France has always played a special role with regard to Human Rights. It inspired the Universal Declaration of 1948 and, today, continues to fight to ensure these rights are respected throughout the world, through its pivotal role within the Human Rights Council as well as through its actions in the Security Council. During the 1980s France initiated the right of humanitarian intervention, introduced by Bernard Kouchner and Mario Bettati, and promotes the notion of “Responsibility to Protect,” included in the 2005 World Summit Outcome. It also supports actions to combat impunity to prevent further abuses of power and helped establish the International Criminal Court; it was one of the first States to ratify the statute of this court.

With regard to the environment and climate change, France’s actions come within the framework of the European Union, which plays a leading role in mobilizing efforts and defining solutions. The European Union and France thus worked with the major CO2 emitters to ratify the Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997 and came into effect in 2005. This protocol aims to implement the Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted at the Rio Summit in 1992 and demands that developed countries reduce their CO2 emissions: by 8% for the period 2008-2012 compared to 1990 for the European Union. It was the first to introduce an emissions trading scheme for greenhouse gases in order to achieve this goal. The Brussels European Council meeting which took place on December 11 and 12, 2008, under the French presidency, adopted an action plan known as the “climate and energy package,” which sets even more ambitious objectives for the countries of the European Union, to be achieved by 2020: a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a 20% improvement in energy efficiency and 20% of the European Union’s energy consumption to be based on renewable energy. In addition, the 27 stated that if the other signatory countries of the Climate Convention increased their efforts to reduce emissions, then the European Union would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30%.