Simplifying the Procedures Governing the Accession of a Party to Annex B to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) under the United Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded in June that the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Protocol (CMP) in December should "determine the necessity of simplifying existing procedures" for inscribing commitments for Annex 1 Parties in Annex B to the Protocol and "take appropriate action." This conclusion recalls the ongoing problem that the procedures for joining Annex 1 of the Convention and Annex B of the Protocol are very time-consuming and in practice prevent Parties from joining the respective annexes, which this paper illustrates by means of presenting the cases of Kazakhstan, Turkey, Belarus, and other countries. In the negotiating history of the Protocol, as well as in provisions from other regimes, examples of more accessible procedures can be found. They might be used to simplify the current procedures under the Protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]