University of Iceland · 2026
Does international climate law allow Cameroon to access and extract new fossil-fuel resources, given its immediate developmental needs and existing climate commitments?
Navigating the conflict between national resource governance and the Paris Agreement.
My LL.M. thesis asks whether international climate law still leaves room for a developing nation like Cameroon to extract new fossil-fuel resources - and finds that it does, but only under a regime of conditional permissibility.
This project investigates the legal scope of new fossil-fuel extraction in Cameroon under today's climate law, weighed against the country's developmental needs and its obligations under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. The question sits at the intersection of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, the right to develop, and the emerging obligations of climate due diligence.
It conducts a doctrinal legal analysis of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement and the relevant elements of customary international environmental law, concluding with the 2025 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on climate change. That framework is then applied to Cameroon's domestic regime - its Petroleum Code, energy legislation, environmental law and successive Nationally Determined Contributions.
The thesis finds that existing international climate law does not prohibit new fossil-fuel extraction by developing countries - but that such exploitation is no longer permitted without strings attached. A scheme of conditional permissibility now applies, grounded in heightened due diligence, the prevention of transboundary harm and alignment with national mitigation pathways, with the CBDR-RC principle calibrating obligations to a country's stage of development and capacity.
Cameroon therefore retains a legally and progressively limited right to use its fossil-fuel resources - provided extraction serves domestic energy access, forms part of a credible transition plan, or is financed and enabled through international climate finance and technology transfer. Absent fair international cooperation, an all-or-nothing rule on fossil-fuel expansion in Cameroon is neither legally required nor normatively viable.