This inquiry into the human rights dimensions of climate change identifies future perspectives, concerns and dilemmas for law and policy.

Do anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions affect human rights? Should fundamental rights constrain climate policies? Scientific evidence demonstrates that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions contribute to increasing atmospheric temperatures, soon passing the compromising threshold of 2° C. Consequences such as Typhoon Haiyan prove that climate alteration has the potential to significantly impair basic human needs. Although the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and human rights regulatory regimes have so far proceeded separately, awareness is arising about their reciprocal implications. Based on tripartite fundamental obligations, this volume explores the relationship between climate change and interdependent human rights, through the lens of an international and comparative perspective. Along the lines of the metaphor of the ‘wall’, the research ultimately investigates the possibility of overcoming the divide between universal rights and climate change, and underlying barriers. This book aims to be a useful resource not only for practitioners, policymakers, academics, and students in international, comparative, environmental law and politics and human rights, but also for the wider public.

This Study explores arguments about the impact of climate change on human rights, examining the international legal frameworks governing human rights and climate change and identifying the relevant synergies and tensions between them. It considers arguments about (i) the human rights impacts of climate change at a macro level and how these impacts are spread disparately across countries; (ii) how climate change impacts human rights enjoyment within states and the equity and discrimination dimensions of those disparate impacts; and (iii) the role of international legal frameworks and mechanisms, including human rights instruments, particularly in the context of supporting developing countries’ adaptation efforts. The Study surveys the interface of human rights and climate change from the perspective of public international law. It builds upon the work that has been carried out on this interface by reviewing the legal issues it raises and complementing existing analyses by providing a comprehensive legal overview of the area and a focus on obligations upon States and other actors connected with climate change. The objective has therefore been to contribute to the global debate on climate change and human rights by offering a review of the legal dimensions of this interface as well as a survey of the sources of public international law potentially relevant to climate change and human rights in order to facilitate an understanding of what is meant, in legal terms, by “human rights impacts of climate change” and help identify ways in which international law can respond to this interaction.

This book examines the current status of environmental human rights at the international, regional, and national levels and provides a critical analysis of possible future developments in this area, particularly in the context of a changing climate. It examines various conceptualisations of environmental human rights, including procedural rights relating to the environment, constitutional environmental rights, the environmental dimensions of existing human rights such as the rights to water, health, food, housing and life, and the notion of a stand-alone human right to a healthy environment. The book addresses the topic from a variety of perspectives, drawing on underlying theories of human rights as well as a range of legal, political, and pragmatic considerations. It examines the scope of current human rights, particularly those enshrined in international and regional human rights law, to explore their application and enforceability in relation to environmental problems, identifying potential barriers to more effective implementation. It also analyses the rationale for constitutional recognition of environmental rights and considers the impact that this area of law has had, both in terms of achieving stronger environmental protection and environmental justice, as well as in influencing the development of human rights law more generally. The book identifies climate change as the key environmental challenge facing the global community, as well as a major cause of negative human rights impacts. It examines the contribution that environmental human rights might make to rights-based approaches to climate change.

Climate Change already having serious impacts on the lives of millions of people across the world. These impacts are not only ecological, but also social, economic and legal. Among the most significant of such impacts is climate change-induced migration. The implications of this on human rights raise pressing questions, which require serious scholarly reflection. Drawing together experts in this field, Climate Change, Migration and Human Rights offers a fresh perspective on human rights law and policy issues in the climate change regime by examining the interrelationships between various aspects of human rights, climate change and migration. Three key themes are explored: understanding the concepts of human dignity, human rights and human security; the theoretical nexus between human rights, climate change and migration or displacement; and the practical implications and challenges for lawyers and policy-makers of protecting human dignity in the face of climate change and displacement. The book also includes a series of case studies from Alaska, Bangladesh, Kenya and the Pacific islands which aim to improve our understanding of the theoretical and practical implications of climate change for human rights and migration. This book will be of great interest to scholars of environmental law and policy, human rights law, climate change, and migration and refugee studies.

Despite the clear link between climate change and human rights with the potential for virtually all protected rights to be undermined as a result of climate change, its catastrophic impact on human beings was not really understood as a human rights issue until recently. This book examines the link between climate change and human rights in a comprehensive manner. It looks at human rights approaches to climate change, including the jurisprudential bases for human rights and the environment, the theoretical framework governing human rights and the environment, and the different approaches to this including benchmarks. In addition to a discussion of human rights implications of international environmental law principles in the climate change regime, the book explores how the human rights framework can be used in relation to mitigation, adaption, and adjudication. Other chapters examine how vulnerable groups –women, indigenous peoples and climate "refugees" – would be disproportionately affected by climate change. The book then goes on to discuss a new category of people created by climate change, those who will be rendered stateless as a result of states disappearing and displaced by climate change, and whether human rights law can adequately address these emerging issues.

The last decade has witnessed an increasing focus on the relationship between climate change and human rights. Several international human rights bodies have expressed concern about the negative implications of climate change for the enjoyment of human rights, and the Paris Agreement is the first multilateral climate agreement to refer explicitly to states' human rights obligations in connection with climate change. Yet despite this, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the role of international human rights law in enhancing accountability for climate action or inaction. As the Paris Agreement has shifted the focus of the climate change regime towards voluntary action, and the humanitarian impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt around the world, accountability for climate change has become an increasingly salient issue. This book offers a timely and comprehensive analysis of the legal issues related to accountability for the human rights impact of climate change, drawing on the state responsibility regime. It explains when and where state action relating to climate change may amount to a violation of human rights, and evaluates various avenues of legal redress available to victims. The overall analysis offers a perceptive insight into the potential of innovative rights-based climate actions to shape climate and energy policies around the world.

This book shows that escalating climate destruction today is not the product of public indifference, but of the blocked democratic freedoms of peoples across the world to resist unwanted degrees of capitalist interference with their ecological fate or capacity to change the course of ecological disaster. The author assesses how this state of affairs might be reversed and the societal relevance of universal human rights rejuvenated. It explores how freedom from want, war, persecution and fear of ecological catastrophe might be better secured in the future through a democratic reorganization of procedures of natural resource management and problem resolution amongst self-determining communities. It looks at how increasing human vulnerability to climate destruction forms the basis of a new peoples-powered demand for greater climate justice, as well as a global movement for preventative action and reflexive societal learning.

This book considers and clarifies many different facets of the international human right to a healthy environment.