Projects and Themes > Cross-Cutting Issues > Environment > Climate change and human rights

Status: Published

Climate change and human rights (2008)

Introduction

What are the human rights implications of climate change? From new health risks, such as the increased incidence of malaria, to mass migration, to threatened food and water supplies, to the disappearance of shelter, land, livelihoods and cultures, climate change creates human rights concerns at every turn. Yet remarkably little study to date has focused systematically on their interconnection.

This situation is unlikely to last. As the effects of climate change become increasingly apparent, those affected will turn to human rights to frame their claims and to demand responses. Some are already doing so. And as consensus on the need for urgent action to address global warming grows, it will drive numerous other economic, political and social agendas − with further human rights implications.

Human rights are not merely relevant to climate change impacts, however. Mitigation and adaptation strategies each open up hard human rights questions: assigning accountability for extraterritorial harms; allocating burdens and benefits, rights and duties among perpetrators and victims, both public and private; constructing reliable enforcement mechanisms. Human rights advocates will be forced to look hard at large justice issues they can usually set aside.

In thinking through these connections, foresight but also caution will be needed. Human rights can seem intellectually invasive; a tendency to think in moral absolutes can cloud rather than clarify complex issues. Human rights lawyers are not known for seeking consensus or conciliation, both generally thought critical to the negotiation of policies that can successfully address climate change. At the same time, profound justice claims have been raised repeatedly in the course of climate change negotiations only to be finally neglected or removed.

The Council commenced research on this subject in 2007, in order to help orient human rights thinking about climate change and to frame the relevant issues clearly. Our aim has been to identify, on one hand, whether human rights principles, law and policy are equipped for the immense problems generated by global warming and, on the other, how human rights tools can aid in constructing a just regime to manage and mitigate climate change effects.

In June 2008, the Council published a report mapping the principal areas of human rights concern raised by climate change and exploring some of the possible benefits and dangers of adopting human rights tools and principles in the climate change domain (available here).

In mid-2009, a collection of articles on climate change and human rights was published by the Council together with Cambridge University Press. The first collection to deal systematically with these issues, the book features a group of well-known experts on a range of related themes.

The Council has further undertaken research into the human rights dimensions of climate technology policies. This research will lead to a series of short briefing papers and recommendations through 2009, culminating in a full report in 2010.

Research team

Biographical affiliation was accurate when research took place.

Research director

Advisors

Simon Caney, Professor in Political Theory, Oxford University; Fellow and Tutor in Politics, Magdalen College. Publications include: Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory; Human Rights and Global Diversity, co-edited with Peter Jones; National Rights, International Obligations, co-edited with David George and Peter Jones. Prof. Caney is currently writing Global Justice and Climate Change with Dr Derek Bell.

Stefanie Grant, A lawyer specialising in issues relating to migration, nationality and refugees. She is a Board Member of ICHRP, of AMERA UK, and of Independent Diplomat.

Peter Newell, Professor of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia and James Martin Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment. He sits on the Board of One World Trust. He is author of Climate for Change: Non-State Actors and the Global Politics of the Greenhouse, co-author of The Effectiveness of EU Environmental Policy, and co-editor of Development and the Challenge of Globalisation, The Business of Global Environmental Governance and Rights, Resources and the Politics of Accountability.

Dinah Shelton, Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School. She is the author of three prize-winning books, Protecting Human Rights in the Americas (co-authored with Thomas Buergenthal), Remedies in International Human Rights Law and the three volume Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. She is a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and is a counsellor to the American Society of International Law. Professor Shelton also serves on the boards of many human rights and environmental organisations. She has also served as a legal consultant to UNEP, UNITAR, WHO, the EU, Council of Europe and the OAS.

Youba Sokona, Executive Secretary of the Observatory of the Sahara and the Sahel (OSS). He is on the boards of a number of organisations active in climate change, including the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and acted as Adviser to the Club of Madrid’s Global Leadership on Climate Action.

Daniel Taillant, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA), a non-profit group in Argentina.

Documents

Funders

Bibliography

Agarwal, Anil, and Sunita Narain. Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism. Centre for Science and Environment, 1991.

Alston, Philip, ed. Peoples’ Rights. Oxford University Press, 2001.

—. “People’s Rights: Their Rise and Fall.” In Peoples’ Rights, edited by Philip Alston. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Amnesty International. Clouds of Injustice: Bhopal Disaster 20 Years On. Amnesty International, 2004.

Andreassen, Bård A., and Stephen P. Marks, eds. Development as a Human Right: Legal, Political, and Economic Dimensions. Harvard University Press, 2006.

Baer, Paul, Tom Athanasiou, and Sivan Kartha. The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World. Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2007.

Bekker, Pieter H. F. “Corporate Aiding and Abetting and Conspiracy Liability under International Law.” In From Government to Governance, 2003 Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law, edited by Wybo P. Heere. T.M.C. Asser Press, 2004.

Biniaz, Susan. “Common but Differentiated Responsibilities.” American Society of International Law Proceedings 96 (2002): 358-368.

Bodansky, Dan, Jutta Brunnée, and Ellen Hey. The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Broder, John M., and Felicity Barringer. “E.P.A. Says 17 States Can’t Set Emission Rules for Cars.” The New York Times¬, 20 December 2007.

Brooks, Nick, W. Neil Adger, and P. Mick Kelly. “The Determinants of Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity at the National Level and the Implications for Adaptation.” Global Environmental Change 15, no. 2 (2005): 151–163.

Brown-Weiss, Edith. In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity. Transnational Publishers, 1989.

Burns, William C. G. “Potential Causes of Action for Climate Change Damages in International Fora: The Law of the Sea Convention.” International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy 2, no. 1 (2006): 27-51.

Caney, Simon. “Climate Change and Injustice: A Human Rights Perspective.” Journal of Global Ethics (forthcoming, 2008).

—. “Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility and Global Climate Change.” Leiden Journal of International Law 18 (2005): 747–775.

—. “Global Justice, Rights and Climate Change.” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 18, no. 2 (2006): 255-278.

Clapham, Andrew. Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Cosbey, Aaron. “The Kyoto Protocol and the WTO: Seminar Note.” IISD, 2007.

Craven, Matthew. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Perspective on Its Development. Clarendon Press, 1998.

Dellapenna, Joseph. Suing Foreign Governments and their Corporations. The Bureau of National Affairs, 1988.

Donnelly, Jack. “The ‘Right to Development’: How Not to Link Human Rights and Development.” In Human Rights and Development in Africa, edited by Claude Welch and Ronald Meltzer. SUNY Press, 1984.

Dufey, Anne. “International trade in biofuels: Good for development? And good for environment?” IIED, 2007.

European Commission. The EU in the World: the Foreign Policy of the European Union. European Commission, 2007.

Fitzmaurice, Malgosia. “Case Study: Wiwa and Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading Company before the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the Aliens Tort Claims Act and the Doctrine of forum non conveniens).” In From Government to Governance, 2003 Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law, edited by Wybo P. Heere. T.M.C. Asser Press, 2004.

Franck, Thomas. Fairness in International Law and Institutions. Clarendon Press, 1995.

German Advisory Council on Global Change. Climate Change as a Security Risk. Earthscan, 2008.

Ghai, Yash. Whose Human Right to Development? Commonwealth Secretariat Series of Occasional Papers on the Right to Development, 1989.

Global Subsidies Initiative. “Biofuels – At What Cost? Government Support for Ethanol and Biodiesel in the European Union.” IISD, 2007.

Guèye, Cheikh, Abdou Salam Fall, and Serigne Mansour Tall. “Climatic perturbation and urbanization in Senegal.” The Geographical Journal 173, no. 1 (2007): 88–92.

Gupta, Joyeeta. “Legal Steps outside the Climate Convention: Litigation as a Tool to Address Climate Change.” Review of European Community & International Environmental Law (RECIEL) 16, no. 1 (2007): 76–86.

Hansen, James, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer, and James C. Zachos, “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” (2008). Available here.

Heere, Wybo P., ed. From Government to Governance, 2003 Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law. T.M.C. Asser Press, 2004.

Holmes, Stephen, and Cass Sunstein. The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes. Norton & Co., 1999.

Howse, Robert. “The Appellate Body Rulings in the Shrimp/Turtle Case: A New Legal Baseline for the Trade and Environment Debate.” Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 27, no. 2 (2002): 491-521.

IASC. Protecting Persons Affected by Natural Disasters: IASC Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters. Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, 2006.

Interactions between Global Change and Human Health. Vatican City: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 106 (2006).

International Council on Human Rights Policy. Beyond Voluntarism: Human Rights and the Developing International Legal Obligations of Companies. ICHRP, 2002.

—. Duties sans Frontières: Human Rights and Global Social Justice. ICHRP, 2003.

IOM. Migration and Climate Change. IOM Migration Research Series no. 31, 2008.

IPCC. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

—. Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

—. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

—. Technical Summary: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

—. Technical Summary: Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

IUCN. “Gender Aspects of Climate Change.” 2007. Available here.

—. Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Climate Change. Issue Paper, March 2008.

Kamminga, Menno T., and Samin Zia-Zarifi. Liability of Multinational Corporations under International Law. Kluwer Law International, 2000.

Kiss, Alexander, and Dinah L. Shelton. “Strict Liability in International Environmental Law.” Copy on file with ICHRP, 2007.

Lohmann, Larry. Carbon Trading. Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, 2006.

Mace, M. J. “Funding for Adaptation to Climate Change: UNFCCC and GEF Developments Since COP-7.” Review of European Community and International Environmental Law (RECIEL) 14, no. 3 (2005): 225-246.

Mank, Bradford. “Standing and Global Warming: Is Injury to All Injury to None?” Environmental Law 35, no. 1 (2005): 1-84.

Margot E. Salomon. “Towards a Just Institutional Order: A Commentary on the First Session of the UN Task Force on the Right to Development.” Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 23, no. 3 (2005): 409-438.

McCarthy, James J. Osvaldo F. Canziani, Neil A. Leary, David J. Dokken, and Kasey S. White, eds. Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

McGray, Heather, Anne Hammill, Rob Bradley with Lisa Schipper, and Jo-Ellen Parry. Weathering the Storm: Options for Framing Adaptation and Development. World Resources Institute, 2007.

Müller, Benito. “Climate of Distrust: The 2006 Bonn Climate Change Adaptation Fund Negotiations.” Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 2006.

—. “The Nairobi Climate Change Conference: A Breakthrough for Adaptation Funding.” OIES Working Paper, 2007.

New Economics Foundation. Free Riding on the Climate: The Possibility of Legal, Economic and Trade Restrictive Measures to Tackle Inaction on Global Warming. New Economics Foundation, 2003.

Nollkaemper, Andre. “Translating Public International Law into Corporate Liability.” In From Government to Governance, 2003 Hague Joint Conference on Contemporary Issues of International Law, edited by Wybo P. Heere. T.M.C. Asser Press, 2004.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy State and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974.

OHCHR. Human rights in the administration of justice: a manual on human rights for judges, prosecutors and lawyers. United Nations, 2003. Available here.

Okamatsu, Akiko. “Problems and Prospects of International Legal Disputes on Climate Change.” (2006). Available here.

Open Society Justice Initiative. Legal Remedies for the Resource Curse. Open Society Institute, 2006.

Orford, Anne. “Globalization and the Right to Development.” In Peoples’ Rights, edited by Philip Alston. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Oxfam International. “Adapting to Climate Change: What’s Needed in Poor Countries and Who Should Pay.” Oxfam, Briefing Paper 104 (2007).

Posner, Eric A., and Cass R. Sunstein. “Climate Change Justice.” University of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper no. 354 (2007).

Price, Tom. “The Canary is Drowning: Tiny Tuvalu Fights Back against Climate Change.” Global Policy Forum, 3 December 2002.

Provost, René. State Responsibility in International Law. Ashgate, 2002.

Rajamani, Lavanya. Differential Treatment in International Environmental Law. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Ralston, Holley, Britta Horstmann, and Carina Holl. Climate Change Challenges Tuvalu. Germanwatch, 2004.

Ramasastry, Anita, and Robert C. Thompson. Commerce, Crime and Conflict: Legal Remedies for Private Sector Liability for Grave Breaches of International Law. Fafo, 2006.

Ribot, Jesse. “The Causal Structure of Vulnerability: Its Application to Climate Impact Analysis.” GeoJournal 35 (1995): 119–122.

Rinnerberger, Nina. “Drowning Islands: Social Justice through Litigation?” (2006). Available here.

Robb, Cairo A. R., ed. International Environmental Law Reports Vol. 3, Human Rights and Environment. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Robinson, Mary. Poverty and Racism: The Challenge for Human Rights and Development in Africa. Keynote address by High Commissioner for Human Rights. Celebration of Human Rights Day, 10 December 2001.

Rosenthal, Elisabeth. “As Earth Warms Up, Tropical Virus Moves to Italy.” The New York Times, 23 December 2007.

—. “New Trend in Biofuels Has New Risks.” The New York Times, 21 May 2008.

Sachs, Wolfgang. “Climate Change and Human Rights.” In Interactions between Global Change and Human Health, Vatican City: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 106 (2006).

Salomon, Margot E. “Towards a just institutional order : a commentary on the first session of the UN Task Force on the right to development.” Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 23, no. 3 (2005): 409-438.

Sands, Philippe. Principles of International Environmental Law. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Shelton, Dinah. “Describing the Elephant, International Justice and Environmental Law.” Copy on file with ICHRP, 2007.

—. “Environmental Rights.” In Peoples’ Rights, edited by Philip Alston. Oxford University Press, 2001.

—. “Equity.” In The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law, edited by Dan Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée, and Ellen Hey. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Shue, Henry. “Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions.” Law & Policy 15, no. 1(1993): 39–59.

Simms, Andrew, Victoria Johnson, and Joe Smith. Chinadependence: The Second UK Interdependence Report. New Economics Foundation, 2007.

Smit, B., and O. Pilifosova. “Adaptation to Climate Change in the Context of Sustainable Development and Equity.” Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by James. J. McCarthy et al. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Stiglitz, Joseph. “A New Agenda for Global Warming.” The Economists’ Voice 3, no. 7, article 3 (2006).

Stern, Nicholas. Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. HM Treasury. Office of Climate Change (Prepublication), 2006.

Tan, Celine. “Mandating Rights and Limiting Mission Creep: Holding the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Accountable for Human Rights Violations.” Human Rights and International Legal Discourse 2, no.1 (2008a): 79-116.

—. “No Additionality, New Conditionality: A Critique of the World Bank’s Proposed Climate Investment Funds.” Third World Network Briefing Paper no. 5 (March 31, 2008b).

UNDP. Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World. UNDP, 2007.

Van Dijk, Pieter, Fried van Hoof, Arjen van Rijn, and Leo Zwaak, eds. Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights. Intersentia, 2006.

Wallace, Perry. “Global Climate Change and the Challenge to Modern American Corporate Governance.” SMU Law Review 55, no. 2 (2002): 493-518.

Weisslitz, Micheal. “Rethinking the Equitable Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility.” Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law & Policy 13, no. 2 (2002): 473-510.

Welch, Claude and Ronald Meltzer, eds. Human Rights and Development in Africa. SUNY Press, 1984.

World Bank. A Revised Forest Strategy for the World Bank Group. World Bank, 2002.

“This report is the first systematic treatment of [this subject]. It is at the same time a concise
and lucid analysis of the social, economic, legal and ethical impact of expected climate changes.
It should be of interest to specialists and generalists alike.” Dharam Ghai, Former Director, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development

“Excellent.” Tariq Banuri, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Environmental Institute

“Very good … an important contribution to the human rights-climate change dialogue, not least
in how it sets out a pragmatic agenda that can be addressed by countries.” John Drexhage, Director, Climate Change and Energy Program, IISD