1

This is a draft chapter that has been accepted for publication by Edward Elgar Publishing in the

forthcoming book The Climate Law Encyclopedia edited by Daniel Farber and Marjan Peeters

due to be published in 2016

Human Rights and Climate Change: Building Synergies for a Common Future

Sheila R. Foster, Paolo Galizzi

Abstract

Human rights exist only on the margins of the existing international climate change regime.

Undoubtedly, bringing a human rights framework to international efforts can help to solidify the

ethical moorings needed to compel meaningful action to address climate change. However, while

advocates of a rights-based approach to climate change agree that human rights principles should

underpin global climate change policies, there are many variations in how human rights may be

defined, justified, and brought to bear in the climate change arena. This chapter reviews several

leading approaches and proposals for strengthening the connection between climate change and

human rights. Each approach presents innovative options for marshaling human rights as both a

rhetorical tool to help promote the achievement of a global climate change agreement, and also

to influence the negotiation and content of a strong, effective, and equitable framework.

Nevertheless, it remains a research challenge how to integrate human rights norms into an

international climate change regime.

Keywords

Human rights, vulnerable populations, right to health, right to life, stable climate, subsistence

emissions.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. The international climate change regime: human rights on the margins

2

3. Anthropogenic climate change violates several basic human rights

4. The use of human rights litigation to address climate change

5. The human right to a stable climate

6. The human right to subsistence emissions

7. Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Introduction

Given that climate change is one of the most complex and serious challenges facing

human kind, with particularly dire consequences predicted to fall on socially and economically

vulnerable populations, it is important that we not pursue climate change mitigation or adaptation

efforts as if they are insular or separate from people’s daily lives and livelihoods. Bringing a

human rights framework to international efforts to address climate change has the potential to be

responsive to the impacts that climate change will have on human life and on the people and

countries with the fewest and most fragile resources. There is already a vast literature examining

climate change law and more specifically the link between climate change and human rights; an

overview is presented in the bibliography at the end of this chapter.

Following a brief overview of the international climate change regime and its relationship

to human rights, in which we argue that human rights exists only on the margins of the existing

regime, this chapter reviews several leading approaches and proposals for strengthening this vital

link. In particular, we focus on the following approaches and the critiques and research questions

they raise:

Anthropogenic climate change violates several basic human rights;

The use of human rights litigation to address climate change;

The right to a stable climate; and

The right to subsistence emissions.

3

As we shall see, all four approaches present innovative options for marshaling human

rights as a powerful rhetorical tool for promoting the need for a global climate change

agreement, and also for influencing the negotiation and content of a strong, effective, and

equitable framework.

Three issues closely connected with the discussion on human rights and climate will not

be addressed in this chapter as they are examined specifically in further chapters in this volume:

indigenous peoples, displaced peoples and environmental justice.1

2. The International Climate Change Regime: Human Rights on the Margins

In spite of climate change’s far reaching consequences for the protection and realization

of fundamental human rights, human rights considerations have received little attention in the

international climate change regime. While some may perceive glimmers of a rights-based

approach in the international environmental law principles of common but differentiated

responsibility and sustainable development, around which the climate regime centers, neither the

1992 United Nations Convention on Climate Change nor its 1997 Kyoto Protocol contain any

reference to human rights or their relationship to climate change. Instead, the international

climate change framework is drawn, almost exclusively, from the principles and tools of

international environmental law.

Although the human consequences of inaction are the core concern that draws the global

community to the climate change negotiations, the response has centered on market-based

regulatory approaches borrowed from international environmental law. Emissions trading

measures have worked for some environmental issues, like acid rain and ozone depletion, and

may be effective at reducing overall emissions levels of greenhouse gases. However, applied to

the international level, emissions trading raises questions of distributional equity and justice,

among other ethical questions.2 Critics of carbon trading complain that carbon offsets and other

flexibility mechanisms, such as the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM), are

inadequate to further emission reduction goals and may impose unfair burdens on vulnerable

1 See infra Chapters 51, 54 and 55. 2 Caney and Hepburn (2011)

4

peoples. 3 The sustainable development guidelines, environmental impact assessments, and

emissions reduction projects that the CDM has produced – all developed without any

requirements of public notice or participation, social impact analysis, or reference to

internationally agreed standards – have disappointed hopes that the CDM would deliver truly

sustainable and equitable development for participating host countries.

As the international climate change regime has foundered, advocates have turned to the

international human rights framework. In 2007, the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS)

– one of the main negotiating blocks in the international climate change regime, many of whose

members were already experiencing worrisome rises in sea levels – issued the Male’ Declaration

on the Human Dimension of Global Climate Change,4 which requested inter alia that the UN

High Commissioner for Human Rights conduct a detailed study on climate change’s impacts on

the full enjoyment of human rights. The following March, the UN Human Rights Council

(UNHRC) passed a resolution5 requesting that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human

Rights (OHCHR) conduct a detailed study and the OHCHR report was issued in 2009,

documenting climate change’s potential implications for the full range of human rights.6 The

UNHRC has since passed further resolutions,7 and convened dialogues on the potential for

human rights principles, standards and obligations to inform and strengthen the international

response to climate change.8

Looking ahead, however, mutual nods between the international climate and human

rights regimes will not be enough. Instead, the international climate change response must be

transformed from the flagging, outmatched international environmental law scheme we have

today, into a powerful, multi-disciplinary regime that blends economic and community

development and environmental and infrastructure planning9 into a cohesive, holistic blueprint

3 Caney (2010a) 4 The Declaration is available at http://www.ciel.org/Publications/Male_Declaration_Nov07.pdf

5 Res. 7/23, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/climatechange/docs/Resolution_7_23.pdf

6 A/HRC/10/61 (Jan 15, 2009), available at http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/alldocs.aspx?doc_id=14880; See also

Knox (2009).

7Available at http://ap.ohchr.org/Documents/E/HRC/resolutions/A_HRC_RES_10_4.pdf

8 Available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/HRAndClimateChange/Pages/HRClimateChangeIndex.aspx

9 Gruskin and Madhury ( 2014).

5

for a new world. Marshalling the moral, political and institutional weight of the international

human rights discourse would solidify the ethical moorings needed to compel meaningful

action.10

Climate change is a truly global issue that requires international cooperation;11 however,

there is no one-size-fits-all combination of alternative energy sources and adaptation measures

that will work for every country or community. Similarly, while advocates of a rights-based

approach to climate change agree that human rights principles should underpin global climate

change policies, there are many variations in how human rights may be defined, justified, and

brought to bear in the climate change arena. In the next four sections, we examine four

compelling narratives from the recent literature and developments on the connection between

climate change and human rights.

3. Anthropogenic climate change violates several basic human rights

In its 2011 resolution on human rights and climate change, the UNHRC warns that

climate change “poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around

the world and has adverse implications for the full enjoyment of human rights.”12 In so far as

climate change may jeopardize or interfere with widely recognized rights, it may be said to

constitute a human rights violation. The most well-known proponent of this argument is Simon

Caney, who focuses on three of the most basic, fundamental human rights, in their negative

aspect: The rights to life, health and subsistence. By focusing on the least contentious, most

modest conceptions of these basic rights, Caney aims to show that even the most minimal

formulations are violated by climate change.13

A. The right to life

10 Hall and Weiss (2012), Stillings (2014), Pedersen (2011).

11 Boisson de Chazournes (2014).

12 A/HRC/RES/18/22, at 3 (Oct 17, 2011), available at http://daccess-dds-

ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/G11/167/48/PDF/G1116748.pdf?OpenElement

13 Caney (2010b).

6

All persons have a human right not to be arbitrarily deprived of life. Climate change can

violate the human right to life in at least two ways: First, climate change increases the frequency

and severity of extreme weather events – such as tornadoes, storm surges, flooding, and

landslides – which can lead to the death of individuals. Second, heat waves and other extreme

weather events caused by climate change can also result in the destruction of entire communities,

such as small island states, and the loss of life on a large scale.

B. The right to health

All persons have a human right that other people do not act so as to create serious threats to

their health. Just as extreme weather events linked to climate change threaten the right to life, so

too may they violate the right to health where heat waves, storms, fires, droughts and the like

increase the number of people suffering from disease or injuries. Changes in climate, such as

warmer temperatures, humidity, and sea level rise, can increase infectious diseases, such as

malaria, diarrheal illnesses, and dengue fever. Climate change can also cause increases in

ground-level ozone, which is linked to increased cardio-respiratory disease.

C. The right to subsistence

All persons have a human right that other people do not act so as to deprive them of the

means of subsistence. Climate change threatens this right in at least four distinct ways: (1) Rising

temperatures may lead to drought and decreased food security; (2) sea-level rise may decrease

agricultural crop production by saltwater intrusion and inundation; (3) Flooding can also cause

crop failure; (4) extreme weather events may also destroy crops.

The chief difficulty with Caney’s argument is identifying who is guilty of the rights

violation. Anthropogenic climate change is caused by billions of actions that, on their own, are

potentially harmless; it is only in the aggregate that the resulting emissions are harmful, so the

questions of whose emissions are problematic, and who is, therefore, responsible for the resulting

rights violations, is hard to specify. Further consideration is needed to determine the

specification and distribution of the duty to avoid causing human rights-threatening climate

7

change. A related challenge is ensuring that the duty imposed as a means of effectuating the right

does not impose costs that are far out of proportion to the harm that it is designed to mitigate.

4. The use of human rights litigation to address climate change

With its foundation grounded in the value and dignity of humanity, human rights law

carries great moral weight and authority, and wields relatively robust mechanisms for the

vindication of recognized rights. As a result, environmental activists have, at times, tried to

access the human rights system to promote environmental protection. The European Court of

Human Rights (ECHR) first recognized state obligations with respect to the environment in a

1994 case in which a waste water treatment plant presented a nuisance and caused serious health

problems to nearby residents;14 and then again in 2004, when a methane gas explosion claimed

the lives of thirty-nine residents of a nearby slum.15 In the first case, the ECHR held that severe

environmental pollution may affect an individual’s well-being and prevent the use and

enjoyment of one’s home to a degree that may affect private and family life,16 and that the state

has a positive duty to protect those rights.17 In the second case, the facts showed that the local

city council had been warned of the risk of a methane explosion but failed to notify the slum

residents. The Court found a violation of the right to life because, even though the state is not

obliged to take action in relation to every presumed threat to life, where a state knows or should

know of a real and immediate risk to life, it has a positive obligation to act.18 In subsequent

cases, the Court has repeatedly affirmed that human rights obligations include the right to be free

14 Case of Lopez Ostra v. Spain, Application no. 16798/90 [1994] ECHR 46 (9 December 1994), available at

http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-57905.

15 Case of Oneryildiz v. Turkey, Application no. 48939/99 [2004] ECHR 657 (30 November 2004), available at

http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-67614.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

8

from unacceptable risks to human lives and human health resulting from environmental

degradation and pollution.19

Climate change arguably poses similar risks to human rights. Although there are

challenges in litigating climate change impacts before human rights bodies, the mere act of filing

suit draws attention to human suffering, humanizing climate change and potentially influencing

international relations and diplomacy.20 One of the first concrete actions to explicitly link climate

change and human rights was a petition submitted to the Inter American Commission on Human

Rights (IACHR) in 2005, by members of the Inuit community of the Arctic regions of the United

States and Canada.21 The petition alleged, inter alia, that the United States, at that time the

largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, was contributing to climate change and,

thereby, violating the Inuit’s human rights by threatening their cultural identity, livelihood and

spiritual life. Petitioners claimed that the Arctic region was undergoing intense climate change;

specifically, temperature increases that were thinning the ice, threatening key species, and

shortening the freeze periods on which the Inuit depend for hunting, harvesting, communication

and trade.22 As a result, the Inuit petition alleged violations of the rights to the benefits of culture,

property, preservation of health, life, physical integrity, security and a means of subsistence, and

to residence, movement, and inviolability of the home.23 The Inuit petitioners also alleged a

violation of their fundamental right to use and enjoy their traditional lands.24

The IACHR declined to proceed with the petition at that time,25 although it subsequently

invited the petitioners to provide testimony on the negative impact of global warming on the

19 Fadayeva v Russia, Case No. 55723/00, 2005-IV ECHR 16 (2005); Taskin and others v. Turkey, 2004-X ECHR

185 (2004); Tatar v. Romania, Application No. 67021/01 ECHR (27 Jam 2009)

20 Apattu (2014).

21 Petition to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights Seeking Relief from Violations Resulting from

Global Warming Caused by Acts and Omissions of the United States, available at

http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/library/legal_docs/petition-to-the-inter-american-commission-on-human-

rights-on-behalf-of-the-inuit-circumpolar-conference.pdf.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid, pp. 5-7.

24 Ibid, p. 5.

25 See “Inuit Petition Recasts Climate Change Debate,” THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW,

available at http://www.ciel.org/Climate_Change/Inuit.html.

9

human rights of the Inuit and other affected communities,26 and the IACHR has continued to

conduct periodic reviews on the human rights implications of climate change.27 More broadly,

the petition brought substantial attention and urgency to the international climate negotiations. It

introduced a moral element and humanized the global debate around climate change, catalyzing

the discussion of climate change as a matter of fundamental human rights.28

A similar case brought in the U.S., in which a native Alaskan village initiated a lawsuit

against several major oil, power and coal companies, seeking damages for the cost of relocating

their village, was appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court. 29 Although the Supreme Court

declined to review the decision,30 this case and the persistent wave of climate change liability

suits of which it is a part,31 are testing potential alternatives for using torts law to enforce a

rights-based approach to climate change, while keeping the issue at the fore of public debate and

consciousness. In the two sections that follow, we examine arguments in favor of the recognition

of new climate rights as human rights, which, if adopted, could be vindicated through

international human rights mechanisms and procedures.

5. The human right to a stable climate

In this section, we examine the claim that a human right to a stable climate may be

derived from the right to an adequate environment, which is most closely associated with

political scientist Steve Vanderheiden.32 Vanderheiden argues that a right to a stable climate

should be recognized as among the most basic human rights, in view of the serious threat that

climate change poses to the right to an adequate environment. The first step in our analysis is to

ascertain the status of the right to an adequate environment.

26 Ibid.

27 Wold (2013) p. 595.

28 Hohmann (2009), Harrington (2007), Gordon (2007).

29 Native Vill. of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., 696 F.3d 849 (9th Cir. 2012)

30 Ibid.

31 See Item 4, available at http://www.climatelawyers.com/post/2013/06/30/Top-6-at-12-Highlights-of-the-Top-

Climate-Change-Stories-in-the-First-Half-of-2013.aspx

32 Vanderheiden (2008); See also http://earthjustice.org/blog/2009-december/there-human-right-stable-climate;

http://ourchildrenstrust.org/.

10

The right to a clean environment is the first principle articulated in the 1972 Stockholm

Declaration, widely regarded as one of the founding documents of international environmental

law. It is, therefore, interesting to note that Principle 1 explicitly links human rights and

environmental protection: “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate

conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being,

and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and

future generations.”33 Although various phrasings of a right to environment – including right to

quality environment,34 right to healthy environment,35 and right to clean environment36 – appear

in several international 37 and regional 38 treaties, and national constitutions, 39 there remains

“some debate as to whether such a right exists, or is only emerging, under general international

law.”40

Of particular interest for our inquiry is those who argue that part of the recognition of an

explicit “right to a safe and healthy environment” includes the “moral obligation to protect these

people [like the Inuit] who have contributed little or nothing to global climate change.”41 This

argument is unique because of the focus on vulnerable populations who suffer the most but

contribute least to climate change. This is particularly true for climate-induced displacement of

33 Principal 1 of the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, available at

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=97&articleid=1503

34 May and Daly (2009).

35 Nuffer (2010).

36 Meinhard (2004).

37 Chapman (2010).

38 See Ibid. Chapman looks at the right to the environment in the context of regional systems and argues that the

African regional system is most friendly to human rights-climate change confrontations, as it uniquely recognizes a

right to environment and has found states in violation of their obligations on climate change. Id. See also African

(Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, adopted June 27, 1981, arts. 22, 24, available at

http://www.achpr.org/instruments/achpr/

39 Bratspies (2010). Bratspies examines the idea of a new human right to a healthy environment in the context of

existing domestic U.S. law and international law. She notes that there is no U.S. constitutional right to a healthy

environment, but that such a right may be recognized in some state constitutions and certain federal legislation. Ibid.

pp.659-62.

40 Atapattu (2008), Atapattu (2002), Knox (2009).

41 Nuffer (2010) p. 195.

11

small island states, as well as for those populations—the urban poor, the elderly, children,

traditional societies, agricultural workers and rural populations—expected to suffer

disproportionately many of the impacts of climate change. If we reframe the context of the

discussion to emphasize the moral issues implicated in the right to a safe environment, inevitably

climate justice issues come into play.

In addition to the question of whether the right to an adequate environment yet exists,

political theorist Derek Bell identifies three further critiques of Vanderheiden’s claim in a recent

analysis of human rights approaches to climate change.42 First, Bell scrutinizes the notion of a

stable environment, arguing that it needs more specification to account for adaptation-based

approaches to climate change as opposed to assuming that maintaining a stable climate is the

only option.43 Second, he argues that there are supply side concerns, in terms of the burden that

would be placed on the duty-bound to honor a right to a stable climate, because “a genuine right

must be one that can be ‘supplied’ without asking too much of others.”44 Bell submits that there

are four considerations that should determine whether a right to a stable climate asks too much of

others:

The character of the right: Only the negative version of the right is plausible, as a

positive right would create a duty to maintain stability “analogous to a duty to ensure

that there are no earthquakes or volcanic eruptions;”

The level of protection for the right (quoting Henry Shue): The protection of human

rights can “neither be ironclad nor include the prevention of every imaginable threat;”

The empirical facts: He asks “what would we, in fact, need to ask of others to protect

the right to a stable climate?”; and

42 Bell (2013).

43 Ibid. “Vanderheiden assumes that we must maintain a stable climate, but others argue that we can adapt to (at

least, some) climate change. We might maintain an environment adequate for health and well-being through actions

such as building better flood defences and introducing drought-resistant crops rather than maintaining a stable

climate.... One (partial) solution might be to argue for a right to a sufficiently stable climate, that is to say, one in

which climatic changes are not so severe that we cannot maintain an environment adequate for health and well-being

through adaptation.” Ibid.pp. 163-64.

44 Ibid. p.164.

12

What can legitimately be required of duty-bearers.45

Third, Bell argues that establishing a new right is unnecessary because the interests that he

seeks to protect through the recognition of a new right to a stable climate are, in fact, already

protected by existing human rights.46 Having acknowledged the advantages of establishing a new

right to a stable environment, Bell nonetheless concludes that the right to a sufficiently stable

climate may be best situated as a composite right derived from other established human rights,

such as the right to life and the right to health.47

6. The human right to subsistence emissions

Unlike the three preceding concepts, which focus on the threats that climate change may pose

to human rights, the fourth and final concept under review proposes the recognition of a right to

emit greenhouse gases. With all of the focus on the greenhouse gas emissions from power

generation, transportation, and other engines of the global economy, it is important to remember

that greenhouse gases are also the products of natural processes, such as breathing, digestion and

decomposition. A certain level of emissions is, therefore, inevitable and essential to human life,

and must be carved out of emission reduction targets and divided equally among all people,

giving rise to the claim that there is a human right to subsistence emissions.48

The claim that there is a human right to subsistence emissions is predicated upon two basic

assumptions: First, is the existence of a human right to subsistence; second, is that some level of

emissions is a necessary condition for satisfying the human right to subsistence." 49 This

argument analogizes life-sustaining greenhouse gas emissions to other essential items such as

food or shelter.50 In light of the atmosphere’s finite ability to absorb greenhouse gases, this right

could potentially form the basis of efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions beyond subsistence

levels, to preserve the atmosphere’s ability to absorb the subsistence emissions necessary for our

45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. p. 165. 48 Ibid. p. 167. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. p. 168.

13

survival.51 In theory, measures could be crafted to ensure that emissions caps would not hinder

the development of the world’s poorest nations that are currently emitting less than their fair

share of greenhouse gases: “The responsibility and capacities of nations can be quantified using

empirical data, and we can thus determine how to fund emissions reductions while yet taking

poorer individuals' right to develop or right to subsist seriously.”52

Critics of this proposal argue that, “it may be difficult to determine ‘what counts as a

‘subsistence emission’ because ‘there is nothing to stop some people claiming that almost any

emission is essential to their way of life.’”53 Additionally, the level of greenhouse gas emissions

that is necessary for subsistence may vary where subsistence needs can be met from non-carbon

sources.54 Critics also warn that recognition of a human right to subsistence emissions may only

reinforce the global dependency on carbon intensive energy.55 Labeling certain greenhouse gas

emissions as necessary may legitimize and lock-in fossil-fuel dependency, while doing little to

mitigate the problem of climate change. One possible alternative is to “derive a more general

human right to sufficient energy to meet our subsistence needs from the right to subsistence.”56

Even this alternative, however, puts the right to subsistence emissions in tension with the other

rights mentioned above: namely the right to a stable climate, to health and to life.

7. Conclusion

If we are to succeed in crafting an international climate change framework that will finally be

equal to the urgency and complexity of the challenge we face, human rights must be incorporated

as a cross-cutting issue at every level. Human rights has a key role to play as both a commanding

rhetorical tool for pushing for swift, aggressive action; and a guiding framework for the

negotiation and implementation of a new climate system. In particular, ensuring the rights to

information and participation will be essential to maximizing the local awareness and input

51 Odenbaugh (2010). 52 Ibid. p. 10. 53 Bell (2013) p.168. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid.

14

necessary to achieving real change. Integrating human rights throughout the regime will focus

the debate, foster consensus, and keep the emphasis where it belongs: On the most vulnerable.

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