Rights-based approaches to climate decision-making

Abstract

Since the mid-2000s, a growing number of governments, international bodies and experts, and courts have increasingly recognized the importance of a rights-based approach to climate decision-making. By focusing on the impacts of climate change on the rights of individuals, communities, and peoples, a human rights lens emphasizes the human dimensions of climate change, recognizes how forms of systemic discrimination engender and exacerbate vulnerability, and focuses attention on the implications of social and environmental justice for climate governance. Moreover, states and private actors’ human rights obligations and responsibilities have specific implications in relation to climate change. State and non-state actors are not only obliged to take effective mitigation and adaptation measures that respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, but they must also ensure that these measures do not in of themselves infringe human rights. Finally, rights-based approaches emphasize the importance of public participation, access to information, and access to justice in the development, implementation, and review of climate decisions. Despite its promise, the transformative potential of rights-based approaches for addressing climate change and delivering climate justice remains unrealized.