Abstract

Since the mid-2000s, numerous initiatives have drawn on human rights norms, arguments, and mechanisms to build legal and political support for combating climate change. NGOs have launched complaints before regional human rights bodies ¹ and initiated litigation in domestic courts. ² Indigenous Peoples have pressed their cases in multiple venues, such as the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, and the World Conservation Congress. ³ Governments, most notably those of small island states, have issued international declarations ⁴ and have requested that international bodies such as the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights initiate work on climate change issues. ⁵ Civil society actors and governments have also raised climate change matters in the context of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which has adopted several resolutions on the matter. ⁶ Finally, these civil society actors and states have pressed for the inclusion of human rights language in the international climate negotiations themselves, ⁷ securing such language in the preamble and operational provisions of several decisions, including the Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015. ⁸