The Climate Crisis, is a Human Rights Crisis:
Will a Paradigm-Shift Lead to More Effective Safeguards against Human Rights Violations Caused by Climate Change?
The 21st informal ASEM Seminar on Human Rights (ASEMHR21) will be held in Luxembourg and virtually, from 16-18 March 2022. “Human Rights and Climate Change” is the theme of the Seminar, which will see representatives from academia, NGOs, and government agencies of ASEM Partner countries converge on one of the pressing issues confronting the collective – Climate Change – and how it intersects with Human Rights. While the environmental justice movement originating from the United States has had an illustrious history, raising awareness about the intertwined nature of the two issues, the international community has, until recently, viewed climate and human rights as being separate from one another.
In October 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) formally recognised “access to a healthy and sustainable environment” as universal human right, in what many have touted as the high of highs in the climate change movement, which continues to be met with scepticism and cynicism by “climate change doubters”. The significance of declaring a healthy environment as a basic human right should be underscored, owed largely to civil society movements, NGOs and officials who have been advocating since the 1970s. What was once solely a moral right, is now a legal right. Climate litigation has been gaining momentum as a means of enforcing individual’s rights against violations committed against them. In November, the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) held in Glasglow garnered arguably the greatest media and public interest, with states agreeing to “further cut emissions of carbon dioxide”, “phase down” the use of coal and, relevant to our purposes for the upcoming seminar, “to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change and make the switch to clean energy”.[1]
We have witnessed the gradual increase in momentum for the international climate action since the birth of the new millennium, with politicians and celebrities articulating the dangers of rising sea levels and dangerous levels of carbon emissions. Most recently, the Glasgow Climate summit saw the operationalisation of the Paris Agreement Rulebook, after countries were able to finalise the conditions of Article 6 of the Paris agreement which sets forth a framework for regulation of national and international carbon offset markets. Doubts persist however about the effectiveness of the new mechanisms, partly due the “Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)” under the Kyoto Protocol which did not enjoy a particularly respectable history. While the drafters of Article 6 have sought to improve upon CDMs with new Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes or ITMOs, many from civil society organisations have been vocal about the potential loopholes, the decision to allow countries to bring forwards what have carbon credits from the Kyoto Protocol era, and the insufficient attention extended to human rights. One could surmise that such a situation is merely reflective of the false dichotomy between climate change and human rights. In fact, the summit has been criticised for failing to extend invitations to non-governmental activists from environmental justice, indigenous and women’s rights organisations. One news report suggests, “about two-thirds of civil society organisations who usually send delegates to COP26 were not able to travel to Glasgow due to vaccination apartheids, travel rules and costs”.[2] The irony is not lost on anyone – those who will be most affected by unsustainable environments, continue to be marginalised because of limited resources afforded to them.
David R. Boyd, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment and environmental lawyer who will be speaking at this year’s Seminar, suggests human rights as a “catalyst” for bringing about “rapid, systemic and transformative changes.” Now that a healthy environment is recognised as a fundamental human right, as opposed to just a motherhood statement, what are the legal ramifications for violators? Climate litigation is one answer to this, with increasing cases of private individuals and NGOs filing civil suits against corporations and governments, whereby the cumulative number of climate-change related cases has more than doubled since 2015. Litigation is but one of several other mechanisms that will be explored at ASEMHR21, which endeavours to not only enhance the understanding of the reciprocal nature of human rights and environmental issues at a theoretical level, but also to develop recommendations that will strengthen crucial mechanisms capable of affecting substantive change.
A lesser discussed or acknowledged aspect of climate change is the extent of human displacement, that spills into the millions. As Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and another esteemed speaker at this year’s Seminar highlights, “26 million people are displaced annually as a direct result of climate change” accompanied by loss of employment and income, which is then compounded by the violation of “social, economic, cultural […] and sometimes political and civil rights.” Realising the irrefutable importance of migration to this year’s theme, a panel discussion entitled, “Migration, Human Rights and Climate Change”, will take place on the first day of the ASEM Seminar with the objective of identifying the foundational features of a human-rights based approach to address migration and climate change. Building upon this, the panel aspires to formulate concrete policy recommendations to ameliorate existing challenges involved in such an approach.
In a report published by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), it has been said that a common thread runs throughout the globe, “often the poorest and most marginalised households who have contributed least to global pollution, are the most exposed to its effects.”[3] ASEMHRS21 looks forward to providing a platform for knowledge exchange and creation, through participation and joint consideration of solutions to challenges arising from the nexus between climate change and human rights.
About the author
Gomathi Ravindran is currently finishing her Master’s in Political Science from the Australian National University, Canberra. Her interests lie in International Relations, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, Human Rights and Political Behaviour. She is currently doing a 2 months internship at the Governance & Economy Department until the end of February 2022.
[1] International Institute for Sustainable Development, “The Paris Agreement’s New Article 6 Rules”. https://www.iisd.org/articles/paris-agreement-article-6-rules
[2] The Guardian, “COP26 Legitimacy Questioned as Groups Excluded from Crucial Talks”. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/08/cop26-legitimacy-questioned-as-groups-excluded-from-crucial-talks.
[3] International Bar Association, https://www.ibanet.org/article/8BE6FDB8-7DFB-44C1-BBFE-D72EB3DA3397.