Research Paper Number

45/2016

Climate Change and Human Rights: How? Where? When?

Authors

Basil E. Ugochukwu

Previously published in CIGI Papers 82 (2015) and available from SSRN.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

Climate change poses a threat to several internationally recognized human rights, including the rights to food, a livelihood, health, a healthy environment, access to water and the rights to work and to cultural life. Actions taken to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change have to be centred on human rights. In negotiations for a binding international climate change instrument, nation states have been called upon to fully respect human rights in all climate-related actions. As important as this demand is, there is also the need to describe and plan how human rights can be integrated into international, national, subnational and corporate climate change strategies. This paper analyzes a few examples of national, subnational and corporate climate change policies to show how they have either enshrined human rights principles, or failed to do so.

Recommended Citation

Ugochukwu, Basil. "Climate Change and Human Rights: How? Where? When?" Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series, vol.12, no. 9, 2015.