UN Human Rights Council

The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) has shown significant leadership on the connection between human rights and climate change. For example, in 2008, it adopted a resolution on human rights and climate change, stating that climate change “poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights.” The HR&CC WG is working to ensure that the HRC continues to address the nexus between human rights, climate change and the environment. 

Recognizing the Right to a Healthy Environment

In 2020, members of the Human Rights and Climate Change Working Group and other partner organizations launched a global campaign to call upon Members of the Human Rights Council to formalize the recognition of the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. They released an open letter signed by more than 1000 civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, and launched a dedicated website (http://healthyenvironmentisaright.org/). 

You can read more about the campaign here. 

Articles 

Human Rights Watch (HRW), The Case for a Right to a Healthy Environment (2018) 

ESCR-net, The Right to an Adequate/Healthy Environment 

Creation of a new UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change

Over the past years, numerous Special Procedures under the Human Rights Council have looked at climate change from different perspectives. The previous and current Special Rapporteurs on human rights and the environment have also conducted very important work in furthering the understanding of the interlinkages between climate change and human rights. It appears however that a coherent approach to climate change through human rights lenses is lacking.

In 2010, an alliance of civil society organizations called for the creation of a Special Rapporteur in Human Rights and Climate Change. Following that, the Social Forum recommended that the Human Rights Council establish a new UN Special Rapporteur mandate to address the impact of climate change on human rights and study the responsibilities of state and non-state actors in relation to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Members of the Working Group on Human Rights and Climate Change are advocating for the establishment of a new UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change by the Human Rights Council, in June 2021. You can read more about the campaign here. 

Briefings

Franciscans International and Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Background Note on the Establishment of a UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change (2020)

Statements 

International Youth and Student Movement for the United Nations– (ISMUN), International Alliance of Women – (IAW), and International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics – (IAGGUN), Human Rights Council – 22nd Session, Agenda Item3:IndependentExpertonHuman rightsand environment (2013)