Country Profile: European Union
The database hosted on ClimateRights.org generates a country profile for all 196 UN member states and the European Union that identifies the legal obligations and political commitments made by each country related to the integration of human rights considerations in climate action, relevant information that the country has included in past national reports to UN climate and human rights bodies, and/or recommendations that these bodies have made to the state.
All UN members have existing human rights obligations in the context of climate change, and the vast majority of governments have already called for a better integration of human rights in climate responses, highlighted barriers for implementation or good practices, and/or received specific guidance from specialised UN institutions.
To access information about other countries or find out about the methodology used for this research, please visit climaterights.org/database
(This profile was last updated on 20th October 2017)
Country Profile Overview: European Union
Ratification of Human Rights-related Instruments relevant in the context of climate change
…ratified the following human rights instruments with relevance in the context of climate:
- Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities
- UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters
For more specific information and references regarding the human rights obligation of this country under international law, please visit http://forestdefender.org/country/
Obligations, statements and reports in the context of UN Climate Negotiations
… has ratified the Paris Agreement which recognizes the need for parties to promote and respect human rights when taking climate action;
… referred to human rights in a national communication submitted to the UNFCCC after 2010 (see Part 2 of the country profile);
… mentioned human rights in written submission to the UNFCCC in relation to the following issues: the need for Clean Development Mechanism projects to respect human rights (2013 the need for human rights safeguards for REDD projects (2014), the need to protect women rights in climate action (2016), indigenous rights in the context of agriculture (2016) and the need to take human rights into account in capacity building activities (2016) and the relevance of human rights when addressing climate impacts on human health (2016), the rights of indigenous peoples in the context of agriculture (2016), the right to participate in decision making in the context of article 12 of the Paris Agreement (2017), the need for carbon trading to respect human rights (2017), human rights in the context of the Indigenous Peoples Platform (2017)
… supported publicly the inclusion of a reference to human rights in the text of the Paris Agreement;
… is expected to submit its next national communication to the UNFCCC on 1. January 2018;