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18 Fordham Envtl. L. Rev. 513 (2006-2007)
Climate Change, Human Rights, and the Right to Be Cold

handle is hein.journals/frdmev18 and id is 519 raw text is: CLIMATE CHANGE, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND THE RIGHT TO BE COLD Joanna Harrington * I. INTRODUCTION In December 2005, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) (re- named the Inuit Circumpolar Council in July 2006) publicly lodged a lengthy petition against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the Commission),1 a Washington D.C.-based organization that is one of two regional human rights bodies operating under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS). The petition alleged that the United States, as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, was committing various human rights violations against the Inuit residents of the Arctic through its climate change and global warming practices and poli- cies, including its decision not to ratify Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Kyoto Proto- col).2 In essence, the United States was to be sued for violating the human right to be cold. A year later (according to news reports since no verification can be found in the documentation posted on the website maintained by the Commission),3 the ICC received a letter of rejection from the Commission indicating that the ICC petition had failed to meet the basic requirements of admissibility for further * Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Canada. 1. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Petition to the Inter American Commission on Hu- man Rights Seeking Relief From Violations Resulting From Global Warming Caused by Acts and Omissions of the United States, http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal-docs/petition-to-the-inter-american- commission-on-human-rights-on-behalf-of-the-inuit-circumpolar-conference.pdf [hereinafter ICC Petition]. 2. Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/1997/L.7/Add.1, 37 I.L.M. 22, Dec. 10, 1997 (en- tered into force Feb. 16, 2005). 3. See Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Home Page, http://www.cidh.org (last visited Dec. 9, 2007). 513

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