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33 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 431 (2009)
Climate Change and Human Rights: An Introduction to Legal Issues

handle is hein.journals/helr33 and id is 435 raw text is: CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS: AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL ISSUES Siobhdn McInerney-Lankford* I. INTRODUCTION The varied consequences of rapidly increasing climate change are al- ready having a dramatic effect on poor and marginalized people all over the world, reinforcing existing vulnerabilities and deepening inequalities.' The fact that those who are already vulnerable will be impacted disproportion- ately enhances the human urgency of the problem; the fact that those likely to suffer most from the impacts of climate change are those who have con- tributed least to the problem adds what can be described as an equity chal- lenge. International human rights law is potentially well placed to address that challenge and highlight some of the human and equity dimensions of climate change. This short Paper lays out some of the legal questions that are implicated in the emerging debate on climate change and human rights and suggests ways in which international human rights law could be approached in order to promote clarity in the discourse of human rights and climate change. In Part II, it outlines some of the context that defines the intersection of human rights and climate change; in Part III, it delineates the different types of questions raised by the interface; and, in Part IV, it offers potential concep- tualizations of the relationship between human rights and climate change. II. CONTEXT OF THE LINKS BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN RIGHTS The current discussion of human rights obligations in the context of climate change can be traced to the well-established body of literature con- necting human rights and the environment,2 and efforts to establish a free- * Counsel, World Bank Legal Department. The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the institution for which she works. Thanks to Charles Di Leva and Saskia Fronabarger for comments on an earlier draft of this Paper. This Paper is submitted as part of the Harvard Environmental Law Review symposium Climate Change and Global Justice: Crafting Fair Solutions for Nations and Peoples. The author served as moderator of the panel titled International Human Rights Obligations. 'See, e.g., WORLD BANK, WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2010: DEVELOPMENT IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: CONCEPT NOTE (2008), available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ INTWDR2010/Resources/5287678-1226014527953/5555566-1226014549177/WDR2010_CN _octl4v3.pdf (discussing World Bank report forthcoming in October 2009). 2 See, e.g., HUMAN RIGHTS APPROACHES TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (Alan E. Boyle & Michael R. Anderson eds., 1996); LINKING HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT (Romina Picolotti & Jorge Daniel Taillant eds., 2003); Dominic McGoldrick, Sustainable De- velopment and Human Rights: An Integrated Conception, 45 INT'L & COMP. L.Q. 796 (1996).

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