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Human Rights and Climate Change is a conceptual and legal framework under which the international human rights consequences of climate change are studied, analyzed, and addressed. The framework has been employed by governments, United Nations organs, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, human rights and environmental advocates and academics to guide national and international policy on climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the core international human rights instruments. Human rights and climate change analysis focuses on the anticipated human harms and legal protections associated with global environmental phenomena including sea level rise, desertification, temperature increases, extreme weather events, and changes in precipitation, as well as adaptation and mitigation measures taken by governments in response to those phenomena.

History
In 2005, Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking relief "from human rights violations resulting from the impacts of global warming and climate change caused by acts and omissions of the United States." The petition was rejected, but the Commission invited and heard testimony on the relationship between human rights and climate change from representatives for the Inuit in 2007. That same year, the Malé Declaration on the Human Dimension of Global Climate Change "stated explicitly (and for the first time in an international agreement) that 'climate change has clear and immediate implications for the full enjoyment of human rights' and called on the United Nations human rights system to address the issue as a matter of urgency."

The following year, the UN's Human Rights Council (HRC) unanimously adopted Resolution 7/23, recognizing 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," and citing the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The HRC reaffirmed and expanded these statements with resolutions 10/4 of 25 March 2009 and 18/22 of 30 September 2011.

In 2009, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released an analytical study identifying specific rights and people groups likely to be adversely impacted by climate disruptions. The report drew on the submissions of some 30 nations as well as 10 United Nations Agencies and dozens of other organizations, and identified displaced persons, conflict and security risks as well as impaired rights of indigenous peoples, women, and children as major concerns.

In 2010, the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC reproduced the Human Rights Council's language identifying the relationship between human rights and climate change in its report on the Cancun Conference on climate change. The report on the outcome of the Conference emphasized that "Parties should, in all climate change related actions, fully respect human rights."

Rights Implicated
Most international statements on human rights and climate change have emphasized the potential adverse impacts of climate change on the rights to life, health, food, water, housing, development, and self-determination. These rights are enumerated in the core conventions of international human rights law, though not all HRC members or UNFCCC parties are signatories of these conventions.