Climate Change Violates Human Rights

It is mainly the inhabitants of the global South who suffer from the effects of climate change. They are faced with the destruction of their living space and the violation of their human rights. At the same time, existing human rights standards offer the possibility of establishing points of reference during international climate negotiations to address such questions as adjustment programs designed to confront the effects of climate change, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, technology transfers, and the future of development. As a frame of reference, human rights standards can serve to accurately evaluate policies and to pinpoint their failures, particularly regarding how these policies affect the world’s weakest inhabitants. This publication by the political scientist Theodor Rathgeber uses case examples to illustrate the dangers faced by indigenous peoples in particular, as well as the tools the UN human rights system gives them to support their struggle for just climate policies.

Diese Publikation existiert auch auf Deutsch.

About the author:

Theodor Rathgeber, who has a doctorate in political science, works as a freelance author and consultant in the areas of human rights, minorities, indigenous peoples, and development cooperation. Since 1987 he has been a lecturer in social science at the University of Kassel. In 2003 he became Representative of the German Human Rights Forum for the UN Commission on Human Rights (now the UN Human Rights Council). He has published extensively.