Paris Climate Agreement and Human Rights
Paris Climate Agreement and Human Rights

Summary/Abstract: The study starts by discussing the manner in which the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change recognizes the injustice inherent to the relationship between those responsible for and those most affected by climate change. This is followed by a review of the distribution of the burden of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions among developed countries according to the Kyoto Protocol, from 2008 to 2012, and according to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The issue of the impact of climate change on human rights is discussed in connection with the reports, panel, and resolutions of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the December 4th, 2015, Draft of the Paris Climate Agreement. Section III of the study analyses the international environmental recourse available to individuals, including the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (14 September 1993), the Aarhus Convention (25 June 1998), and the 1999 Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes. The study argues that a human rights advisory body would be necessary for proper implementation of the Paris Agreement. Individuals and NGOs should have a right to raise the issue of compliance to international human rights standards of the climate change related actions of the parties to the Agreement before an expert body competent to consider such issues.

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