Climate change and the human rights challenge: extending justice beyond the borders of the nation state

Abstract

This paper critically explores how a nation state perspective continues to shape the manner in which ideas of ‘entitlement’ and ‘right’ are framed in international policy debate on the security implications of climate change. In a world where natural resource reserves are steadily declining and inequalities between regions are widening, finding a peaceful compromise between the competing interests of global actors and the needs of vulnerable communities is a major challenge for the future. What dominates current international negotiations is not the question of duties to global others but rather the entitlements of sovereign states and private capital to exhaust precious resources reserves for private gain. This paper explores how climate justice coalitions, small state alliances and international human rights organisations challenge the ethical and, indeed, legal basis of this reasoning in their efforts to reframe ‘unintended’ acts of ecological destruction as a deliberate violation of human rights.

Keywords:

• climate change
• human rights
• global justice
• the nation state outlook
• natural resource conflict
• ecological refugees
• framing

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Damien Short for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

See U. Beck, Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006), 48.

See S. Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 9.

See Oxfam America, Take Action/Fight for Climate Justice, 2007, http://www.oxfamamerica.org/files/climatechange-factsheet.pdf/ (accessed June 19, 2012).

See M. Freeman, Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism (London: Blackwell, 1980), 21.

See Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

See International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11 and Article 12.

See J. Feinberg, Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 7.

See Article 1 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Aarhus Convention (1998), 4.

J. Barry and K. Woods, ‘The Environment’, in Human Rights: Politics & Practice, ed. M. Goodhart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 324.

See P. Hynes et al., eds., Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011).

Ibid., 11.

See R. Eckersley, ‘Green Liberal Democracy: The Rights Discourse Revisited’, in Democracy and Green Political Thought: Sustainability, Rights and Citizenship, ed. B. Doherty and M. de Geus (London: Routledge, 1996).

See J. Barry, Rethinking Green Politics: Nature, Virtue and Progress (London: Sage, 1999); see also J. Barry, Environment and Social Theory, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2007).

See Barry and Woods, ‘The Environment’.

See Beck, Cosmopolitan Vision; U. Beck, World at Risk (Cambridge: Polity, 2009); U. Beck, ‘Climate for Change, or How to Create a Green Modernity?’, Theory Culture & Society 27, no. 2–3 (2010): 254–66.

See R. Morgan, ‘Advancing Indigenous Rights at the United Nations: Strategic Framing and its Impact on the Normative Development of International Law’, Social & Legal Studies 13, no. 4 (2004): 481–500.

See Caney, Justice Beyond Borders. It should be noted, however, that Caney's analysis is focused more upon the political tradition of state realism and the rationalisations it brings to bear upon issues like war, humanitarian intervention and climate change, whilst Beck's analysis, reflecting upon the logic and reasoning of this political philosophical tradition, explores the dominance of a ‘nation state outlook’ in international politics today.

See H. Miller, ‘From Rights-based to Rights Framed Approaches: A Social Constructionist View of Human Rights Practice’, in Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements, eds. P. Hynes et al. (Abindgon: Routledge, 2011).

See D. Snow and R. Benford, ‘Ideology, Frame Resonance and Participant Mobilization’, in International Social Movement Research. Volume I: From Structure to Action, eds. B. Klandermans, H. Kriesi, and S. Tarrow (London: JAI Press, 1988). Snow and Benford provide a detailed account of the different diagnostic versus prognostic functions performed by the interpretive frames of new social movements.

See M. Berg and M.H. Geyer, Two Cultures of Rights: The Quest for Inclusion and Participation in Modern America and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

See H. Miller, ‘From Rights-based to Rights Framed Approaches’, 110.

See B.C. Parks and J.T. Roberts, ‘Climate Change, Social Theory and Justice’, Theory Culture & Society 27, no. 2–3 (2010): 151.

See Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth, Nigeria), http://www.eraction.org/about-era (accessed September 24, 2012).

See International Policy Network, ‘Europe's Eco-imperialism’, http://www.policynetwork.net/environment/media/europes-ecoimperialism (accessed September 24, 2012).

See Climate Justice Now, ‘2011 COP17 succumbs to Climate Apartheid!’, http://www.climate-justice-now.org/2011-cop17-succumbs-to-climate-apartheid-antidote-is-cochabamba-peoples'-agreement/ (accessed September 24, 2012).

Ibid., 1.

See EcoEquity, ‘The Debt of Nations’, 2007, http://www.ecoequity.org/2008/02/the-debt-of-nations/ (accessed January 2012).

See Greenpeace, ‘Human Rights and the Climate Crisis: Acting Today to Prevent Tragedy Tomorrow’, 2008, 11, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/Submissions/Greenpeace_HR_ClimateCrisis.pdf (accessed June 28, 2011).

Ibid., 1.

See Barry and Woods, ‘The Environment’, 330; See also EcoEquity, ‘Equitable Access to Sustainable Development’, (2011): 1. EcoEquity, ‘BASIC experts: Equitable access to sustainable development’, 2011, http://www.ecoequity.org/2011/12/basicexperts-equitable-access-to-sustainable-development/ (accessed September 24, 2012).

See EcoEquity, Christian Aid, and the Stockholm Environment Institute, Greenhouse Development Rights Framework: The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World (Poznan: ILF for Sustainable Development, 2008), 20.

See J. Fisher, ‘Greenpeace to Take Poverty Focus’, BBC News, November 16, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8362202.stm (accessed January 28, 2012).

See R. Forst, ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Transnational Justice’, in Global Justice, ed. T. Pogge (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 181.

See Barry and Woods, ‘The Environment’, 330.

See EcoEquity, ‘Linked Fates: “Occupy” and the Climate Negotiations’, http://www.ecoequity.org/2011/11/high-speed-history/ (accessed June 19, 2012).

See O. O'Neill, ‘Rights to Compensation’, Social Philosophy and Public Policy, no. 5 (1986): 72–87.

See ActionAid, ‘Petition for Climate Justice’, http://actionaidusa.org/do/petitions/petition_for_climate_justice/ (accessed September 23, 2012).

See A. White, ‘Accommodating China's carbon emissions’, Centre for Policy Development, February 8, 2011, http://cpd.org.au/2011/02/alexander-white-accommodating-chinascarbon-emissions/ (accessed June 19, 2012).

See Human Rights Council (A/HRC/18/l26/Rev.1), September 2011.

See R. Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment and European Socialism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

See United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992): 8.

See United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992): 1.

See L. Morris, ‘Civic Stratification and the Cosmopolitan Ideal’, European Societies 11, no. 4 (2009): 603–21.

See United Nations Development Programme, ‘Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis’, Human Development Report, 2006, http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/ (accessed June 20, 2012).

See United Nations Millennium Project, ‘Halving Hunger: It Can Be Done, Task Force on Hunger’, 2005, http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/Hunger-lowres-complete.pdf (accessed June 15, 2012).

See United Nations Security Council, ‘Security Council Spotlights Nexus between Natural Resources and Conflict’, June 2007, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23027&Cr=conflict&Cr1 (accessed July 10, 2011).

See United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Vital Water Graphics: An Overview of the State of the World's Fresh and Marine Waters, 2nd ed. (Nairobi: UNEP, 2008).

See Social Conflict in Africa Database, The Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program (2010), the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, University of Texas, Austin, http://ccaps.strausscenter.org/scad/conflicts/ (accessed February 2, 2012).

See European Commission, Report to the European Council, ‘Climate Change and International Security’, S113/08, March 14, 2008, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/reports/99387.pdf/ (accessed January 29, 2012).

See CNA Corporation, ‘National Security and the Threat of Climate Change’, 2007, http://www.npr.org/documents/2007/apr/security_climate.pdf/ (accessed January 27, 2012).

See UN News Centre, ‘At World Economic Forum, Ban Ki-moon Pledges Action on Water Resources’, January 24, 2008, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25398&Cr=davos&Cr1/ (accessed June 29, 2010).

See H. Makinen, ed., ‘Baltic Rim Economies Expert Articles 2009’, Pan-European Institute 2009, http://www.tse.fi/FI/yksikot/erillislaitokset/pei/Documents/Julkaisut/BRE%20expert%20articles%202009%20final.pdf (accessed June 4, 2011).

See H. Joas, ‘Peace Through democracy?’, European Journal of Social Theory 15, no.1 (2012): 21–34.

See E. Kant, ‘Second Definitive Article of Perpetual Peace’, in Perpetual Peace, trans. M. Campbell Smith (London: George Allen & Unwin 1915), 136.

See Climate Justice Now, ‘2011 COP17 Succumbs to Climate Apartheid!’

See J. Bogardi et al., ‘Overcoming One of the Greatest Environmental Challenges of Our Times: Re-thinking Policies to Cope with Desertification’, 2006, http://www.inweh.unu.edu/drylands/docs/Publications/IYDD_Policy_Brief-June_2007.pdf/ (accessed June 15, 2011).

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2009, ‘Monitoring disaster displacement in the context of climate change‘, http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/12E8C7224C2A6A9EC125763900315AD4/$file/monitoring-disaster-displacement.pdf (accessed September 24, 2012).

See United Nations General Assembly, ‘Sixty-fourth Session – Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Human Rights Questions, Including Alternative Approaches for Improving the Effective Enjoyment of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’, 3 August, 2009, http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/policy_and_research/un/64/A_64_214.pdf (accessed May 21, 2011).

See European Commission, ‘Climate Change and International Security’, 8.

Ibid., 5.

Ibid., 4.

Regional initiatives have recently been introduced, including the African Union Convention on the Protection of and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons (also known as the Kampala Convention, 2009). This convention will have important implications for the protection of peoples uprooted from their land as a result of environmental factors within the Union of Africa. Although progressive, it may not be said to constitute an adequate global response to peoples' rights to shelter, food, water, asylum, etc.

See International Organization for Migration (IOM), ‘Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation and Environmental Migration’, 2009, 4–5, http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/DDR_CCA_report.pdf (accessed June 5, 2010).

See Beck, Cosmopolitan Vision, 39.

See United Nations Security Council, ‘Security Council Spotlights Nexus’.

See International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Part 1, Article 1, 1976; see also UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007.

See Morgan, ‘Advancing Indigenous Rights’, 490.

United Nations, ‘Battle Against Climate Change Calls for “War Footing”, Deputy Secretary-General Says as General Assembly Holds Follow-Up to February Thematic Debate’, July 8, 2008, http://www.un.org/news/press/docs/2008/ga10725.doc.htm (accessed February 1, 2012).

See United Nations Development Programme, ‘Beyond Scarcity’; see also Barry and Woods, ‘The Environment’, 328.

See J. Vidal, ‘How food and water are driving a 21st-centuryAfrican land grab’, The Observer, Sunday 7 March 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/food-water-africaland-grab (accessed September 24, 2012).

Olivier De Schutter, ‘Annual Meeting of the German Council for Sustainable Development (Berlin)’, September 27, 2010, http://www.srfood.org/index.php/fr/calendrier/evenements-passes/844-27-september-annual-meeting-of-the-german-council-for-sustainable-development-berlin/ (accessed December 15, 2011).

See G.R. Timilsina and A. Shrestha, ‘Biofuels: Markets, Targets, Impacts’, Policy Research Working Paper 5364 (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2010), http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2010/07/19/000158349_20100719162226/Rendered/PDF/WPS5364.pdf (accessed December 4, 2011).

See A. Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).

See S. Sassen, Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 30.

See Morgan, ‘Advancing Indigenous Rights’, 493.

See EcoEquity, Christian Aid, and the Stockholm Environment Institute, Greenhouse Development Rights Framework, 20.

See Parks and Roberts, ‘Climate Change, Social Theory and Justice’, 134–66.

See C. Bertram, ‘Global Justice, Moral Development and Democracy’, in The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, ed. G. Brook and H. Brighouse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 75.

See EcoEquity, ‘Linked Fates’.

For instance, the demand for a new UN Protocol for Climate Induced Migrants' presented by EquityBD (Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh); see also the demands of Small Island States for a new universal declaration on climate Justice (July 2008), ‘Message from H.E. Mr. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’, http://www.un.org/ga/president/62/ThematicDebates/ccact/maldives.pdf (accessed February 2, 2011).

See Thomas Schueneman, ‘International Scientific Congress on Climate Change: Key Messages’, March 14, 2009, http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2009/03/14/international-scientific-congress-on-climate-change-key-messages/ (accessed January 10, 2011).

UN General Assembly, ‘Climate Change and its Possible Security Implications: Report of the Secretary-General’, Sixty-fourth session, Item 114, September 11 2009, http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/resources/res_pdfs/ga-64/SGReport_on_climate_change_and_security.pdf (accessed July 16, 2010).

See United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘The Storm Ahead’, February 2011, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e4a5096.html (accessed February 2, 2012).

UN General Assembly, ‘Climate Change and its Possible Security Implications’.

See A. Touraine, Thinking Differently (Cambridge: Polity, 2011), 213.

See Oxfam International, ‘Climate Wrongs and Human Rights: Putting People at the Heart of Climate Change’, September 2008, http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp117-climate-wrongs-and-human-rights-0809.pdf (accessed June 19, 2012).

See J. Habermas, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), 129.

For a further elaboration on the arguments raised in this paper, see T. Skillington, Climate Justice and Human Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).