United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has affirmed: “There is virtually no aspect of our work that does not have a human rights dimension. Whether we are talking about peace and security, development, humanitarian action, the struggle against terrorism, climate change, none of these challenges can be addressed in isolation from human rights.”5 This understanding led to the adoption in 2003 by the United Nations of a Statement of Common Understanding on Human Rights-Based Approaches to Development Cooperation and programming6 and, in 2009, the creation of the UN Development Group’s Human Rights Mainstreaming Mechanism (UNDG-HRM).7 Over the last decade, increasing attention has also been given to human rights in the context of climate change policy-making, prompted in large measure by the efforts of small island developing states (SIDS), least developed countries (LDCs), Indigenous peoples, and other activists, who have helped place a greater focus on the human dimensions of climate change. This greater focus on human rights in the climate change arena also coincides with the growing importance of rights-based approaches to governance more generally, in the fields of development, health, and environment.8 In the context of climate change governance, a rights-based approach seeks to ensure that responses to climate change protect, respect, and fulfil human rights obligations and that human rights find application throughout the various stages of climate responses (including planning, funding, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation). The influence of this approach on policy-making varies with the type of human rights responsibility involved: while the responsibility to protect and respect human rights constrains policy-making, the responsibility to fulfil human rights guides and supports policy-making. Ultimately, a rightsbased approach posits that if policy-makers applied the full range of their existing human rights obligations in a proactive manner, the global response to climate change would be significantly strengthened. The ICESCR provides an important legal justification for an international response to climate change founded on a rights-based approach – that is, an approach founded on the existing obligations of States to respect, protect, and fulfil the rights protected in ICESCR, including through the provision of international funding, assistance, and cooperation by developed countries for the fulfilment of human rights in developing countries. As the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has stated, “in accordance with Articles 55 and 56 of the Charter of the United Nations, with well-established principles of international law, and with the provisions of the Covenant itself, international cooperation for development and thus for the realization of economic, social and cultural rights is an obligation of all States.”9 This approach requires that developed and developing countries alike comply with the minimum core obligations under each human right; take deliberate, concrete and targeted measures to move as expeditiously and effectively as possible towards the full realization of rights; and guarantee non-discrimination in access to these rights in spite of the impacts and consequences of climate change. Developed States remain under the obligation to cooperate in assisting developing countries with the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights in light of these same impacts and consequences.10 6