1 Preface The Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP) is an independent body established under our Constitution, with the general mandate to investigate allegations of human rights violations against our people. It was created under the banner of “Never Again!” in the aftermath of a “peaceful revolution” waged by our people more than thirty years ago, which resulted in the dramatic ouster of Ferdinand Marcos, under whose rule thousands of Filipinos’ civil and political rights were trampled upon. Thus is the context behind the constitutional command for the CHRP to investigate violations involving civil and political rights, which, later on, was to give rise to the notion that the investigation mandate of this Commission is solely limited to issues concerning civil and political rights. In 2015, our Commission was petitioned to conduct an inquiry on the impact of climate change on the human rights of the Filipino people and the role therein of the so-called “Carbon Majors.”1 The claim was that climate change was adversely impacting human rights and the top oil producers of the world were contributing, and knowingly continue to contribute, to this phenomenon. Previous to the filing of this Petition before our Commission, different climate-related cases had been brought, as still more are being brought, by various parties before regular courts in many jurisdictions around the world: private citizens are suing governments2 and carbon producers,3 governments are suing carbon producers,4 shareholders are suing their own carbon-producing corporations,5 and so on. 1 Richard Heede, Tracing Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emissions to Fossil Fuel and Cement Producers, 1854-2010, 122 Clim. Change. 229 (2014) [hereinafter Heede Carbon Majors Study]. 2 See for instance Urgenda Foundation v. The Netherlands [2015] HAZA C/09/00456689 (June 24, 2015); aff’d (Oct. 9, 2018) [District Court of the Hague, and The Hague Court of Appeal (on appeal)]; Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan, W.P. No. 25501/201 (2015); & Future Generations v. Colombia Ministry of Environment, No. 11001 22 03 000 2018 00319 00 (2018). 3 See for instance Lliuya v. RWE AG, Case No. 2 O 285/15 Essen Regional Court (filed 2015) & Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., Docket No. 4:08-cv-01138 (filed 2008). 4 See for instance City of Oakland v. BP P.L.C., No. C 17-06011 WHA (filed 2017); & City of New York v. British Petroleum (BP), No. 18-2188 (filed 2018). 5 Cf. Abrahams v. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (2017) (Where “shareholders of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia [CBA] sued the bank, alleging that it violated the Corporations Act of 2001 with the issuance of its 2016 annual report, which failed to disclose climate change-related business risks. […] Before the Federal Court of Australia could issue a decision, the suit was withdrawn after the bank released a 2017 annual report that acknowledged the risk of climate change and pledged to undertake climate change scenario analysis to estimate the risks to CBA’s business,” citing http:// climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/abrahams-v-commonwealth-bank-australia/) (last accessed on Dec. 4, 2010).