In 2008, the Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 7/23, which
states that climate change “poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to
people and communities around the world and has implications for the full
enjoyment of human rights.”18 The link between human rights and climate
change was further clarified in the 2009 report of the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the United Nations. The
report categorically states that, “there exists broad agreement that climate
change generally negatively effects the realization of human rights.”19 The
2009 OHCHR report also “stresses the importance of accountability
mechanisms in the implementation of measures and policies in the area of
climate change and requires access to administrative and judicial remedies in
cases of human rights violations.”20
In October 2014, the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights
Council issued a joint letter on the implications of climate change for human
rights, which stated in part:
[W]e call on the State Parties to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) to ensure full coherence
between their solemn human rights obligations and
their efforts to address climate change, one of the
greatest human rights challenges of our time.
A safe, clean, healthy and sustainable
environment is indispensable to the full enjoyment
of human rights, including rights to life, health,
food, water and housing, among many others….
The most recent report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brings into sharp
focus the grave harm that climate change is already
causing, and will continue to cause, to the
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18
Human Rights Council Res. 7/23, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/7/78, July 14, 2008, at preambular para. 1.
United Nations Human Rights Council, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights on the Relationship Between Climate Change and Human Rights, Tenth Session, Jan. 15,
2009 at 23, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/HRAndClimateChange/Pages/Study.aspx (last accessed on
June 15, 2015).
20
Id. at 27.
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