126
integrated in the process of tailoring and tracking goals, targets and indicators”543
of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It highlighted the role of NHRIs
to “promote remedies for all human rights violations and … use their protection
powers to address serious human rights concern linked to the implementation”544 of
development goals, including the realization of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)
No. 13 on climate action. The declaration also encouraged cooperation between
NHRIs and private actors, reaffirming the role businesses can play in fulfilling the
SDGs, and highlighting the need to align implementation with the UNGP-BHR and
other international human rights standards.545
A month later, in November 2015, the Commonwealth Forum of National Human
Rights Institutions adopted the St. Julian’s Declaration on Climate Justice,546 the
first collaborative declaration of commitments signed by NHRIs, acknowledging and
affirming their role in climate action.
More recently, during its Annual Meeting in December 2020, GANHRI adopted
an outcome statement on the role of NHRIs in combating the climate crisis.547
Recognizing that a human rights-based approach leads to more sustainable and
effective climate action and policies, it called on all States to ratify and implement
international and regional human rights instruments. Likewise, it called for the
implementation of the provisions of the Paris Agreement, to promote human-rights
based and people-centered climate action.548 Also noteworthy in the statement is the
recognition of the need for climate justice, which it defined “as addressing the climate
crisis with a human rights-based approach whilst also making progress towards a just
transition to a zero-carbon economy.”549
543
Mérida Declaration, supra note 541.
544
Id.
545
Id. para. 11.
546
Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, St. Julian’s Declaration on Climate
Justice (2015), at 5.
547
Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, GANHRI Statement Adopted at the GANHRI
Annual Conference on Climate Change: The Role of National Human Rights Institutions (adopted
on Dec. 4, 2020), available at https://ganhri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/EN_Climate-changeand-NHRIs.pdf [hereinafter GANHRI Statement].
548
Id. para. 2.
549
Id. para. 3.
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