Climate Change and Human Rights Law

John H. Knox, Wake Forest University School of Law

Abstract

In recent years, it has become clear that climate change is an enormous threat to the human rights of people all over the planet, from Inuit in the Arctic forced to relocate homes built on melting permafrost, to residents of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean facing the prospect of losing their islands to rising sea levels. It is much less clear, however, what duties international human rights law places on states to address the effects of climate change on human rights. This article seeks to identify those duties and provide a framework for further clarification of them.