Human Rights and Climate Change

"I was proud to contribute the foreword for Human Rights and Climate Change , edited by Stephen Humphreys and published in 2008. It provided the first major analysis of the impact of climate change on human rights, and in particular on social and economic rights. In the foreword I said, ‘What this collection does for the first time is think through the human rights implications of climate change, and ask how the substantial body of international human rights law and experience relates to that phenomenon.’ Get the weekly Five Books newsletter This book is not an easy read but it is a very enriching and worthwhile one. The editor identifies that the inter-linkages between human rights and climate change are deep and complex – and that the most negative impacts are likely to be felt by those whose rights protections are already precarious. Simon Caney, Professor of Political Theory in Oxford, inter alia concludes that the adoption of a human rights framework for evaluating the impacts of climate change has implications for our understanding of who should bear the burdens of climate change and what kind of policies are appropriate. It is an imperative for us all to acquire and use to inform our actions."