Climate change and the human rights challenge: extending justice beyond the borders of the nation state

Abstract

This paper critically explores how a nation state perspective continues to shape the manner in which ideas of ‘entitlement’ and ‘right’ are framed in international policy debate on the security implications of climate change. In a world where natural resource reserves are steadily declining and inequalities between regions are widening, finding a peaceful compromise between the competing interests of global actors and the needs of vulnerable communities is a major challenge for the future. What dominates current international negotiations is not the question of duties to global others but rather the entitlements of sovereign states and private capital to exhaust precious resources reserves for private gain. This paper explores how climate justice coalitions, small state alliances and international human rights organisations challenge the ethical and, indeed, legal basis of this reasoning in their efforts to reframe ‘unintended’ acts of ecological destruction as a deliberate violation of human rights.