The International Legal Framework: Human Rights and Climate Change

Abstract

This chapter is centred around the first legal cluster that the book analyses in a critical perspective. It focuses on the interaction between climate change and human rights by taking into consideration critical legal approaches on the conceptualization of human rights. Such critical approaches also consider Indigenous conceptualization of the relationship between humankind and nature. It then focuses on the challenges related to substantive rights, participatory and procedural rights in climate change governance.The second part of the chapter narrows the focus of the investigation to environmental human rights, firstly by providing a critical overview of the right to a healthy environment, and then elaborating the justice focus of some substantive rights vis a vis climate change impacts..KeywordsClimate changeHuman rightsRight to healthy environmentSubstantive rightsProcedural rightsParticipatory rightsCritical legal studiesParadox of human rights