human rights – QUAKERS & CLIMATE CHANGE WORLDWIDE

The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), whose missions is to promote and protect human rights around the world, is currently meeting for its 52nd session in Geneva, Switzerland. The current session began the 27th of February and will end the 4th of April. The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) is consistently engaged with the HRC across all four programmes of its work on the Human Rights and Refugees, Peace and Disarmament, Human Impacts of Climate Change, and Sustainable and Just Economic Systems.

Human rights and climate change are inextricably linked together. Climate change poses a threat to numerous human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Climate actions that are grounded in human rights considerations are more just, equitable, legitimate, and effective then actions that otherwise exclude them from consideration.

Last month, QUNO’s Human Impacts of Climate Change programme made a statement at the Human Rights Advisory Committee (HRAC), and Human Rights Council (HRC). Both statements were delivered by QUNO Programme Assistant, Alana M Carlson, speaking under the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). To read the intervention on the “Impact of new technologies for climate protection on the enjoyment of human rights,” click here. To read the QUNO’s addressment to the Special Rapporteur on the Environment, click here.

In his report to the Fortieth Session of the Human Rights Council of march this year, the new Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, David Boyd, highlights global normative acceptance of states regarding their obligations to provide a healthy environment. In his report, Boyd states: “In total, at least 155 States are legally obligated, through treaties, constitutions, and legislation, to respect, protect and fulfil the right to a healthy environment.”

Boyd’s report argues for the fastest possible action to respond to the most pressing environmental issues. The proof that the majority of countries already have legally enshrined this obligation is compelling evidence of a growing consensus enough to encourage the multilateral fora to take swift and effective action to be proactive in providing a healthy and safe environment.

You can read the Special Rapporteur’s report here.

Tag: human rights

Quakers at the United Nations Human Rights Council

David Boyd’s report on the Right to a Healthy Environment.