CiR2P Option 11 | Promote respect for human rights
DISCUSSION:
Promoting respect for human rights in a target country can help prevent violent conflict. This can be achieved though funding and implementing programs that help countries and communities develop and or expand basic protections on freedom of expression, association, religious practice, and use of language, as well as non-discrimination in employment.
Human rights and climate change are inextricably linked. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) state: “Climate change threatens the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights including those to life, water and sanitation, food, health, housing, self-determination, culture and development”. Consequently, OHCHR High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, regularly advocates for elevated climate action by developed and developing countries alike.
To effectively promote respect for OHCHR’s list of climate-related human rights requires sustained multifaceted activities working closely with local champions.
Activities can include:
- monitoring, investigating and documenting climate-related human rights abuses;
- funding and assisting in the creation of local communities capable of defending climate-related human rights and monitoring violations;
- training and educating local climate-related human rights advocates, local police and judicial officials;
- assisting to track down suspected climate-related human rights violators;
- and helping set-up appropriate judicial bodies to prosecute violations.
Western governments can allocate more resources towards these activities through their national budgets. Enhanced funding can be deployed internationally though government-to-government bilateral relations or directed towards subnational and local actors in the target country, or via international organisations and agencies such as OHCHR.
Enhanced support should also be considered for small and large traditional human rights facing INGOs that are actively incorporating climate change activities into their programming. As should more support be directed towards recently established INGOs that have been founded to bridge the climate change-human rights space, such as former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson’s Climate Justice foundation.