ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the literature while identifying additional practical benefits of examining climate change as a human rights problem that are not widely discussed in the relevant literature. The chapter talks about several practical lessons to be learned from human rights law and its philosophical foundations that help to achieve a greater global response to climate change. Although the chapter acknowledges challenges and limitations of a human rights approach to climate change, a greater use of a human rights approach could be very helpful in moving toward a climate change solution. The law dealing with problems of extraterritoriality in protecting human rights contains complex exceptions under certain circumstances allow citizens of a foreign jurisdiction to sue a nation for violation of their human rights. Tribunals around the world have found that where rights to environmental protection exist, citizens have strong rights to participate directly in environmental decision-making and to have their rights adjudicated by law.
