ABSTRACT
The international law response has been the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change and the subsequent Kyoto Protocol. The Protocol advanced the implementation process envisaged in the Climate Convention as it included commitments by thirty-seven developed countries and the European Community to reduce GHG emissions. The effects of climate change as human rights violations pose a series of difficulties. First, it is virtually impossible to disentangle the complex causal relationship linking historical greenhouse gas emissions of a particular country with a specific climate change-related effect, let alone with the range of direct and indirect implications for human rights. Second, global warming is often one of the several contributing factors to climate change-related effects, such as hurricanes, environmental degradation and water stress. Third, adverse effects of global warming are often projections about future impacts, whereas human rights violations are normally established after the harm has occurred.
