ABSTRACT
Humans are ecologically embedded beings: we need air, soil, water to survive. More than that, for many of us, there is a sense in which we are psychologically or spiritually connected to non-human nature. In physical and psychological ways we are deeply dependent on, and vulnerable to, our environment. The institution of human rights grew out of recognition of the vulnerabilities that humans’ inherently social nature brings with it. We can achieve more by social cooperation than we could as individuals or even as small families or clans, but this social cooperation entails the possibility of oppression and injustice. Human rights – the rights which are held to guarantee at least the possibility of a minimally decent life for all – reflect our understanding of what kinds of actions or inactions are likely to lead to injustice and oppression. That understanding has developed over time, and the content of human rights has similarly developed. We no longer (if we ever did) think that human rights are only about protecting individuals’ property and person against the power of the centralised state. However, this evolution of our understanding of human rights is only slowly catching up with our understanding of ourselves as ecologically embedded beings. Severe weather events, pollution, desertification and other environmental hazards can have significant impacts on human rights to life, liberty, health and security. We cannot have rights against the weather, of course, but as we begin to more fully understand human impacts on the non-human environment in the shadow of climate change, human rights practice is beginning to reflect the ways in which the actions and inactions of others can mitigate or exacerbate our environmental vulnerabilities. In this chapter, I review recent developments in human rights practice and chart the emergence of an understanding of the human as ecologically embedded being in contemporary human rights. I then expand upon what this vision of the human might mean for the idea of the human community as it is expressed within human rights.
