ABSTRACT
Risks are not only an inescapable feature of our everyday lives and decision-making, but they are also central to maybe the largest threat of today-climate change. This chapter illustrates how a rights-based ethical framework can help us to deal with issues of risk and uncertainty particularly in the context of climate change. It first introduces important terminological distinctions so as to clarify what is meant when it talks of risk and uncertainty, before turning attention to the idea of rights against risking as one possible way to deal with risk and uncertainty within a rights-based framework. The chapter discusses alternative ways of dealing with risks from a rights-based perspective before turning attention to the complex issue of formulating acceptability thresholds-indications of what level of risk it might be acceptable to expose others. The chapter focuses on the issues of social, global and intergenerational justice to highlight the challenges of probabilistic risks, uncertainties and ignorance.
