Struggling with Climate Change: Environmental Rights as Children’s Rights and the Potential of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child
Year: 2020
Author: Ippolito, Francesca
German Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 63 (2020), Iss. 1 : pp. 511–539
Abstract
Children are the least responsible for climate change, yet they will bear the greatest burden of its impact, and even if children have not been entirely neglected in environmental treaties, a comprehensive regime that extends environmental human rights to them is still absent. However, the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), which is the most ratified human rights instrument, is dedicated to children’s rights and is unique in specifically referring to the dangers and risks of environmental pollution. Based on this premise, this article contends that the CRC monitoring body has a unique institutional potential to interpret environmental law from a children’s rights-based perspective contributing to fighting climate change. A positive trend is evidently manifested in the General Comments and Concluding Observations that are moving from indirect considerations to explicit mainstreaming of climate change issues and related obligations. Following the entry into force of the Optional Protocol on a Communications Procedure (OPCP), which recognises that children have the right to appeal to an international mechanism specific to them, when national mechanisms fail to address violations effectively; the pending individual communication also promises to be historic in its scale of attempting to hold multiple countries simultaneously accountable for obligations under the CRC related to climate change. It is argued that a systemic integration of the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC within the CRC context – as relevant rules of international law according to Article 31?(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention – would ‘operationalise’ and make ‘justiciable’ those international environmental standards relevant to the substantive obligations under the CRC.
You do not have full access to this article.
Already a Subscriber? Sign in as an individual or via your institution
Journal Article Details
Publisher Name: Global Science Press
Language: English
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3790/gyil.63.1.511
German Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 63 (2020), Iss. 1 : pp. 511–539
Published online: 2020-01
AMS Subject Headings: Duncker & Humblot
Copyright: COPYRIGHT: © Global Science Press
Pages: 29
Keywords: Children Climate Change Children’s ‘Rights-Based Approach’ Systemic Interpretation
Author Details
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francesca Ippolito\nStruggling with Climate Change: Environmental Rights as Children’s Rights and the Potential of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child | 511 | ||
| I. Introduction: Looking for a Children’s Rights-Based Approach to Environmental Law and Climate Change | 512 | ||
| II. The CRC as a Human Rights Treaty with Environmental Concerns Relevant for Climate Change | 516 | ||
| A. Article 6 CRC | 519 | ||
| B. Article 24 CRC | 511 | ||
| III. A Non-Rhetorical Greening of the CRC: Article 24 in the Hands of the CRC Committee | 511 | ||
| A. The General Comments’ Implications for Climate Change | 511 | ||
| B. The Concluding Observations | 511 | ||
| 1. From Implicit Climate Change Considerations Within Environmental Health | 511 | ||
| 2. … to Explicit Mainstreaming of Climate Change | 512 | ||
| C. Individual Communications | 512 | ||
| 1. By Way of Conclusion: A Proposal for Evolutionary and Systemic Interpretation of the CRC as Promoter of a Fruitful Children’s Rights-Based Approach to Climate Change | 512 |