COP27 and the centrality of human rights in climate action

by Amalia Ordóñez Vahí, Research Fellow, URG Blog, Blog, Climate change, Thematic human rights issues

‘We’re on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator’ warned UN Secretary General, António Guterres, at the opening of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on 7 November 2022. Guterres presented a grim dichotomy: ‘humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact.’ COP27 was the first …

Placing human rights at the core of climate action: towards a human rights-based approach to loss and damage

by Amalia Ordóñez Vahí, Research Fellow, URG Blog, Blog, Climate change, Thematic human rights issues

The summer of 2022 will be remembered by many as the time when the effects of climate change became for them all too real: water scarcity, droughts and desertification, loss of habitats and displacement due to wildfires , growing health conditions and deaths as a result of record-breaking heatwaves , displacement and destruction of housing and infrastructures due to record flooding . However, while these impacts are …

No more procrastination on climate change, says German Constitutional Court in landmark decision

by Anna-Christina Schmidl, Universal Rights Group Geneva Blog, Blog, Climate change, Contemporary and emerging human rights issues, Environmental human rights defenders, Thematic human rights issues

On 24 March 2021, the First Senate of the German Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) rendered its long-awaited decision on four constitutional complaints [1] brought in relation to Germany’s Federal Climate Change Act (Bundes-Klimaschutzgesetz) of 2019. The plaintiffs – some of whom are young climate activists – had alleged, in part , that the Act violates the fundamental rights of future generations by failing to prescribe in sufficient detail a long-term pathway for …

What are the human rights priorities of world governments in 2021?

by the URG team Blog, Blog, Climate change, Climate crisis, Democracy, Gender equality, HRC, Human Rights Council, Human rights implementation and impact, Human rights institutions and mechanisms, In focus: democracy, Inequality, International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes, Thematic human rights issues

An independent analysis of the High-Level Segment of the Human Rights Council The High-Level Segment of the 46th session of the Human Rights Council , held from February 22 to 24 2021, saw the active participation of more than 130 world leaders, including presidents, prime ministers, ministers, and heads of international organisations. In the statements they delivered to the Council, they addressed both domestic human rights concerns, …