Climate Justice Litigation in the Inter-American Human Rights System to Protect Indigenous Peoples in Mexico
| Author | Verónica de la Rosa Jaimes |
| Pages | 623-646 |
623
Climate Justice Litigation in
the Inter-American Human
Rights System to Protect
Indigenous Peoples in Mexico
Verónica de la Rosa Jaimes*
Introduction .................................................................................................623
I. Climate Change Impacts on Mexican Indigenous Peoples .................... 625
II. Mexican Climate Change Legislation and Policies ............................... 629
III. e Inter-American Human Rights System .......................................... 632
A. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights .............................633
B. Inter-American Court of Human Rights ......................................... 634
IV. Climate Change and Human Rights in the Inter-American System ......635
A. Right to Enjoy the Benets of Culture ............................................ 636
B. Right to Health and Well-being ......................................................638
C. Right to Use and Enjoyment of Property ........................................640
V. Where Climate Change Meets Human Rights:
e Athabaskan Petition .......................................................................643
Conclusion ................................................................................................... 645
Introduction
Government initiatives to address climate change have tended to regard cli-
mate change exclusively as an environmental or economic problem.1 However,
1. e impacts of global climate change are readily observed, ranging from rising global temperatures
to extreme weather events such as oods, droughts, and storms, as well as food shortages, spread of
diseases, loss of housing and shelter, and cultural extinction. Because of these eects, climate change
has been acknowledged as one of the greatest threats to human development, making those with the
least resources most vulnerable. See Ke W, H R 2007/2008
(United Nations Development Programme 2007), http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/les/reports/268/
hdr_20072008_en_complete.pdf; Christopher B. Field et al., Summary for Policymakers, in C
C 2014: I, A, V. C W G
II F A R I P C C
* e author would like to thank Justin Pon, law student at Dalhousie University, for
his excellent research assistance; and Claribel Gonzalez, Esq. for her thorough analysis of
Mexico’s General Climate Change Law and the Climate Change Fund.
Chapter 23
624 Climate Justice
the link between climate change and huma n rights has been acknowledged
recently, as climate change impacts are in some cases so severe that they vio-
late the human rights of individuals and communities. In fact, the United
Nations has recognized the connection between human rights and climate
change. United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Resolutions
18/222 and 26/273 acknowledge that Parties need to respect human rig hts
in climate change-related actions. At a general level, the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) in its publication “Climate Change and
Human Rights” states that “[t]he core international human rights treaties do
not recognize a freestanding right to a clean environment. However, it is gen-
erally understood that inadequate environmental conditions can undermine
the eective enjoyment of other enumerated rights, such as the rights to life,
health, water, and food.”4
Indigenous communities, living mostly under conditions of inequality
and disadvantage, are especially vulnerable to the impacts of current climate
variability.5 Climate change “poses a serious threat to indigenous peoples,
who often live in marginal lands and fragile ecosystems t hat a re pa rticu-
larly sensitive to alterations in the physical environment,”6 and therefore can
threaten indigenous rights to self-determination.7
In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted
that litigation was “likely to be used increasingly as countries and citizens
become dissat ised with the pace of decision making on climate change.”8
is tendenc y has increased with time. Generally, three types of lawsuits
have been used by indigenous communities challenging entities responsi-
ble for impacts linked to climate change: “(1) law suits based on procedural
rights; (2) law suits based on common law legal principles; and (3) law suits
(2014), http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf [hereinafter
WG II F A R C C ].
2. United Nations Human Rights Council Res. 18/22, Human Rights and Climate Change, 18th Sess.,
U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/18/22 (2011).
3. United Nations Human Rights Council Res. 26/27, Human Rights and Climate Change, 26th Sess.,
U.N. Doc. A/HRC/RES/26/27 (2014).
4. UNEP C L S, C C H R 12 (2015), http://apps.
unep.org/publications/index.php?option=com_pub&task=download&le=011917_en [hereinafter
UNEP Report].
5. See J A, I P I L (2d ed. 2004); F L,
R I P (2008).
6. UNEP Report, supra note 4, at 28.
7. U N O H C H R, U H
R C C 14 (2015), http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ClimateChange/
COP21.pdf.
8. IPCC, C C 2007: S R 13.4.3 (2007), https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-
report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf.
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