Australian Human Rights Institute

ISABELLA SATZ

Student, UNSW Law & Justice. Student rapporteur, ‘Health and Human Rights in the Climate Crisis’.

I’d like to share with you my reflections on the conference as a student at UNSW Law and a soon-to-be lawyer, on the role of law – domestic and international – in the way forward on climate change. During the conference, the Australian Prime Minister announced a plan for net zero by 2050 and boasted that this plan was not legislated and would not force the hands of Australians. Within this conference, however, so many have pointed directly or indirectly to the role of the law, among a mix of other policy settings and market mechanisms in a plan for climate action. A plan that does not leave the most vulnerable behind or cause more harm than we already have. Many speakers have spoken to the need for justice in various forms and with different language: climate justice, a just transition, a transition to justice. Although the law is not always just and in many ways has held us back in climate action, it is also one lever we must pull to achieve climate action, and justice. At the international level, many speakers have discussed the importance of cross-pollination between human rights law and international environmental and climate law. Flavia Bustreo and others spoke to the recent recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the Human Rights Council. Although not legally binding, this makes crystal clear to our decisionmakers that our human rights and our lives depend on the health of the environment. International law creates access to treaty body communications, judicial remedies, creates a standard of political accountability for states and also opportunities for advocates to put the human face of climate change in the face of decisionmakers as Ashfaq Khalfan said. However, challenges with compliance and enforcement demonstrate the importance of implementation at the domestic level. International human rights law not only describes legal instruments but also a framework, approach or lens to integrate into a plan for climate action in international and domestic law and policy. Core concepts of human rights law and a human rights-based approach, which many of the speakers have described in their own discipline-specific language, offer a vision of a just and fair way forward. Many speakers spoke about equality and nondiscrimination and the disproportionate rights challenges for vulnerable and marginalised groups including First Nations peoples, the Pacific, children, and women and girls, among many other groups. Participation is another core concept which centres these experiences in decisionmaking. Tlaleng Mofokeng also spoke to the interdependence and indivisibility of rights through the example of the right to health and its dependence on the enjoyment of other rights, particularly social, economic and cultural rights. Law is also uniquely well-suited to provide accountability such as providing remedies, including compensation. These core human rights concepts require solutions to the climate crisis that cut across disciplines, sectors and spheres of life and are responsive to intersecting vulnerabilities. And finally, in the context of the inaction of leaders and within the constraints of the law, advocates and activists have found creative ways to use the law for the public good and bend it in favour of the rights and climate agenda. Brynn O’Brien spoke to Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility’s work where shareholders are putting themselves in the way of business within the constraints of corporations law and shareholder rights. Climate litigation, including on the basis of human rights, has been an avenue for accountability and applying pressure to states and business, including through the efforts of young climate activists.

I think in the end that law is only one lever and one tool in the toolbox but an important one to tackle the wicked problem and existential threat of our time, and also to ensure quality of life and dignity for all.