Guest blog for the “Caribbean Voices for Climate Justice” series by Malene C. Alleyne, Freedom
Imaginaries
The climate crisis is the logical consequence of a racial capitalist order that normalizes resource plundering, indigenous dispossession, environmental
destruction, and a process of racial structuring that relegates former colonies to sacrificial zones of extraction. The global human rights system has traditionally been complicit in
sustaining this order, mainly by failing to confront issues of political economy and historical structures of oppression. However, there are existing human rights tools that could be
strengthened and leveraged to take action against the climate crisis. This blog explores the framework for economic, social, cultural and environmental (ESCE) rights as one such tool.
International human rights law protects a number of ESCE rights that are particularly threatened by the climate crisis. These rights include the right to health, a healthy environment, food, water, and cultural identity, which are enshrined in treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Indeed, climate change is causing serious injuries and loss of life from extreme weather events, heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, water-borne and vector-borne diseases, malnutrition and air pollution. Moreover, the impacts of climate change on freshwater resources and ecosystems are undermining access to clean water, food, and shelter, while devastating rural livelihoods and displacing vulnerable populations.
Climate change has particularly devastating impacts on the ESCE rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendent and rural communities given their dependency on the environment for economic and cultural survival. In this sense, climate change undermines the legal and normative framework established in treaties and documents such as Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, which seek to ensure the cultural survival of these communities. Climate change is also a racial and gender issue since it disproportionately impacts former colonies and the ESCE rights of racialized peoples, women and girls.
Click here to read the full blog post by Malene C. Alleyne.
Caption: Malene Alleyne, Dr. Esther Figueroa, and other Caribbean advocates appear before the IACHR for a landmark hearing on the Impact of Extractive Industries on Human Rights and Climate Change in the Caribbean