This page contains a curated list of academic research on human rights and climate change, and other documents and academic work that can help understand this topic. It is meant to serve as a starting point for research, and is by no means exhaustive. The list is regularly updated.
2023
Alice Venn, ‘Rendering International Human Rights Law Fit for Purpose on Climate Change’, 23 Human Rights Law Review (2023), 1–25. Available here.
Maria Antonia Tigre, Lorena Zenteno, Marlies Hesselman, Natalia Urzola, Pedro Cisterna-Gaete, and Riccardo Luporini ‘Just Transition Litigation in Latin America: An Initial Categorization of Climate Litigation Cases Amid the Energy Transition’, via SSRN. Available here.
Marta Torre-Schaub, ‘Climate Change Risk and Climate Justice in France: The High Administrative Court as Janus or Prometheus?’ European Journal of Risk Regulation (2023), 1-15.
Riccardo Luporini & Annalisa Savaresi, ‘International human rights bodies and climate litigation: Don’t look up?’ RECIEL (2023), 1-12. Available here.
Benoit Mayer, ‘Prompting Climate Change Mitigation through Litigation’, 72(1) International & Comparative Law Quarterly (2023), 233-250. Available here.
2022
Ademola Oluborode Jegede and Oluwatoyin Adejonwo, Climate Change Justice and Human Rights: An African Perspective, University of Pretoria Press (2022). Available here.
Edgardo Sobenes, Sarah Mead, & Benjamin Samson, The Environment Through the Lens of International Courts and Tribunals, Springer 2022.
Petra Minnerop, ‘European Consensus as Integrative Doctrine of Treaty Interpretation: Joining Climate Science and International Law under the European Convention on Human Rights’ forthcoming, Berkeley Journal of International Law (2022).
Juan Auz, ‘Human Rights-based Climate Litigation: A Latin American Cartography’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), 114-136. Available here.
Annalisa Savaresi and Joana Setzer, ‘Rights-based Litigation in the Climate Emergency: Mapping the Landscape and New Knowledge Frontiers’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 7–34. Available here.
Lucy Maxwell, Sarah Mead and Dennis van Berkel, ‘Standards for Adjudicating the Next Generation of Urgenda-style Climate Cases’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 35–63. Available here.
Larissa Parker, Juliette Mestre, Sébastien Jodoin and Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, ‘When the Kids Put Climate Change on Trial: Youth-Focused Rights-Based Climate Litigation around the World’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 64–89. Available here.
Jacques Hartmann & Marc Willers, ‘Protecting Rights through Climate Change Litigation before European Courts’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), 90–113. Available here.
Birsha Ohdedar, ‘Climate Adaptation, Vulnerability and Rights-based Litigation: Broadening the Scope of Climate Litigation Using Political Ecology’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 137–156. Available here.
Kim Bouwer, ‘The Influence of Human Rights on Climate Litigation in Africa’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 157–177. Available here.
Lisa Benjamin and Sara L. Seck, ‘Mapping Human Rights-based Climate Litigation in Canada’ 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 178–211. Available here.
Sara K Phillips & Nicole Anschell, ‘Building Business, Human Rights and Climate Change Synergies in Southeast Asia: What the Philippines’ National Inquiry on Climate Change Could Mean for ASEAN’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 238–264. Available here.
Nicola Silbert, ‘In Search of Impact: Climate Litigation Impact Through a Human Rights Litigation Framework’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 265–289. Available here.
Orla Kelleher, ‘Incorporating Climate Justice into Legal Reasoning: Shifting towards a Risk-based Approach to Causation in Climate Litigation’, 13(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2022), p. 290–317. Available here.
Elena Cima, ‘The Right to a Healthy Environment: Reconceptualizing Human Rights in the Face of Climate Change’ 31(1) RECIEL (2022) 38-49. Available here.
Helen Keller & Corina Heri, ‘The Future is Now: Climate Cases Before the ECtHR’, Nordic Journal of Human Rights (2022). Available here.
Juan Auz, ‘‘So, This is Permanence’: The Inter-American Human Rights System as a Liminal Space for Climate Justice’, 22(2) Melbourne Journal of International Law (2022). Available here.
Josephine Van Zeben, ‘The Role of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Climate Litigation’ 22(8) German Law Journal (2022), 1499-1510. Available here.
Melissa Farley, ‘Making the Connections: Resource Extraction, Prostitution, Poverty, Climate Change, and Human Rights, 26(6) The International Journal of Human Rights (2022), p. 1032-1055. Available here.
Ole W. Pedersen, ‘Any Role for the ECHR When It Comes to Climate Change?’, 3 European Convention on Human Rights Law Review (2022), 17-22. Available here.
Natalia Kobylarz, ‘Balancing its Way Out of Strong Anthropocentrism: Integration of ‘Ecological Minimum Standards’ in the European Court of Human Rights’ ‘Fair Balance’ Review’, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (forthcoming, March 2022).
Helen Keller, Corina Heri, Réka Piskóty, ‘Something Ventured, Nothing Gained?—Remedies before the ECtHR and Their Potential for Climate Change Cases’, 22(1) Human Rights Law Review (2022), 1-26. Available here.
Helen Keller and Angela Hefti, ‘Bringing the Right to Water into the Spotlight: A Civil Right before the ECtHR?’, Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (2022), 1-10. Available here.
2021
Otto Spijkers, ‘Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) v Royal Dutch Shell’, 5(2) Chinese Journal of Environmental Law (2021), 237-256. Available here.
Benoit Mayer & Alexander Zahar, Debating Climate Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Available here.
Juliana Nnoko-Mewanu, Luciana Téllez-Chávez & Katharina Rall, ‘Protect Rights and Advance Gender Equality to Mitigate Climate Change’ 11 Nature Climate Change (2021), p. 368–370. Available here.
Valentin Jentsch, ‘Etappensieg bei Klimaklage zur Reduktion von CO2-Emissionen gegen Rohstoffunternehmen’, 3 Gesellschafts- und Kapitalmarktrecht (2021), 321-343. Available here.
Andreas Hösli, ‘Milieudefensie et al. v. Shell: A Tipping Point in Climate Change Litigation against Corporations?’, 11(2) Climate Law (2021), 195-209. Available here.
Lucas Roorda, ‘Broken English: a critique of the Dutch Court of Appeal decision in Four Nigerian Farmers and Milieudefensie v Shell’, 12(1) Transnational Legal Theory (2021), 144-150. Available here.
Jaques Hartmann and Annalisa Savaresi, ‘Corporate actors, environmental harms and the Draft UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights: History in the making?’, 83 Questions of International Law, Zoom in (2021), 27-46. Available here.
Helen Keller and Réka Piskóty, ‘Klimabeschwerden: Zulässigkeitshürden vor dem EGMR’, 11 Aktuelle Juristische Praxis (2021), 1367-1369. Available here.
Annalisa Savaresi and Joana Setzer, ‘Mapping the Whole of the Moon: An Analysis of the Role of Human Rights in Climate Litigation’ (2021). Available on SSRN.
Bridget Lewis, ‘Children’s Human Rights-based Climate Litigation at the Frontiers of Environmental and Children’s Rights’, 39(2) Nordic Journal of Human Rights (2021), 180-203. Available here.
Ingrid Gubbay and Claus Wenzler, ‘Intergenerational Climate Change Litigation: The First Climate Communication to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’, in Ivano Alogna, Christine Bakker, and Jean-Pierre Gauci (eds), Climate Change Litigation: Global Perspectives (Brill Nijhoff 2021), 343-365. Available here.
Bridget Lewis, ‘The Potential of International Rights-Based Climate Litigation to Advance Human Rights Law and Climate Justice’, 9(1) Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity (2021), 1-27. Available here.
Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh and Ashleigh McCoach, ‘The State of the Netherlands v Urgenda Foundation: Distilling best practice and lessons learnt for future rights-based climate litigation’, 30 Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (2021), 275-283. Available here.
Chiara Macchi, and Josephine van Zeben, ‘Business and human rights implications of climate change litigation: Milieudefensie et al. v Royal Dutch Shell‘ 30(3) Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (2021), 409-415. Available here.
Helen Keller and Abigail Pershing, ‘Climate Change in Court: Overcoming Procedural Hurdles in Transboundary Environmental Cases’, European Convention on Human Rights Law Review (2021), 1-24. Available here.
Benoit Mayer, ‘Climate Change Mitigation as an Obligation Under Human Rights Treaties?’, 115 American Journal of International Law (2021), 409-451. Available here.
James R. May, ‘The Case for Environmental Human Rights: Recognition, Implementation and Outcomes’, 42 Cardozo Law Review (2021), 983-1037. Available here.
Birgit Peters, ‘Zur Anwendbarkeit der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention in Umwelt- und Klimaschutzfragen’, 59(2) Archiv des Völkerrechts (2021), 164-198. Available here.
Samvel Varvastian, ‘The Advent of International Human Rights Law in Climate Change Litigation’, 38(2) Wisconsin International Law Journal (2021), 369-425. Available here.
Rupert F. Stuart-Smith, Friederike E. L. Otto, Aisha I. Saad, Gaia Lisi, Petra Minnerop, Kristian Cedervall Lauta, Kristin van Zwieten & Thom Wetzer, ‘Filling the Evidentiary Gap in Climate Litigation’, Nature Climate Change (2021). Available here.
Benoit Mayer, ‘Temperature Targets and State Obligations on the Mitigation of Climate Change’, 33(3) Journal of Environmental Law (2021), 585-610. Available here.
Ursula Brunner and Cordelia C. Bähr, ‘Climate Change and Individuals’ Rights in Switzerland’, in Francesco Sindico and Makane Moïse Mbengue (eds), Comparative Climate Change Litigation: Beyond the Usual Suspects (Springer 2021), 119-132. Available here.
Belen Olmos Giupponi, International Environmental Law Compliance in Context: Mechanisms and Case Studies (Routledge 2021). Available here.
Maria Antonia Tigre and Natalia Urzola, ‘The 2017 Inter-American Court’s Advisory Opinion: Changing the Paradigm for International Environmental Law in the Anthropocene’, 12(1) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2021), 24-50. Available here.
Ivano Alogna, Christine Bakker, and Jean-Pierre Gauci, Climate Change Litigation: Global Perspectives (Brill 2021). Available here.
Lavanya Rajamani, ‘Due Diligence in International Climate Change Law’ in H Krieger, A Peters, L Kreuzer (eds), Due Diligence in International Law (Oxford University Press 2021), 163-180. Available here.
Lavanya Rajamani and Jacqueline Peel, ‘Reflections on a Decade of Change in International Environmental Law’, 10(1) Cambridge Journal of International Law (2021), 6-13. Available here.
Anne van Aaken and Betül Simsek, ‘Rewarding in International Law’, 115(2) American Journal of International Law (2021), 195-241. Available here.
Annalisa Savaresi, ‘Human Rights and the Impacts of Climate Change: Revisiting the Assumptions’, 11(1) Oñati Socio-Legal Series (2021), 231-253. Available here.
Chiara Macchi, ‘The Climate Change Dimension of Business and Human Rights: The Gradual Consolidation of a Concept of “Climate Due Diligence”, 6(1) Business and Human Rights Journal (2021), 93-119. Available here.
Marie-Catherine Petersmann, ‘Contested Indigeneity and Traditionality in Environmental Litigation: The Politics of Expertise in Regional Human Rights Courts’, 21(1) Human Rights Law Review (2021), 132-156. Available here.
2020
B.S. Chimni, ‘The Articles on State Responsibility and the Guiding Principles of Shared Responsibility: A TWAIL Perspective’, 31(4) European Journal of International Law (2020), 1211-1221. Available here.
Jane McAdam, ‘Protecting People Displaced by the Impacts of Climate Change: The UN Human Rights Committee and the Principle of Non-refoulement‘, 114(4) American Journal of International Law, 708-725.
Katharina Franziska Braig and Angela Ehlers-Hofherr, ‘Diese andere Potenzielle Katastrophe: Wie kann der EGMR dazu beitragen, die Klimakrise einzudämmen?’, 42 Natur und Recht (2020), 589-595. Available here.
Frédéric Gilles Sourgens, ‘The Precaution Presumption’, 31(4) European Journal of International Law (2020), 1277-1306. Available here.
Amina Maneggia, ‘Non-refoulement of Climate Change Migrants: Individual Human Rights Protection or ‘Responsibility to Protect’? – The Teitiota Case Before the Human Rights Committee’, 2 Diritti umani e diritto internazionale (2020), 635-643. Available here.
Jason Rudall, Compensation for Environmental Damage Under International Law (Routledge 2020).
Tamara Morganthau and Nikki Reisch, ‘Litigating the Frontlines: Why African Community Rights Cases Are Climate Change Cases’, 25(1) UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs (2020), 85-122. Available here.
Annalisa Savaresi, ‘The Use of Human Rights Arguments in Climate Change Litigation and its Limitations’, in D. Ismangil K. van der Schaaf and L. van Troost (eds), Climate Change, Justice and Human Rights. Changing Perspectives on Human Rights (Strategic Studies 2020), 49-55. Available here.
Katharina Braig and Stoyan Panov, ‘The Doctrine of Positive Obligations as a Starting Point for Climate Litigation in Strasbourg: The European Court of Human Rights as a Hilfssheriff in Combating Climate Change?’, 35 Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation (2020), 261-397. Available here.
John H. Knox, ‘Constructing the Human Right to a Healthy Environment’, 16(1) Annual Review of Law and Social Science (2020), 79-95. Available here.
Hari M. Osofsky, ‘The Geography of Emerging Global South Climate Change Litigation’, 114 American Journal of Internatioal Law Unbound (2020), 61-66. Available here.
2019
Judith Fitz, ‘Klimakrise vor Gericht: Klagen als ultima ratio im Klimaschutz?’ 1 Juridikum (2019). Available here.
Alice Venn, ‘Social Justice and Climate Change’, in: Trevor M. Letcher (ed), Managing Global Warming, Academic Press (2019), p. 711-728. Available here.
Joana Setzer and Lisa Vanhala, ‘Climate Change Litigation: A Review of Research on Courts and Litigants in Climate Government’, 10(3) Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (2019), e580. Available here.
Sumudu Atapattu and Andrea Schnapper, Human Rights and the Environment (Routledge 2019). Available here.
Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, State Responsibility, Climate Change and Human Rights under International Law (Hart 2019). Available here.
Ingrid Leijten, ‘Human Rights v. Insufficient Climate Action: The Urgenda Case’ 37(2) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (2019). Available here.
Maiko Meguro, ‘State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation’ 114(4) American Journal of International Law (2020), 729-735. Available here.
Jacqueline Peel and Jolene Lin, ‘Transnational Climate Litigation: The Contribution of the Global South’, 113(4) American Journal of International Law (2019), 679-726. Available here.
Malgosia Fitzmaurice, ‘The European Court of Human Rights and the Right to a Clean Environment: Evolutionary or Illusory Interpretation?’, in Georges Abi-Saab, Kenneth Keith, Gabrielle Marceau, and Clément Marquet (eds), Evolutionary Interpretation and International Law (Hart Publishing 2019). Available here.
Monica Feria-Tinta and Simon C. Milnes, ‘International Environmental Law for the 21st Century: The Constitutionalization of the Right to a Healthy Environment in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Advisory Opinion 23’, 12 ACDI – Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional (2019), 43-84. Available here.
Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, ‘Remedies for Human Rights Violations Caused by Climate Change’, 9 Climate Law (2019), 224-243. Available here.
Julia Hänni, ‘Menschenrechtsverletzungen infolge Klimawandels: Voraussetzungen und Herausforderungen / Dargestellt am Beispiel der EMRK’, 46 EuGRZ (2019), 1-6. Available here.
2018
Sumudu Atapattu, Human Rights Approaches to Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities (Routledge 2018). Available here.
Sébastien Duyck, Sébastien Jodoin and Alyssa Johl (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Human Rights and Climate Governance, Routledge 2018. Available here.
Julie H. Albers, ‘Human Rights and Climate Change: Protecting the Right to Life of Individuals of Present and Future Generations’, 28(1-4) Security and Human Rights (2018), 113-144. Available here.
Trish Glazebrook and Emmanuela Opoku, ‘Defending the Defenders: Environmental Protectors, Climate Change and Human Rights’ 23(2) Ethics and the Environment, 83-109. Available here.
John H. Knox and Ramin Pejan (eds), The Human Right to a Healthy Environment (Cambridge University Press 2018). Available here.
Natalia Kobylarz, ‘The European Court of Human Rights: An Underrated Forum for Environmental Litigation’, in Helle Tegner Anker and Birgitte Egelund Olsen (eds), Sustainable Management of Natural Resources: Legal Instruments and Approaches (Intersentia 2018). Available here.
Ole W. Pedersen, ‘The European Court of Human Rights and International Environmental Law’ in John H. Knox and Ramin Pejan (eds), The Human Right to a Healthy Environment (2018), 86-99. Available here.
Bridget Lewis, Environmental Human Rights and Climate Change: Current Status and Future Prospects (Springer, 2018). Available here.
Alan Boyle, ‘Climate Change, the Paris Agreement and Human Rights’, 67 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2018), 759-777. Available here.
2017
Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée, and Lavanya Rajamani, International Climate Change Law (Oxford University Press 2017). Available here.
2016
Kevin R. Gray, Richard Tarasofsky and Cinnamon Carlarne (eds), Human Rights Principles and Climate Change (Oxford University Press 2016). Available here.
2015
Ottavio Quirico and Mouloud Boumghar, Climate Change and Human Rights: An International and Comparative Law Perspective (Routledge 2015). Available here.
Anna Grear and Louis J. Kotzé, Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment’(Edward Elgar 2015). Available here.
2014
Anna Grear, ‘Towards Climate Justice? A Critical Reflection on Legal Subjectivity and Climate Injustice: Warning Signals, Patterned Hierarchies, Directions for Future Law and Policy’, 5 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2014), 103-133. Available here.
Henry Shue, ‘Changing Images of Climate Change: Human Rights and Future Generations’, 5 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (2014), 50-64. Available here.
2013
Elisa Morgera and Annalisa Savaresi, ‘A Conceptual and Legal Perspective on the Green Economy’, 22(1) Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (2013), 14-28. Available here.
2012
Erin Daly, ‘The Ecuadorian Exemplar: The First Ever Vindications of Constitutional Rights of Nature’, 21(1) Review of European Community & International Environmental Law (2012), 63-66. Available here.
Henry Shue, ‘Human Rights, Climate Change, and the Trillionth Ton’, in: Steve Vanderheiden (ed.), Environmental Rights, Routledge 2021.
2011
Armelle Gouritin, ‘Potential Liability of European States under the ECHR for Failure to Take Appropriate Measures with a View to Adaptation to Climate Change’, in Michael Faure and Marjan Peeters (eds), Climate Change Liability (2011), 134-162. Available here.
Ole W. Pedersen, ‘The Janus-Head of Human Rights and Climate Change: Adaptation and Mitigation’ 80(4) Nordic Journal of International Law (2011), 403-423. Available here.
2010
Francesco Francioni, ‘International Human Rights in an Environmental Horizon’, 21(1) European Journal of International Law (2010), 41-55. Available here.
Stephen Humphreys (ed.), ‘Climate Change and International Human Rights Law’ International Law in the Era of Climate Change (Edward Elgar 2010). Available here.
2009
Stephen Humphreys and Mary Robinson (eds), Human Rights and Climate Change (Cambridge University Press 2009). Available here.
John H. Knox, ‘Climate Change and Human Rights Law’, 50(1) Virginia Journal of International Law (2009), 1-59. Available on SSRN.
2008
Simon Caney, ‘Human Rights, Climate Change, and Discounting’, 17(4) Environmental Politics, 536-555. Available here.