What Role for Human Rights in the International Climate Change Regime? The Paris Rulebook Between Missed and Future Opportunities

Climate change is having and will increasingly have considerable negative effects on human rights; and responses to climate change need to take human rights into account. Notwithstanding broad agreement on these considerations, the Paris Agreement does not fully reflect the multiple connections between climate change and human rights. Due to the general nature of the Paris Agreement, it is considered appropriate to ascertain whether its main implementation instrument, the so-called Paris Rulebook, has been more successful in incorporating a human rights-based approach to climate change. Unfortunately, the Paris Rulebook has missed several opportunities in this respect. Expectations are now placed on the last component of the Paris Rulebook that is yet to be agreed upon: i.e., the implementation of Art. 6 of the Agreement and its Sustainable Development Mechanism, which is bound to have direct effects on the rights of the communities affected by its activities and whose design thus crucially needs to integrate a human rights perspective.