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IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS - PDF
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1 IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS Paul Havemann* I Introduction UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon recently declared that those least responsible for climate change bear the greatest burden: Our earth is more fragile than we might think. Whole ecosystems that support millions of lives face significant disruption. In some cases, whole countries and peoples not only animal species are at risk of disappearing. And the effects are being felt most acutely by those least able to cope and least responsible for the problem. This is a moral issue. Our responses must be guided by the principles of common responsibility and the common good. 1 Indigenous peoples are amongst the groups most vulnerable to climate change and yet are the least responsible for the unnatural (ie, anthropogenic, human-induced) carbon cycle that is causing it. The absence of a human rights-based approach to climate change governance, which would recognise Indigenous rights to participation and other human rights, constitutes a major flaw in the processes, policies and measures of the entire climate change regime. Denial of these rights permeates processes under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) 2 and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol 3, as well as the policies, measures, rules and procedures promulgated annually by Conferences of the Parties for determining how to break the unnatural carbon cycle. Participation is defined here as the right to contribute to the deliberations and decisions of decision-making bodies, in contrast to the mere opportunity to be consulted or to be an observer of proceedings at the behest of the state parties. Indigenous peoples organisations are only able to obtain observer status 4 in UNFCCC proceedings. Despite the unique impact of climate change on Indigenous peoples, their organisations are among the groups least likely to have their substantive and procedural rights recognised. As a consequence, Indigenous peoples rights are abrogated both by climate change itself and by the current measures to mitigate and adapt to it, including carbon trading. Both the clean development mechanism defined in art 12 of the Kyoto Protocol and UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries ( REDD ) are intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the creation of a carbon market; thus far neither Indigenous peoples nor other global civil society actors have had the option of assessing the merits of carbon trading. At present, neither the human rights of Indigenous peoples nor respect for the governance principle of free, prior and informed consent is intrinsic to the climate change governance regime and the resulting carbon market. This commentary stresses the urgent need to fill the human rights gap in climate change governance. The human rightsbased approach imposes a threefold obligation upon states and the intergovernmental organisations through which they work internationally. In accordance with what was declared by the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, this threefold obligation is to: respect rights by refraining from interfering with the enjoyment of people s rights; protect rights by preventing these from being violated by third parties such as corporations and other states as well as individuals; fulfil rights by taking action towards the full realisation of people s human rights though legislation, enforcement and expenditure. 5 2
2 IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS The process of implementing human rights imposes upon states a further set of obligations to: ensure a core minimum of rights is enjoyed by every citizen whatever the state s resource constraints; give priority to the rights of those most vulnerable and at risk; ensure the participation of people in designing and implementing measures which will affect their rights; establish mechanisms to respond to the violation of human rights and to monitor and report on the status of respect for human rights; and cooperate internationally in the realisation of human rights. 6 The human rights-based approach to climate change governance must explicitly incorporate the substantive and the procedural human rights of Indigenous peoples (and of other highly vulnerable groups). As an intrinsic element of climate change governance, the human rights-based approach must be proactively integrated into the design, redesign, development and implementation of all climate change abatement measures, 7 including regulation of the carbon markets. The right to a healthy, bio-diverse and sustainable environment is not expressly articulated in the International Bill of Rights that is, collectively, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( UDHR ), 8 the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ( ICESCR ) 9 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( ICCPR ) 10 and its protocols or elsewhere. As yet, no grundnorm in international law specifies a human right to a healthy, bio-diverse and sustainable environment; therefore, the human rights-based approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation has to be assembled from the whole body of international law. Some experts 11 suggest that such a right is evolving, as an inferential step, from the recognition of the rights to health, life and other basic human rights, coupled with the duty of states not to commit trans-boundary environmental harm against other states. Two regional human rights treaties, the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights 12 and the 1988 Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 13 while not enforceable by individuals or peoples, do recognise a right to an environment of a certain quality. They suggest that a possible avenue of recognition for environmental human rights comes by way of a corollary from the duties states have accepted in relation to international environmental law under the 1994 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, 14 UNFCCC, and Kyoto Protocol. 15 Nevertheless, the lack of an express right to a sustainable environment illustrates the urgency of the need to articulate and implement a human rights-based approach to climate change governance, as well as in response to climate change-induced disasters. Climate change litigation at the international and national levels is an important, though limited, dimension to a human rights-based approach. Litigation is often a reactive response that is costly, time consuming and always hostage to the caprice of courts, human rights tribunals, other complaints mechanisms and, of course, governments. 16 For example, in 2005 the Inuit peoples petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to obtain recognition of their claim that United States greenhouse gas emissions have violated their human rights by adversely impacting upon every facet of Inuit life. 17 The Inter-American Commission initially responded to the Inuit petition by stating that the information provided does not enable us to determine whether the alleged facts would tend to characterize a violation of the rights protected by the American Declaration [of the Rights and Duties of Man], 18 declining even to try to make the causal link between climate change impacts and human rights; however, in 2007 the Commission agreed to the request for a further hearing. 19 To the author s knowledge the matter is still pending. Litigation in the climate change context has an important function in the politics of rights, where human rights do provide a valuable resource for articulating claims and critiquing the rupture between the rhetoric and the reality of rights-talk. 20 That being said, climate change litigation per se is not the focus of this commentary. Since 2007, at least, there are clear and positive indications that the building blocks for a human rights-based approach are being assembled. The UN finally started to explore how human rights can be integrated into the climate change regime at the December 2007 Bali Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. There the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights called for recognition of human rights and sustainable development in the context of the threat that climate change posed to the Millennium Development Goals. 21 In March 2008, the UN Human Rights Council stated that it was concerned that climate change poses an immediate and far reaching threat to peoples and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights. 22 At the same time the Council requested the Office of (2009) 13(1) AILR 3
3 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ( OHCHR ) conduct a detailed study of the relationship between human rights and climate change. 23 In April May 2008, the Seventh Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues devoted several days of deliberation to Indigenous peoples rights and climate change, and issued a statement requesting participation in UNFCCC s Conferences of Parties. By mid-2009, the OHCHR had received a substantial number of submissions on climate change and human rights 24 from states 25 as well as nongovernmental organisations ( NGOs ). 26 Notably, Oxfam International s briefing paper advocates a human rightsbased approach, and is grounded in a rigorous critique of the political economy of the carbon market-based approach to mitigation and adaptation. 27 Amongst national human rights bodies, the Australian Human Rights Commission (formerly the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) has shown leadership by identifying climate change as a human rights issue; and in this regard, the rights of Indigenous peoples are high on its agenda. 28 Excellent submissions made to the OHCHR by the Environmental Defenders Office NSW 29 and by the Sydney Centre for International Law 30 also reflect recognition of the specific threat climate change poses to Indigenous peoples human rights. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also been working with other agencies on a human rights-based approach to humanitarian relief in the aftermath of climateinduced disasters, jointly producing comprehensive operational guidelines in Also in 2008, the Secretariat of the 1994 UN Convention to Combat Desertification 32 published a report that links vulnerability and climate change to desertification, drought and land degradation, and advocates a human rights-based approach for Indigenous and tribal peoples, and the peoples of small island developing states. 33 The right to water is a key focus. Unless a human rights-based approach becomes integral to climate change regime governance, there is a danger that recognition of such rights will be addressed retrospectively and reactively or neglected altogether. Integration of a human rights-based approach ought, therefore, to be a basic agenda item for the 15 th UNFCCC Conference of Parties at Copenhagen in 2009, when it deliberates on the shape of the post-2012 climate change regime. Further, justiciable Indigenous peoples rights, as well as environmental, substantive and procedural human rights, ought to form the basis of a possible Australian bill or charter of rights, which is currently under review. 34 The coming years will be critical in addressing the problems of climate change and in attempting to alter the current trajectory to avert ecocide, and the consequential disastrous impacts on Indigenous people and their way of life. II A Climate Change: Impacts of the Unnatural Carbon Cycle Impacts on the Earth The climate change regime is concerned with breaking the accelerating anthropogenic (human-induced) imbalance in the carbon cycle, so that greenhouse gas emissions will not accumulate in the Earth s atmosphere to produce dangerous climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) has to date produced four assessment reports, in 1990, 1995, 2000, and Each of these has confirmed that human-induced climate change is occurring. The latest and most explicit, the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, warns unambiguously that, left unabated, climate change will have serious negative consequences for life on Earth as we know it. 35 The IPCC s warning is based on research that shows an alarming rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions from human activity since 1970; the extent to which land and sea temperatures are unequivocally rising, snow cover is decreasing, and global average sea level is rising; and the known and easily anticipated dire ecological and human impacts of temperature change on water, ecosystems, food, coasts and health. This data shows the disastrous consequences for life on Earth when temperatures rise by even two to three degrees from the 1980 to the 1990 levels. 36 It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into any great detail on the precise science of climate change, though interested readers are encouraged to seek out the IPCC s Assessment Reports as a starting point. B Impacts on Indigenous and Other Vulnerable Peoples 37 In every region of the Earth, Indigenous people are on the frontline of climate change, 38 the impacts of which are more notable where the state is ill equipped or unwilling to 4
4 IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS respond. Unabated, climate change seems likely to cause the poorest of the poor, of whom Indigenous peoples constitute a high proportion, to suffer profound adverse impacts and so derail the attainment of the UN s eight Millennium Development Goals. 39 Climate change governance at both local and global levels is state-centred, exacerbating Indigenous peoples relative powerlessness. Colonisation, and its contemporary ideological manifestation in economic globalisation, perpetuates the denial of the right to self-determination of Indigenous peoples. This abrogation of Indigenous peoples human rights is chronically demonstrated by the profound ambivalence that states evince towards recognition of Indigenous peoples international legal personality. 40 States have often ratified international law instruments and/or domestic treaties promising otherwise; yet, despite the rhetoric, Indigenous peoples are excluded from participation in deliberations at the state level and international level about development, health services, ecosystem sustainability and climate change governance. Without self-determination, Indigenous peoples experience systemic and structured inequality of access to individual human rights in almost all regions of the world. The continuing abrogation of Indigenous peoples human rights compounds their vulnerability to the negative impacts of climate change, through the lack of access to or control over mitigation and adaptation measures. Negative impacts include: loss of access to water, ecosystem collapse in the form of unprecedented species extinction, desertification and deforestation, food insecurity, rapid changes in coastal geomorphology due to sea-level rises, and worsening health conditions due to the spread of vector-borne diseases. 41 Further, climate change is also accompanied by the intensification and increased frequency of natural disasters and subsequent massive dislocation of people, often from or into the lands of Indigenous peoples. It has been estimated that in 1995 there were up to 25 million environmental refugees, a figure that is expected to climb dramatically as climate change becomes more pronounced. 42 A brief region-by-region snapshot illustrates the widespread vulnerability to climate change of Indigenous peoples and the highly pernicious forms such climate change takes. In Australia, climate change particularly affects Indigenous people in the north. These include low-lying areas of the Torres Strait Islands and shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria that are vulnerable to sea-level rise, coastal erosion and storm surges; Kimberley coastal and inland communities that are vulnerable to increased intensity and frequency of cyclones; Cape York communities facing biodiversity loss in tropical rainforests and increased coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef; and communities in central regions across the continent, which face the largest projected temperature increases and the least climate-proofed public infrastructure, services and housing. 43 In the Arctic, much of the region is experiencing among the most severe impacts of very rapid climate change. 44 As Nobel Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier points out, the Arctic is the world s barometer of climate change 45 and the Inuit are the mercury. Warming is fundamentally threatening the health and food security of Inuit and other northern Indigenous people so fast and so radically that mitigation and adaptation are very difficult. In sub-saharan Africa, drought and temperature rise are causing desertification, rendering 2.5 million hectares of the Kalahari area in southern Africa unusable for grazing or as a source of food for the San Indigenous people. 46 In areas of Asia, a 2 8 degree increase in temperature and decreased rainfall are leading to the collapse of forest systems, and to crop failures and fires. The coastal zones of Bangladesh and China are experiencing erosion, saltwater dilution of fresh water supplies and, as a result, the dislocation of coastal populations. In the Himalayas, glacial melt is leading to downstream floods and the collapse of high-altitude ecosystems. 47 In these areas pressures on Indigenous peoples way of life, land and water are acute, due to the movement of people from adversely affected lower-lying areas. 48 In Central and South America and the Caribbean, from the Amazon basin to the alpine forests of the Andes, deforestation is widespread. Weather patterns have also altered, disrupting traditional agriculture and so threatening food security. 49 Coastal erosion is making areas of many small island developing states uninhabitable, forcing population movement onto scarce land. In the Pacific region, for instance, coastal erosion, high tides and stormy seas are threatening the existence of Tuvalu and Kiribati. 50 Climate change is likely to increase the vulnerability of Indigenous peoples to continuing poverty and poor health. In an increasingly competitive environment, Indigenous peoples lack of political and economic power seems likely to continue to limit their ability to assert and defend their land tenure, to maintain access rights to natural resources and to sustain (2009) 13(1) AILR 5
5 diversified traditional livelihoods. 51 Restricted access to information and communication technologies further limits Indigenous peoples ability to adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change. 52 Reaping few of the benefits of the economic growth and globalisation that have contributed to climate change, Indigenous peoples bear the burden of a non-compensable injustice from the destruction of their land and sea country, as a result of climate change. Indigenous peoples, because they are peoples and not states, fall into a governance gap through denial of their procedural rights to deliberate and decide upon what is to be done about climate change. Indigenous peoples autonomous negotiating power is minimal because states tend to marginalise them and treat their land and sea country as that of the state. Further, Indigenous peoples start the contest for rights with the hindrance of a profound, substantive and procedural, individual and group, human rights deficit. The human rights-based approach to climate change governance is necessary to redress this injustice, promote resilience and adaptation, reduce vulnerability, and ensure that ecocide and the resulting impacts on Indigenous peoples way of life will not continue. III Human Rights and Climate Change Governance In 1988, the UN General Assembly declared that climate change was a common concern of mankind. 53 Also in 1988, the World Meteorological Office and the UN Environment Programme set up the IPCC with a mandate to assess the emerging science on climate change, and specifically to detect global warming trends, in order to determine the extent that these are attributable to human activity. 54 The implications of the IPCC s First Assessment Report in 1990 gave the impetus for the UN General Assembly to start negotiation for a framework convention on climate change. An Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee was set up to steer the process. 55 A supplementary report of the IPCC and the adoption of ambitious greenhouse gas emissions targets 56 by the high-emitting member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development paved the way for the UNFCCC to be open for signature by state parties at the Rio Earth Summit (the UN Conference on Environment and Development) in Five instruments were opened for signature or adopted at the 1992 Conference. Four of these the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 57 the Convention on Biological Diversity, 58 Agenda 21, 59 as well as the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests 60 explicitly and extensively recognise the human rights of Indigenous peoples, including their right to participation. The UNFCCC does not. Nor does the Convention to Combat Desertification, though its secretariat published a report in 2008 that advocates a human rightsbased approach. 61 Despite the dire human consequences of climate change, forecast by the IPCC s assessment reports since 1990, the climate change regime has evolved without expressly incorporating or referencing human rights. The Kyoto Protocol, agreed on in 1997 but not in force until 2004 because of prevarication about ratifying by states such as Russia, the United States and Australia, 62 perpetuates the neglect of references to human rights. A Denial of Indigenous Human Rights The UNFCCC art 4 and Kyoto Protocol art 10 oblige developed states to assist developing countries, notably with information and knowledge transfer. However, the climate change regime makes no explicit acknowledgment of the situation of Indigenous peoples, most of whom live in developing or least-developed states. Moreover, the contribution that traditional environmental knowledge can make to adaptation is not referenced. Neither the UNFCCC nor Kyoto Protocol includes any human rights provisions concerning specific assistance or protection for people who will be directly affected by the impact of climate change. Yet, unless a human rights-based approach becomes central to responses, climate change-precipitated disasters will fundamentally threaten basic human rights for millions of people, many of them Indigenous. 63 The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in noting that the concept of environmental refugees does not usefully fit with the mandate of his agency, has asked whether a new treaty is required and whether the human rights of climate change victims ought to become a consideration of the UNFCCC. He suggests that there are protection gaps for climate-related internally displaced persons looming and that a human rights-based approach is essential to fill it. 64 The 1993 Vienna Declaration of the UN General Assembly declared all human rights to be universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. 65 Yet most states demonstrate ambivalence toward fulfilling their duty to 6
6 IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS respect and protect the individual rights and, especially, group rights of Indigenous peoples. The quest for these rights is central to Indigenous peoples struggles for social justice and climate justice, both locally and globally. The climate crisis highlights three inextricably linked types of human rights that are critical to the survival and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples. The first is the right to existence, a group right inferred from the UN Genocide Convention, 66 which established the right not to suffer genocide. The second is the group right to self-determination, now expressed in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 67 The right to self-determination originated in the ICCPR and ICESCR, though its application to Indigenous peoples was contested by states. This fundamental group procedural right embraces rights to self-government, to participatory development and to free, prior and informed consent, together with the recognition of traditional environmental knowledge and stewardship duties concerning the environment. 68 Third are individual human rights, which have developed in international law within the UN framework since 1945, under the umbrella of the International Bill of Rights framed by the UDHR, ICCPR and ICESCR. Such rights are also expressed through a host of human rights conventions and declarations, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 69 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 70 the Convention on the Rights of the Child 71 and the Convention Against Torture. 72 These conventions and declarations articulate civil and political rights; social, cultural and economic rights; and, more recently, rights to development. The substantive human rights recognised by international law, which are abrogated by the failure to adopt a human rights-based approach to climate change mitigation, adaptation and disaster response, include: 73 the right to conservation and protection of the environment; the right to life; 76 the right to freedom from discrimination; 77 the right to adequate food and means of subsistence; 78 the right to respect for culture and property; 79 the right to water; 80 the right to health; and 81 the right to adequate and secure housing. Already about 200 million people a year are affected by disasters. 82 Indigenous peoples are often on the frontline of natural disasters that are linked increasingly to greater climate variability everywhere on Earth. 83 Natural is a misdescription of climate change-induced events and processes given the consensus that these are human induced. Further, the magnitude of the consequences of disasters is a direct result of how states and societies react or fail to respond to them. The UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee advocates that UN bodies concerned with refugees and internally displaced persons adopt human rights-based operational guidelines for disaster relief, based on rights to protection of generic human rights. These rights include social, economic and cultural rights; civil and political rights; rights to the basic necessities of life; and rights to physical, mental and moral integrity. Specific rights are also identified in the operational guidelines applying to: internally displaced persons; women, children and adolescents; older persons; persons with disabilities; persons living with HIV/AIDS; single parent households; and ethnic and religious minority groups, as well as Indigenous peoples. 84 As highlighted above, the human rights-based approach to addressing the consequences of climate change is critical at the reduction, mitigation and adaptation, as well as the disaster relief, stages. To date, ambivalence towards Indigenous peoples rights has resulted in a high degree of unpreparedness by states to confront and address the needs of those who will be most affected by the ecological threat climate change poses. Indigenous people are further disadvantaged by the lack of an enforceable right to participate in the design and development of the climate change governance regime. B Denial of Procedural Human Rights Recognition of core procedural human rights is most immediately within the powers of the Conferences of the Parties to address. The aspirational procedural rights found in international law instruments, which are likely to be abrogated by the climate change regime s failure to adopt a human rights-based approach to climate change reduction, mitigation and adaptation, include: rights of Indigenous peoples to full realisation of procedural participation, including self-government rights that states have duties to recognise; 85 the right to participate in, access, and receive information from the state on environmental matters; 86 rights of Indigenous peoples to give free, prior and informed consent to certain matters affecting them; 87 (2009) 13(1) AILR 7
7 the right to recognition of traditional environmental knowledge in decision-making. 88 While the Convention on Biological Diversity, 89 which pertains to the recognition of traditional environmental knowledge in decision-making, imposes duties on states rather than explicitly declaring rights, it can be argued that the Convention recognises correlative rights. Many such rights and correlative state duties have now been affirmed in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which serves as a standard-setting instrument. Special Rapporteur Professor James Anaya summarises the status of the Declaration as follows: the Declaration does not attempt to bestow indigenous peoples with a set of special or new human rights, but rather provides a contextualized elaboration of general human rights principles and rights as they relate to the specific historical, cultural and social circumstances of indigenous peoples. The standards affirmed in the Declaration share an essentially remedial character, seeking to redress the systemic obstacles and discrimination that indigenous peoples have faced in their enjoyment of basic human rights. From this perspective, the standards of the Declaration connect to existing State obligations under other human rights instruments. 90 In light of the grave threat that climate change poses to both the population and the environment, two interrelated procedural human rights processes are required for good climate change governance. One is democratisation of the climate change regime at local, regional and international levels, by states themselves. The other is worldwide generalisation of the UN Economic Commission for Europe s 1998 Aarhus Convention, 91 which constitutes the only legally binding instrument so far to implement principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which provides for the participation of citizens in environmental issues by giving them appropriate access to the information concerning the environment held by public authorities, including access to judicial or administrative proceedings, redress and remedy. Access to scientifically based information and public participation in decision-making on environmental issues as provided by the Convention are widely recognized as an important foundation for climate change mitigation efforts. 92 The Aarhus Convention provides a model approach to public and, therefore, democratic participation 93 that should not be restricted to its few European signatories, but needs to be vastly strengthened. Within the complex body of institutions where climate change law and policy are presently made is a governance gap that is manifest in three areas. First, access to information is controlled by states party to the Conferences of the Parties, and there is no right of access to information for non-state actors. 94 Second, formal public participation is non-existent at the international level. 95 Few, if any, states base their positions on structured consultation with civil society organisations at the state level. Indigenous peoples organisations, as well as other recognised constituencies of non-state actors, 96 currently have no effective right of participation in any of the formal institutions of the regime or in the IPCC. Third, access to justice concerning the impact of climate change is a very murky area, where scepticism about the causal links between climate change and negative impacts is contested, and the causes of action for litigation are unclear and untried. Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity make explicit reference to states duties to use and respect Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge. This duty creates a correlative Indigenous peoples right. The neglect of this duty and the correlative failure to protect these rights are at present another element in the climate change governance gap impacting on Indigenous peoples. Until now, the IPCC has ignored traditional environmental knowledge in its analysis of data and tended to present Indigenous people as helpless victims of changes beyond their control. 97 The Fourth Assessment Report, however, acknowledges the importance of traditional environmental knowledge in assisting scientists and policymakers as well as Indigenous and traditional communities to adapt to climate change. 98 Many Indigenous peoples are dependent on, and highly knowledgeable about, the ecosystems in which they live. They contribute to a sustainable environment through responsible stewardship based on their local traditional environmental knowledge. Indigenous peoples traditional environmental knowledge can be utilised in conjunction with scientific research to help mitigate the impacts of climate change and develop more sustainable adaptation measures. 8
8 IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS IV Indigenous Peoples Participation in the Climate Change Regime growth, resulting in human rights violations. As critics have argued: The UNFCCC defines the objectives and principles of the international climate change regime; outlines the commitments of parties to each other and in relation to emissions reduction, including reporting; and divides states into categories to allow for differential levels and paces of compliance. 99 In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was unanimously adopted at the third Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. The Kyoto Protocol did not address the human rights dimensions of climate change; in my view, however, the third Conference of the Parties created a whole new category of property rights, for trade in the carbon market. Under the 2001 Bonn and Marrakesh agreements, compliance was made more flexible by introducing a market-based mechanism, which was based on three flexibility mechanisms: the clean development mechanism, joint implementation and emissions trading. 100 While the UNFCCC s Conference of the Parties usefully set emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, it departed abruptly from the traditional command-and-control model for controlling pollution, to facilitate compliance with these targets. To promote flexibility in the modes of compliance, the UNFCCC without the free, prior and informed consent of global civil society, including Indigenous peoples organisations sanctioned the creation of the carbon market. This has appeared to emerge as the major mitigation and adaptation strategy to climate change given that the post-kyoto debate about climate change governance is structured around the Kyoto Protocol, which is now strongly identified with carbon trading despite the early vision reflected in art 6.1(d) that carbon trading would only be supplemental. The carbon market is built around a set of economic instruments intended to incentivise compliance with targets by allowing emissions trading under a set of socalled flexibility mechanisms, such as the clean development mechanism and REDD. These mechanisms allow emissions targets to be met by the purchase of credits from low-emitting states by high-emitting states or their corporate surrogates in the carbon marketplace. One problem with the carbon market approach to lowering emissions is the lack of enforcement and accountability, for instance in relation to forestry products. For Indigenous people, the lack of free, prior and informed consent and respect for land rights seem strongly associated with market A For the markets to take off, however, measures will have to be found to structure enforcement and accountability into forestry products, reassuring policymakers, regulators, and investors that carbon offsets have practical value. Among the technical concerns to be addressed are permanence (will the forests planted today still be here tomorrow?), additionality (would the activity have happened anyway?), leakage (will a reforestation project in one place result in land-clearing somewhere else?), measurement, and verification standards. 101 The Exclusion of Indigenous Peoples Organisations Specific policies, rules and procedures of the UNFCCC evolve through yearly Conferences of the Parties including the state signatories to the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol. These primary bodies, along with subsidiary and related bodies, make up the elements of the climate change governance regime. The key institutions of the governance regime are: the Conference of the Parties the supreme body of the regime; the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol; the Permanent Secretariat of the UNFCCC; the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to the Conference of the Parties; and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation assisting the Conference of the Parties. There is also a cluster of expert groups 102 and ad hoc working groups 103 associated with the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. Each key institution, expert group and technical workshop is a site managing processes in which Indigenous peoples could and should be involved. A simple step towards their participation would be to set up, as Indigenous peoples organisations represented by bodies such as the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change have repeatedly requested, the Expert Group on Indigenous People Vulnerability and Adaptation. 104 Participation would need to be facilitated through funding, including funding directed towards the relevant research and networking necessary for the Indigenous working group (2009) 13(1) AILR 9
9 to operate on par with other expert groups and technical workshops. 105 Autonomous intergovernmental organisations, which work in partnership with the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties, are the IPCC and the Global Environment Facility. The IPCC reports to the UN and its agencies and is made up of a large number of independent scientists who analyse and review the available data. The IPCC does not itself conduct the empirical research upon which its assessments are made. However, the IPCC does define the questions, determine the focus of its analysis and choose what literature to review for its assessments. 106 Thus the IPCC plays a pivotal part in defining the form, extent and seriousness of the climate change problem. Its definitions trigger responses by the climate change governance regime and determine the pace, degree of intensity and extensity of such responses. These are matters that have direct and unique implications for Indigenous and other vulnerable peoples. The Global Environment Facility owes its existence to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and was set up by the UN Environment Programme, the UN Development Programme and the World Bank. 107 The World Bank is an international financial institution within the UN. The Global Environment Facility exists to facilitate developing countries to sustain biodiversity and the health of international waters, to prevent ozone depletion and subsequent land degradation, and to reduce the use and spread of persistent organic pollutants. 108 Under the UNFCCC, the Global Environment Facility operates to assist developing countries to achieve emission reductions through financial and technological assistance, as well as capacity-building. 109 As such, it has a key role in determining who gets funds and how they are spent on emissions reduction, mitigation of climate change impacts and adaptations to climate change. Such decisions have direct and unique implications for Indigenous and other vulnerable peoples. For instance, funding for forest carbon sinks and carbon sequestration projects, dams for hydropower, and plantation mono-cropping for biofuels have the potential to impinge directly in Indigenous peoples lands, waters and ways of life. In the absence of free, prior and informed consent and respect for Indigenous customary title and land rights, there is the potential for Indigenous peoples to become the victims, not the beneficiaries, of mitigation and adaptation measures. Far-reaching and fundamental aspects of climate change governance have emerged since 1992, notably the creation of the carbon trading market at the Conferences of the Parties in 2001, through the Bonn Agreement 110 and Marrakesh Accords. 111 Profoundly important decisions will again be made, or not made, in 2009 at the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties, where the shape of the post-kyoto regime will be deliberated. Civil society organisations, such as Indigenous peoples organisations and other NGOs, have no rights to participate in the decision-making processes of the Conferences of the Parties or of the meetings of its subsidiary bodies, as well as of the IPCC. Under art 7.6 of the UNFCCC, even to be an observer an organisation has to be formally admitted by the Conference of the Parties. Indigenous peoples have been observers at Conferences of the Parties since Ever since the inclusion of Indigenous people as observers, Indigenous peoples organisations have repeatedly made formal statements and unsuccessfully requested that the IPCC and UNFCCC give Indigenous peoples greater opportunities for participation in deliberations in all the institutions of the climate change governance regime. These include numerous declarations and statements made by the International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change 113 and a recent resolution passed by the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 114 amongst others. 115 The rationale and legitimacy for these persistent requests is eloquently stated in the 2000 Declaration of Indigenous People on Climate Change, which emerged from the Second International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change held in The Hague. A statement of claim of the right to participate in these negotiations 116 of the UNFCCC, the Declaration could be as justifiably made in 2009, albeit with more urgency almost a decade later. In the Declaration, the International Forum refers to Indigenous peoples special relationship with the Earth as stewards and holders of valuable traditional knowledge on sustainability, conservation and protection of their territories. 117 Expressing profound concern in relation to the denial of adequate Indigenous participation in discussions under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, the Declaration articulates unease with the fact that the measures to mitigate climate change currently being negotiated are based on a worldview of territory that reduces forests, lands, seas and sacred sites to only their carbon absorption capacity. 118 The solutions to climate change posed under the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol, including emissions trading and carbon sinks, are rejected 10
10 IGNORING THE MERCURY IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER: DENYING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS under the Declaration because of their potential to adversely impact upon our natural, sensitive and fragile eco-systems, contaminating our soils, forests and waters. 119 Concluding the Declaration were a number of recommendations, including that Indigenous people be guaranteed the fullest and most effective participation in the climate change governance regime. This would entail much greater formal involvement of Indigenous peoples in all levels of the governance system, including specific representation in the Conferences of the Parties, at the meetings of subsidiary bodies, in the UNFCCC Secretariat and on the IPCC. 120 Intransigence of state parties through the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties and Kyoto Protocol Meetings of the Parties has consistently abrogated Indigenous peoples rights to participation, to free, prior, and informed consent and to be consulted; rights articulated first in ILO Convention No and subsequently, in 1992, in arts 8 and 19 of the Convention on Biological Diversity and in Chapter 21 of Agenda 21. Significantly, this posture is now also inconsistent with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (arts 18 20, 23, 25, 29 and 32). Yet in December 2007, the Conference of the Parties refused to accede to another proposal for a UNFCCC Expert Group on Indigenous People Vulnerability and Adaptation though there was an undertaking that greater access for Indigenous peoples organisations would be considered for the 2009 Copenhagen Conferences and Meetings of the Parties. 122 In May 2008, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held its Seventh Session in New York, on Climate Change, Bio-Cultural Diversity and Livelihoods: The Stewardship Role of Indigenous Peoples and New Challenges. The Permanent Forum repeated the call for better recognition of Indigenous peoples by the UNFCCC, inclusion of Indigenous peoples issues in the work of the IPCC, and acceptance by states that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ought to be the framework for further interaction between states and Indigenous peoples, nationally as well as internationally. 123 In May 2009 at the Eighth Session of the Permanent Forum, Special Rapporteurs were charged with the task of examining: The extent to which climate change policies and projects adhere to the standards set forth in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples presumably including the activities of international bodies such as the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties. 124 Based on the internet agenda planning for the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties in 2009, there has been no preparation to give Indigenous peoples organisations a role greater than mere observers in its proceedings. B No Free, Prior and Informed Consent Free, prior and informed consent is a basic individual and group procedural right. It is a principle of good governance of special importance to Indigenous peoples, yet it is consistently missing from proceedings of the climate change regime. Since 2007, free, prior and informed consent has been clearly articulated in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ( arts 8, 10, 11, 18, 19, 28, 29, 32, as well as the Preamble). Following a workshop on the topic of free, prior and informed consent and Indigenous peoples, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues concluded that free, prior and informed consent consists of four interrelated elements or principles. 125 First, free requires that no coercion, manipulation or intimidation has been involved. Second, prior implies that consent has been sought sufficiently in advance of any authorisation or commencement of activities, and that the time requirements of Indigenous consultation and consensus processes have been respected. Third, informed entails the provision of information on the following topics at a minimum: the nature, size, pace, reversibility and scope of any proposed project or activity; the reason or purpose of the project or activity; the duration of the project or activity; the areas that will be affected; a preliminary assessment of the likely economic, social, cultural and environmental impact, including risks and fair and equitable benefitsharing in the context of the precautionary principle; personnel likely to be involved in the project or activity; and procedures that the project may entail. Fourth, consent consists of consultation and participation as key elements. In terms of consultation, this must be done in good faith with mutual respect, adequate time and an effective system of communicating among interest holders. Participation must allow Indigenous peoples to engage in the process through their own freely chosen representatives and institutions, in a way that is sensitive to the perspectives of women, children and youth. The consent process may also include an option for the withholding of consent. 126 In terms of the practicalities involved in the process, free, prior and informed consent requires equal access to all (2009) 13(1) AILR 11
11 relevant information required to assess the impact of the proposed project or activity, and to participate in meaningful debate. 127 Authentic practice of free, prior and informed consent also requires independent mechanisms to monitor and oversee the conditions of agreement and adherence to the four principles described above. The monitoring aspect of the mechanisms will also allow for revocation of consent, where free, prior informed consent or the agreed conditions have not been adhered to. 128 The right to free, prior and informed consent can be partially respected, protected and fulfilled through the participation of Indigenous peoples organisations in the Conferences of the Parties and in the work of other UN specialist bodies, such as the World Bank. These bodies are continuously designing and implementing global measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation. It is in the Conferences of the Parties where the important policies on climate change originate for instance the Kyoto Protocol s marketbased mechanisms for reducing emissions. Some of these mitigation measures, such as carbon sinks and renewable energy projects like hydropower dams and geothermal plants, while intended to be beneficial, have resulted in negative implications for Indigenous peoples, including loss of their traditional territories. 129 In addition, most have been introduced without free, prior and informed consent. According to a number of NGOs, developing states are being encouraged into the carbon market by World Bank subsidies that are available for forest-related activities, such as plantation planting. There is widespread evidence that these subsidised initiatives are implemented without the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples. For instance, in Asia, planting of single crops (mono-cropping) for bio-fuels based on oil palms has led to deforestation of vast areas of tropical rainforest and loss of food security and biodiversity, with profound negative impacts on Indigenous peoples. 130 Re-forestation projects, creating mega-plantations with exotic tree species to create carbon sinks for carbon-offset businesses in Europe, have led to violent forced eviction of Indigenous peoples from their traditional lands, as well as centralised control of their forests. 131 A World Bank contribution to climate change reduction and mitigation consists of a fund known as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. 132 This fund is intended to contribute millions of dollars to a UNFCCC program of action for REDD, proposed in Some NGOs suggest that the approach is seriously flawed by the Bank s neglect of its own operating procedures, 133 as well as by the breach of the duty to allow participation in decision-making and to act only with free, prior and informed consent, gained after consultation with Indigenous peoples. There are already alleged to be repeated violations of Indigenous peoples rights in those forest areas where there are World Bank-funded measures for emission reduction. 134 There are fears that under the REDD scheme problems of this sort will be exacerbated. A survey in February 2008 of Indigenous peoples views about the World Bank s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and proposed Global Forest Partnership scheme highlighted concerns about flawed process and substance, in particular the absence of a rights-based approach. 135 A subsequent analysis by the Forest and the European Union Resource Network (known as FERN ) in November 2008 of projects in developing states to trial REDD funding from the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility confirmed concerns that the Facility s projects appear designed to facilitate carbon trading rather than respect and protect Indigenous peoples rights to self-determination and land tenure. 136 Further, the projects do not incorporate free, prior and informed consent, offer no way forward to address governance gaps, and do not address the underlying causes of deforestation. These problems in project conception and implementation are closely tied to the consequent problems of insecurity of tenure and the denial of rights for Indigenous peoples. 137 At the state level, parties to the UNFCCC (arts 4(1)(a) (g)) and the Kyoto Protocol (art 3) 138 are committed to formulating and implementing regional mitigation, adaptation and emissions reduction programs. These can include emissions trading schemes, irrigation and rainwater catchment, disaster planning, measures to address coastal erosion, and forest management schemes, all of which are likely to intrude upon Indigenous peoples existing ways of life. Participation, free, prior and informed consent and consultation, as well as recognition of traditional environmental knowledge, and respect for land rights and natural resources rights, are all likely to be areas of struggle between states and Indigenous peoples. As the above summary of governance gaps resulting in the abrogation of Indigenous peoples rights indicates, the human rights-based approach to climate change governance must urgently inform the practice of states, intergovernmental organisations and international financial institutions 12
BY POST AND Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights UN Office at Geneva CH211 Geneva 10
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