Preface Although the climate crisis affects everyone on the planet, it does not affect everyone in the same way. Some individuals, communities, and countries are in positions of greater vulnerability than others. Human rights law provides an informative lens through which to examine the issue of vulnerability and climate change. Human rights and environmental protection are interdependent. A safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is necessary for the full enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and to the right to a healthy environment itself. At the same time, the exercise of human rights, including rights to freedom of expression and association, to education and information, and to participation and effective remedies, is vital to the protection of the environment. While this relationship holds true for everyone, some people are more at risk than others. As the Human Rights Council has recognized, the consequences of environmental harm are felt most acutely by those segments of the population that are already in vulnerable situations.1 Persons may be vulnerable because they are unusually susceptible to certain types of environmental harm, or because they are denied their human rights, or both. In 2018, in my last report to the Council as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, I presented Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment, which summarized the human rights obligations relating to the environment as they had been clarified by human rights bodies. Many of the Framework Principles concern the rights that all of us have in relation to the environment, and the corresponding obligations of States to respect, protect, and fulfill those rights. However, Framework Principle 14 speaks directly to the question of vulnerability. It says: “States should take additional measures to protect the rights of those who are most vulnerable to, or
1. See, e.g., Human Rights Council resolution 34/20 (24 March 2017).
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