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Abstract

Climate change poses significant risks to the human right to life. However, international adjudicators have either neglected to examine right to life claims in the context of climate risks or dismissed them as prospective and speculative. International human rights bodies have long applied the standard of imminence to determine whether a threat to the right to life exists and the extent to which it constitutes a violation. In climate change cases, this standard has hardened, requiring a tight temporal connection between climate risks and a violation of the right to life. This article argues that failing to recognize the impact of climate risks on the right to life undermines the protection of historically disadvantaged and minority communities, including women and girls.

This article offers a novel account of an ecofeminist approach to climate risks. Ecofeminism is a branch of feminist philosophy that considers the links between the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women, asserting that both forms of domination are interconnected. This article makes two key contributions to the existing literature. First, it establishes how climate change exacerbates domestic violence, and exposes the disproportionate effects of climate change on the lives of women and girls. Second, the article argues that human rights responses to domestic violence can serve as a model for addressing climate risks. International human rights bodies, including the European Court of Human Rights, have long identified violations of the right to life in domestic violence cases involving disproportionate harm, even where the harm was seen as uncertain or prospective. Adopting a similar approach to address climate risks, courts could begin to recognize the unequal impacts of climate change and the recurring nature of climate risks. An ecofeminist approach to climate risks has the potential to highlight avenues for reform, such as by mandating strict proactive due diligence obligations on states and ultimately corporations.

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