Micro-Climate Blog: Climate, Heritage, and Human Rights
By Marcy Rockman, Lifting Rocks Climate and Heritage Consulting, for the SHA Climate Heritage Initiative
Is protection from climate change a human right? The International Court of Justice taking up the issue of climate change and questions of whether and how countries might be held accountable for not taking sufficient action to protect citizens from climate change and uphold pledges they have made for greenhouse gas reductions. A challenge to this is that climate laws should have enforcement mechanisms; if they don’t, that is for legislatures to fix. But there is a role for courts in addressing climate change and this current challenge builds on the more than 2,500 climate litigation cases that have been filed around the world.
Though it is not yet well developed as part of this case or other climate cases, culture and heritage are essential pieces in climate justice. Drawing from this 2023 essay by Adam Markham of the Union of Concerned Scientists, multiple international agreements, beginning with the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, speak to the right to “freely participate in cultural life.” As Markham’s essay and the work many archaeological and heritage colleagues is showing, effects of climate change are damaging both places and human connections to archaeology and heritage (a 2022 report compiling these is here). I think it is important we ask – at what point do responsibility for climate change and loss of connection to our past meet in ways that would support or be a point of litigation?
For a listing of all blog posts in this series, visit our Climate Heritage Initiative page.
Photo credit: A protester in Brazil calls for ‘climate justice now.’ Photo taken by Adriano Machado/Reuters and shared at link above.
