FRONTLINERS: Climate change and human rights: closing the accountability gap

The Paris Agreement set the path to net zero emissions but it does not provide the means to hold state and corporate actors to account for failing to deliver on their promised contributions. However, successful human rights litigation - like the Urgenda case in the Netherlands and the recent decision by the Irish Supreme Court - has demonstrated that human rights law and institutions provide readily available structures to hold these actors accountable. Indeed, human rights bodies at the international, national and subnational level (HRB) often provide the only means to seek redress for harm produced by climate change or by the implementation of climate change response measures. HRB therefore are at the frontline of climate accountability and hold the potential to bridge the gap left by the Paris Agreement. Yet, this potential remains underexploited: HRB lack knowledge-sharing and capacity-building tools to deliver climate accountability systematically.

FRONTLINERS will address this gap, by bolstering HRB’s capacity to hold state and corporate actors to account. It will do so by combining research synthesis, engagement, training, knowledge co-creation and capacity-building activities, to be organised and delivered in partnership with key players, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR); the Global Alliance National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI); and the UNFCCC Human Rights Working Group (UNFCCC HRWG).

FRONTLINERS will therefore contribute to better understanding of HRB’s potential to bridge the climate accountability gap; produce changes in practice, by building HRB’s capacity to hold states and corporate actors accountable; and encourage compliance with the Paris Agreement.