By Meg Foley Yoder
“New ideas first look crazy, then obvious, and finally inevitable. That has been the trajectory of climate change as a human rights issue.”
This week at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, Colombian scholar and activist César Rodríguez Garavito presented his new book Climate Change on Trial: Mobilizing Human Rights Litigation to Accelerate Climate Action. Rodríguez Garavito is a professor of law at NYU, and the chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, director of the Earth Rights Research & Action (TERRA) Clinic, and director of the More than Human Rights (MOTH) Program, all housed at NYU. In a conversation introduced by Center Director Mathias Risse, Rodríguez Garavito argued that human rights law has become a crucial tool in advancing climate action worldwide.
From Radical Idea to Legal Standard
Rodríguez Garavito traced the development of framing climate change as a human rights issue. What once sounded radical, he noted, is now recognized in international law. He recalled the early 2000s, when Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that melting ice and forced relocation violated Inuit rights. Though the petition was dismissed, it launched a new way of linking environmental harm to fundamental rights.
Quoting William James, Rodríguez Garavito said, “New ideas first look crazy, then obvious, and finally inevitable. That has been the trajectory of climate change as a human rights issue.”
Consolidation Through Court Decisions
Recent legal developments underscore the shift. In July 2023, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion affirming states’ duty to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius and recognizing the rights of vulnerable communities to seek reparations. Similarly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has recognized nature itself as a subject of rights, drawing on both indigenous traditions and contemporary science.
“These decisions are not revolutions,” Rodríguez Garavito said. “They are the consolidation of twenty years of work by communities, scientists, and lawyers.”
Collaboration Between Science and Law
A central point of the talk was the growing collaboration between scientists, lawyers, and policymakers. Rodríguez Garavito emphasized that scientific evidence has strengthened human rights claims in climate litigation, while legal frameworks have helped translate science into enforceable obligations.
“The health of ecosystems and the health of human beings are one and the same.”
He also connected this to his broader work on “more-than-human rights,” which explores how scientific knowledge and indigenous traditions converge in recognizing ecosystems and animals as rights-bearing entities. “The health of ecosystems and the health of human beings are one and the same,” he said.
Looking Ahead
In the Q&A, audience members asked about the scope and future of climate litigation. Rodríguez Garavito predicted that adaptation and loss-and-damage cases—such as those involving extreme weather events—will grow in importance as climate impacts intensify.
On the question of burden of proof, he noted that plaintiffs currently carry the burden in most jurisdictions. However, if fossil fuel production were treated as inherently harmful, as tobacco was in past decades, the burden could shift to corporations and governments to demonstrate they acted responsibly. “We’re not there yet,” he said, “but it would be a profound change in corporate responsibility law.”
Rodríguez Garavito closed by underscoring that the human rights approach to climate change represents not a sudden breakthrough but a steady consolidation of two decades of advocacy and legal innovation.
Risse encouraged attendees to read Climate Change on Trial, which is available both in print and as a free download.
The event highlighted how climate litigation is shaping international norms, with human rights law emerging as a central arena for pressing governments and corporations to act on the climate crisis.
M. Yoder/Carr-Ryan Center
