"Realizing Rights to Development and Healthy, Safe, Sustainable Environ" by Diane A. Desierto, Jean Marc Brissau et al.
 

Realizing Rights to Development and Healthy, Safe, Sustainable Environment in Global and Local Climate Actions Affecting Small Island Developing States

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Publication Information

23 Santa Clara J. Int'l L. 1 (2025).

Abstract

This paper presents new empirical research on two fronts: 1) the individual and collective normative and international legal commitments voluntarily assumed by States in the international system to assist in responding to small island developing States’ (SIDS) deeply intertwined ecological vulnerabilities resulting from climate change alongside prevailing socio-economic challenges since decolonization; and 2) the incipient, but also fast escalating record of international, regional, and local jurisprudence on climate change reparative measures that courts, tribunals, and other adjudicative bodies have issued in relation to the vulnerabilities of small island developing States. Based on the interdisciplinary research of both the Notre Dame Global Human Rights Clinic (using the Human Rights Database and Analysis Project), as well as using the latest completed dataset of the Notre Dame Reparations Design and Compliance Lab, we map legal, institutional, and operational spaces to further support the effectiveness of global and local climate actions affecting small island developing States.10 In our view, the binding legal human rights to development and to a healthy, safe, clean, and sustainable environment provide an underutilized opportunity to strengthen the legal and institutional claims of SIDS to climate financing and other forms of needed international cooperation, assistance, and action to enable SIDS to cope with and respond to the human rights impacts of today’s worsening climate emergency.

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