The Inuit Case

According to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, the impacts described on the 'Artic Impacts' page may only be a foretaste of the destructive effects of climate change that will be inflicted on the Arctic peoples. If global warming continues unchecked it threatens to destroy their culture, render their land uninhabitable, and rob them of their means of subsistence. The harm caused to their way of life, largely by the United States, as biggest global contributor of carbon dioxide emissions, is already serious enough so as to violate some fundamental internationally recognised human rights. International human rights, as recognised in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, that are clearly being undermined include: the right to life (Art. I), the right to residence and movement (Art.VIII), the right to inviolability of the home (IX), the right to preservation of health and to well-being (Art. XI), the rights to benefits of culture (Art. XIII), and the right to work and to fair renumeration (Art. XIV).

In December 2005, Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), announced that a petition had been filed with the Washington, DC-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), one of two bodies within the Organization of American States authorized to oversee the operation of the OAS Inter-American Human Rights System. The petition sought relief from violations of the human rights of Inuit resulting from global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the United States. (The announcement regarding the filing is available here). The IACHR rejected the petition without prejudice on November 16, 2006.

In January 2007, the ICC requested a hearing with the IAHCR during the latter organization's February 26 - March 9 session, in order to assist the Commission in exploring and better understanding the relationship between global warming and human rights. On February 1, 2007, the IACHR invited representatives of CIEL, EarthJustice, and the ICC to provide testimony on the links between climate change and human rights. The results of this testimony by Ms. Watt-Cloutier, CIELSenior Attorney Donald Goldberg, and EarthJustice Managing Attorney Martin Wagner are available at the announcement Global Warming and Human Rights Gets a Hearing on the World Stage.

For more information, please contact Marcos Orellana.