Nature Protection, Indigenous Rights, and Climate Action

Abstract

Climate change is affecting indigenous peoples and their rights. However, indigenous peoples themselves are at the forefront of climate action, having protected nature for millennia, and now becoming increasingly aware of the active role they can play in the formulating and implementing processes of the international legal climate-change agenda.2 <p>

<p>This chapter explores to what extent existing international legal instruments dealing with climate change have identified, reflected, and taken into consideration the rights of indigenous peoples on the one hand, and how indigenous peoples have developed their own nature-protection agreements and action on the other. We seek to clarify the link between the climate-law framework and the human and non-human rights-based framework pertaining to indigenous peoples. Part 1 offers an analysis of the environmental and climate law3 applicable to indigenous peoples, exploring the weaknesses and strengths in relation to indigenous environmental justice. Part 2 scrutinizes several cases of human rights-based climate-change litigation involving indigenous peoples. The chapter finishes with some concluding remarks.