The human rights framework.

Human rights offer a powerful global framework to guide our collective conversation about how we interact and live together in society. We have (broadly) agreed that our governments have human rights obligations:

• to respect human rights (i.e. refrain from causing any human rights violation themselves through action or inaction);

• to protect human rights (i.e. prevent third parties, such as corporations, from causing or contributing to human rights abuses);

• to fulfil human rights (i.e. take necessary legislative, administrative, budgetary and other measures to make sure we can all enjoy these rights in practice); and

• to seek and provide international assistance and cooperation in the realisation of human rights.

Individuals and communities - often with the support of lawyers and others - can use human rights to hold governments to account and challenge violations and abuses. This might involve documenting patterns of violations, bringing legal cases before courts, UN treaty bodies and other dispute resolution bodies, developing or amending legislation, analysing domestic budgets and international trade and investment agreements to ensure compliance with human rights standards, and building solidarity and networks between communities locally and across the globe.

Embedding our human rights practices in ecological contexts.

In these ways, human rights can offer constructive ways to achieve redress and understand existing circumstances, decisions and power relations throughout our lives. They also offer a lens through which to assess proposed actions and contribute to just transitions towards economic and social justice, environmental well-being, participation, and equality. 

However, by their very nature, human rights are inherently focused primarily on the human experience, with the ‘environment’ seen as something separate to and controlled by us. As we explore and take action to address pervasive human rights violations and create the conditions for rapid decarbonisation, environmental regeneration, applied ecoliteracy and community resilience, it feels increasingly restrictive to talk about human rights without explicitly embedding our advocacy within ecological contexts.

In practice, this requires practical resources and collective action which highlights and advances the diverse connections between human rights - particularly economic, social and cultural rights - and environmental justice and wellbeing.