Human Rights-based Argumentation in Climate Change Lawsuits

Climate change lawsuits represented by strategic litigation have become a new force to promote global climate governance. Among them, using the norms and theories of human rights law to present litigation claims, conduct legal reasoning, and form human rights-based argumentation has been one of the most successful strategies for climate change lawsuits. The Paris Agreement marked a major watershed for human rights-based argumentation in climate change lawsuits: Before the signing of the Agreement, human rights-based argumentation in climate change lawsuits remained in its trial stage;since the signing of the Paris Agreement, as a litigation strategy, it has become more flexible and diversified, as its relationship with climate governance is becoming increasingly complicated. The uncertainty of climate legal obligation and the process of legalization of climate targets have fostered new dimensions for human rights-based argumentation: Shifting from an accountability logic to a litigation strategy, from international law to domestic law, from holding governments accountable to holding enterprises accountable. There are micro, medium, and macro paths to clarify the human rights-based argumentation, all leading to truly integrating human rights perspectives and ideas into a nation’s specific process of climate governance and valuing and leveraging the value of human rights-based argumentation as a tool, so as to achieve the goal of climate governance.