Judge rules young people have right to a safe and healthy environment by UN Child Rights Committee, agencies   18 Dec. 2024   USA: Montana Supreme Court affirms landmark Youth-Led Climate Decision, upholding Constitutional Rights to a Safe and Livable Climate. (Our Children's Trust)   In a historic ruling today, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed 6-1 the decision of the district court in the landmark case, Held v. State of Montana, siding with the 16 youth plaintiffs who had sued the state over its promotion of fossil fuel extraction and its failure to consider climate change impacts in its decision-making.   This ruling, the first of its kind from a state supreme court, affirms the district court’s ruling that the state’s acts in perpetuating a fossil fuel energy system with blind eyes violated the youth plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, dignity, and safety, reinforcing the growing legal momentum behind youth-led climate justice movements.   District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s August 2023 decision, upheld today, made Held v. State of Montana the first youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit in U.S. history to go to trial and secure a victory.   In her ruling, Judge Seeley stated: "Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere exacerbates impacts to the climate. Plaintiffs' injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change." Judge Seeley also ruled that the fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment enshrined in Montana’s Constitution incorporates the climate system and that Montana's environment is unconstitutionally degraded due to the current level of greenhouse gases concentrations and climate impacts.   The Montana Supreme Court today upheld these findings, ruling that state laws prohibiting the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions or climate impacts during fossil fuel permitting decisions and laws preventing constitutional remedies in court were unconstitutional.   Today’s ruling requires the state to ensure it considers the environmental and public health consequences, and significantly the harm to children, of each proposed fossil fuel project, marking a turning point in Montana’s energy policy.   “This is a monumental moment for Montana, our youth, and the future of our planet,” said Nate Bellinger, lead counsel to the plaintiffs. “Today, the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional rights of youth to a safe and livable climate, confirming that the future of our children cannot be sacrificed for fossil fuel interests..".   http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/press-releases   May 2024   Children tell Inter-American Court of Human Rights how climate change is affecting them in historic hearing. (Save the Children, agencies)   Two teenage girls will give first-hand accounts on how climate change is negatively impacting the rights of children during a historic hearing in Brazil today, drawing on their own experiences and discussions with peers across the Americas.   Joselim, 17, from Peru, and Camila, 14, from El Salvador, will tell the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) how the climate crisis is depriving them of their rights as outlined in the Convention of the Rights of the Child, such as education, survival and development.   They will tell the Court how extreme weather such as heatwaves and heavy rain is decimating agriculture and driving up food prices, contributing to a health and nutrition crisis in children and families. They will also highlight how the impacts of climate change can disrupt learning for children, with increasingly adverse weather conditions such as floods and landslides preventing children from getting to school.   The hearing forms part of the second phase of an historic inquiry which started last year and was instigated by Colombia and Chile, which asked the court to set out what legal responsibilities states have to tackle climate change and to stop it breaching people’s human rights.   This “advisory opinion” could be highly influential, setting the framework for future legal action.   Joselim, 17, said: "Looking after Mother Earth is urgent because time is against us. Children, adolescents, young adults, and humanity in general should enjoy a healthy, clean, dignified, and safe environment. This requires change to rebuild a conscious society, in which children and adolescents are active participants. We should take care of the earth we live on and preserve humanity. My call to action for authorities is to respect our Mother Earth, preserve it, and take care of it.   “We need leaders to invest in the recovery of agriculture, in education, and in environmental plans and public policies with adequate resources and personnel. We need them to promote recycling, using renewable energy, and adopting agricultural production techniques that are friendlier to nature so that more children and adolescents can enjoy a healthy, clean, and safe environment.   Camila,14, said: “The Court must listen to and learn from children and adolescents about how we are living through the climate crisis and its impact on our rights. Climate change is affecting our right to health in many ways, for example, causing deaths and illnesses from extreme heat waves, storms, and floods, toxic air pollution, droughts, food shortages, the spread of diseases like cholera and dengue fever, and serious infections from increased animal diseases that are transmitted to people. All this, in turn, generates poverty and displacement.”   The hearing is taking place following the submission to the Court of an Amicus Curiae brief in which an organisation can set out legal arguments and recommendations. This was initiated by child-led networks, Molacnnats and Red Latinoamericana de Ninas, Ninos y Adolescentes (REDNNyAs), both of which are partners of Save the Children. The process was also supported by Peruvian organisation Peruvian Society of SPDA and facilitated by Save the Children through its regional civil society strengthening programme.   It follows months of consultations with children across the region on how their rights are being eroded by the impacts of climate change and on the measures that States should adopt to protect human rights in the face of the climate crisis, with special emphasis on the right to health, education and adequate food.   http://www.savethechildren.net/news/children-tell-inter-american-court-human-rights-how-climate-change-affecting-them-historic http://wmo.int/media/news/global-temperature-record-streak-continues-climate-change-makes-heatwaves-more-extreme http://www.unicef.org/blog/urgent-need-child-centred-loss-and-damage-fund http://www.unicef.org/innocenti/reports/loss-and-damage-finance-children http://www.endchildhoodpoverty.org/publications-feed/climatechange http://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-changed-child-childrens-climate-risk-index-supplement-enar http://www.savethechildren.net/news/more-half-pakistan-s-school-age-children-will-be-out-school-due-extreme-heat http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/born-into-the-climate-crisis.pdf/ http://www.unicef.org/eap/press-releases/sweltering-heat-across-east-asia-and-pacific-puts-childrens-lives-risk-unicef http://www.unicef.org/reports/climate-changed-child http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/climate-change-urgent-threat-pregnant-women-and-children   Sep. 2023   Urgent action by States needed to tackle climate change, says UN Committee in guidance on children’s rights and environment. (OHCHR)   The United Nations Child Rights Committee has published authoritative guidance on children’s rights and the environment with a special focus on climate change. The guidance specifies the legislative and administrative measures States should urgently implement to address the adverse effects of environmental degradation and climate change on the enjoyment of children’s rights, and to ensure a clean, healthy, and sustainable world now and to preserve it for future generations.   The Committee has adopted its guidance, formally known as General Comment No. 26, after two rounds of consultation with States, national human rights institutions, international organizations, civil society, thematic experts and children.   The Committee received 16,331 contributions from children in 121 countries; children shared and reported on the negative effects of environmental degradation and climate change on their lives and communities and asserted their right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.   “Children are architects, leaders, thinkers and changemakers of today’s world. Our voices matter, and they deserve to be listened to,” said 17-year-old Kartik, a climate and child rights activist from India and one of the Committee’s child advisers. “General Comment No. 26 is the instrument that will help us understand and exercise our rights in the face of environmental and climate crises,” he added.   “This general comment is of great and far-reaching legal significance,” said Ann Skelton, Chair of the Committee, emphasising, “as it details States’ obligations under the Child Rights Convention to address environmental harms and guarantee that children are able to exercise their rights. This encompasses their rights to information, participation, and access to justice to ensure that they will be protected from and receive remedies for the harms caused by environmental degradation and climate change.”   The general comment clarifies how children’s rights apply to environmental protection and underscores that children have the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This right is implicit in the Convention and directly linked to, in particular, the rights to life, survival and development, the highest attainable standard of health, an adequate living standard, and education. This right is also necessary for the full enjoyment of children’s rights.   The general comment further asserts that States shall protect children against environmental damage from commercial activities. It specifies that States are obliged to provide legislative, regulative and enforcement frameworks to ensure that businesses respect children’s rights, and should require businesses to undertake due diligence regarding children’s rights and the environment. Immediate steps should be taken when children are identified as victims to prevent further harm to their health and development and to repair the damage done.   The Committee observes that, in many countries, children encounter barriers to attaining legal standing due to their status, limiting their means of asserting their rights in relation to the environment. States should therefore provide pathways for children to access justice for violations of their rights relating to environmental harm, including through complaints mechanisms that are child-friendly, gender-responsive and disability-inclusive. In addition, mechanisms should be available for claims of imminent or foreseeable harms and past or current violations of children’s rights.   With regard to climate change, the general comment underlines that States must take all necessary measures to protect against harms to children’s rights related to climate change caused by business enterprises, such as by ensuring that businesses rapidly reduce their emissions.   The guidance also emphasises the urgent and collective need for developed States to address the present climate finance gap, including through grants rather than loans to developing States to avoid negative impacts on children’s rights. It also notes that climate finance is overly slanted toward mitigation at the cost of adaptation and loss and damage measures, which has discriminatory effects on children who live in areas where more adaptation measures are needed.   The Committee urges immediate collective States actions to tackle environmental harm and climate change.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/08/urgent-action-states-needed-tackle-climate-change-says-un-committee-guidance http://news.un.org/en/story/2023/08/1140122 http://childrightsenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Press-Release_GC26.pdf   14 Aug. 2023   Judge rules young people have right to a safe and healthy environment. (Our Children's Trust)   “Today, for the first time in U.S. history, a court ruled on the merits of a case that the government violated the constitutional rights of children through laws and actions that promote fossil fuels, ignore climate change, and disproportionately imperil young people,” said Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel and Executive Director with Our Children’s Trust.   “In a sweeping win for our clients, the Honorable Judge Kathy Seeley declared Montana’s fossil fuel-promoting laws unconstitutional and enjoined their implementation. As fires rage in the West, fueled by fossil fuel pollution, today’s ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos. This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate. More rulings like this will certainly come.”   “Today we witnessed democracy in action as Montana’s judiciary fulfilled its constitutional duty to hold the political branches accountable for actions exacerbating the climate crisis and causing harm to the state’s youngest and most vulnerable people. This is what climate justice in the courts, and protecting the constitutional rights of our childrens’ right to a safe climate looks like,” said Nate Bellinger, senior staff attorney with Our Children’s Trust.   In an historic first, Judge Kathy Seeley in the First Judicial District Court of Montana ruled wholly in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, declaring that the state of Montana violated the youth’s constitutional rights, including their rights to equal protection, dignity, liberty, health and safety, and public trust, which are all predicated on their right to a clean and healthful environment.   The court invalidated as unconstitutional and enjoined Montana laws that promoted fossil fuels and required turning a blind eye to climate change.   The court ruled the youth plaintiffs had proven their standing to bring the case by showing significant injuries, the government’s substantial role in causing them, and that a judgment in their favor would change the government’s conduct.   In a 103-page decision, Judge Seeley’s Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order set forth critical evidentiary and legal precedent for the right of youth to a safe climate, including these highlights:   * "Each additional ton of GHGs [greenhouse gases] emitted into the atmosphere exacerbates impacts to the climate."   * “Every additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.”   * “Plaintiffs’ injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change.”   * “Plaintiffs have proven that as children and youth, they are disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts.”   * “The State authorizes fossil fuel activities without analyzing GHGs or climate impacts, which result in GHG emissions in Montana and abroad that have caused and continue to exacerbate anthropogenic climate change.”   * The order provides meaningful redress to plaintiffs’ injuries because “the amount of additional GHG emissions emitted into the climate system today and in the coming decade will impact the long-term severity of the heating and the severity of Plaintiffs’ injuries.”   * “The Defendants have the authority under the statutes by which they operate to protect Montana's environment and natural resources, protect the health and safety of Montana's youth, and alleviate and avoid climate impacts by limiting fossil fuel activities that occur in Montana when the MEPA analysis shows that those activities are resulting in degradation or other harms which violate the Montana Constitution.”   * “Montana's contributions to GHG emissions can be measured incrementally and cumulatively both in terms of immediate local effects and by mixing in the atmosphere and contributing to global climate change and an already destabilized climate system.”   * “Montana's GHG contributions are not de minimis but are nationally and globally significant. Montana's GHG emissions cause and contribute to climate change and Plaintiffs' injuries and reduce the opportunity to alleviate Plaintiffs' injuries.”   * Court finds that Earth Energy Imbalance is the most critical scientific metric in determining climate stability and includes a graphic showing that 350 ppm was the level of CO2 where the Earth was last within energy balance.   Allowing consideration of climate change “would provide the clear information needed to conform their decision-making to the best science and their constitutional duties and constraints, and give them the necessary information to deny permits for fossil fuel activities when inconsistent with protecting Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”   “This is a landmark decision establishing enforceable principles of intergenerational justice,” said attorney Roger Sullivan, of McGarvey Law. “Simply stated, the government elected by this generation must abide its obligation to pass on a stable climate system to future generations.”   “It is incredibly gratifying to see a Montana court recognize the effects the state’s harmful energy policies have on young people and all Montanans,” said Barbara Chillcott, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center.   “Judge Seeley’s ruling underscores the reality that Montana’s government is actively working to undermine our constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. Despite the state’s attempts to avoid any responsibility, the court’s decision affirms that the state has the ‘discretion to deny permits for fossil fuel activities that would result in unconstitutional levels of GHG emissions, unconstitutional degradation and depletion of Montana’s environment and natural resources, or infringement of the constitutional rights of Montanans and Youth Plaintiffs.’   This decision sets important precedent for other constitutional climate cases in the U.S., and, most importantly, gives these youth plaintiffs some hope for a better future.”   Trial in this landmark youth-led climate lawsuit - the first ever constitutional climate trial in U.S. history - ran from June 12 to June 20, and included testimony from 10 of plaintiffs’ expert witnesses as well as 12 of the 16 young Montanans who filed the suit over three years ago.   The youth plaintiffs claimed their lives and liberties were at stake, including their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, to equal protection of the law, to individual dignity, and to safety, health, and happiness - and the responsibility of their state government to cease its actions that exacerbate the climate crisis, degrade Montana’s environment and natural resources, and harm the youth.   The youth plaintiffs in this case did not not seek money in their lawsuit. Instead, today’s ruling declared that state laws prohibiting Montana agencies from considering climate change or greenhouse gas emissions when permitting fossil fuel activities were unconstitutional.. http://tinyurl.com/2k5r4pj9   http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/press-releases http://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/first-of-its-kind-legal-ruling-favors-youth-in-montana-climate-case/ http://theconversation.com/montana-kids-win-historic-climate-lawsuit-heres-why-it-could-set-a-powerful-precedent-207907 http://climate.law.columbia.edu/news/sabin-center-staff-weigh-held-v-montana-case http://climate.law.columbia.edu/news/sabin-center-unep-release-global-climate-litigation-report-2023-status-review http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/08/ruling-us-climate-lawsuit-historic-human-rights-based-precedent/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/08/about-our-human-rights-us-youths-win-landmark-climate-case http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/14/youths-win-montana-climate-trial/   * 27 Sep. 2023: Youth-Led Climate Case begins at European Human Rights Court - Six Portuguese young people are suing the governments of 33 countries, arguing their human rights have been violated by a widespread failure to mitigate the climate crisis:   http://youth4climatejustice.org/ http://www.ciel.org/news/climate-inaction-discriminates-against-youth-european-court-is-told/ http://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-environment/ http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/climate-litigation-more-doubles-five-years-now-key-tool-delivering http://www.unicef.org/reports/coldest-year-rest-of-their-lives-children-heatwaves   * United Nations General Assembly declares access to clean and healthy environment a universal human right: http://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123482
	The Impact of Humanitarian Crises on Children in 2023 by Alliance for Child Protection-Humanitarian Actiion   As we reflect on 2023 and embark on a new year, the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action is deeply concerned about the devastating consequences of increasing armed conflict, climate-induced emergencies, and disasters associated with natural hazards on children around the world.   The sharp escalation in the scale and intensity of armed conflicts and the increasing violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL) throughout 2023 has had devastating consequences for children’s rights, including their right to protection. One in five children globally live in or are fleeing from conflict zones.   Forced displacement reached unprecedented levels in 2023 and children constitute 41% of all forcibly displaced people despite being only 30% of the world's population. Due to the protracted nature of conflict, the majority of these children will spend their entire childhoods in displacement.   Children are being maimed and killed, recruited and used by armed forces and groups, abducted, and subjected to sexual violence.   Meanwhile essential services and infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, are being attacked or used by armed groups and armed forces for military purposes, and life-saving humanitarian assistance is being deliberately denied.   The physical, emotional, and mental health impacts these violations have on children are devastating in the short term and will have detrimental impacts on their healthy development in the long term if not addressed.   The UN Secretary General’s 2023 report on Children and Armed Conflict included the highest ever numbers of verified grave violations against children throughout 2022.   Situations with the highest numbers of children affected were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel and the State of Palestine, Somalia, Ukraine, and Syria.   Attacks against schools and hospitals increased by 112% and the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups rose by 21% compared to the previous year.   With the outbreak or escalation of conflicts during 2023—particularly in Sudan and the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem—the number of violations against children throughout 2023 will almost certainly be higher.   Ending and preventing grave violations against children and ensuring that perpetrators are held accountable has never been more urgent.   Children have the right to a safe and healthy environment, yet the climate crisis continues unabated. During 2023, climate-induced disasters continued to increase in scale, frequency, and intensity, often against a backdrop of conflict and instability.   From catastrophic flooding in Libya, to climate, conflict, and poverty induced migration and displacement along extremely dangerous routes such as the United States-Mexico border, children pay the heaviest price, yet are the least responsible for climate change.   Devastating earthquakes in Syria, Afghanistan, Turkiye, and Morocco have exacted an enormous toll on children and their families. Social protection mechanisms, many of which are already reeling from the global pandemic and other crises, are only getting further away from meeting the increasing needs of the most vulnerable children and their families.   Economic vulnerability stemming from lack of livelihoods opportunities continues to be a major driver of child protection risks, such as trafficking, child labour, neglect, psychosocial distress, physical and emotional maltreatment, child marriage, family separation, and recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups.   Funding shortfalls in 2023 saw significant cuts in food assistance to vulnerable populations around the world, exacerbating root causes of protection risks for many children.   In just one example, after the value of food vouchers to refugees in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh was cut by a third in the first half of 2023, there has been a reported increase in child neglect, child labour, gender-based violence, violence within the household, recruitment of boys into criminal groups, trafficking, and tension between refugee and host communities.   As more and more people are forced to flee situations of conflict, violence, and climate-induced disasters, the number of forcibly displaced people reached another record high in 2023 and is now over 114 million people. Children affected by forced displacement and statelessness face heightened risks of violence, neglect, abuse, and exploitation.   In Sudan, where the world’s largest child displacement crisis has unfolded since the outbreak of conflict in April 2023, unaccompanied and separated children are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by parties to the conflict.   Available data from some of the world’s most dangerous migration routes suggest that an increasing number of children in 2023 were unaccompanied or separated from families or caregivers.   More than 11,600 children crossed the Central Mediterranean Sea to Italy without their parents or legal guardians between January and mid-September 2023, an increase of 60% compared to the same period the previous year.   The Darien Gap—a remote, dangerous jungle crossing point between Colombia and Panama—saw a seven-fold increase in the numbers of children crossing in 2023 compared to 2022, amongst them a growing number of unaccompanied or separated children.   Without the care of families or other caregivers, children are at heightened risk of exploitation, abuse, and neglect, as well as recruitment into armed forces and armed groups, unsafe migration, child labour, gender-based violence, and experiencing prolonged gaps in access to education with increased likelihood of never returning to learning.   The unprecedented increase in children's rights violations and abuses throughout 2023, and in particular their right to protection, is alarming. Children (everyone under the age of 18) are a distinct group of rights-holders, with an additional set of rights accorded to them by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, yet their rights are being flagrantly and increasingly violated with impunity.   For children today, this has a devastating impact on their right to survive and develop to their full potential. Dangerous cycles of violence are gaining momentum across many humanitarian contexts and are seriously jeopardising future peace while also impacting the ability of the children of tomorrow to survive and thrive.   Against a backdrop of increasingly complex, layered, and protracted humanitarian crises, growing needs, and widening funding gaps, it is more critical than ever to ensure all actors, work hand in hand to address children’s holistic protection and well-being needs. This requires children becoming a central element of all policies and decision making.   The protective factors that exist in a child's ecosystem are eroded during times of crises, and children face new and increased protection risks. Life-saving and life-sustaining protection services and supports, to meet increasing numbers of affected children and their families, need to be available and scalable.   While the best prevention remains the end to violence and hostilities and respect for the rights of civilians, particularly children, prevention of child protection harm is possible even amidst conflict and crises.   Humanitarian and development actors, including governments, can reduce the likelihood of Child Protection harms and child rights violations by addressing the root causes of harm. If we wait to act until a child suffers an abuse or violation, it is already too late, and the harm can have irreversible impacts. Preventing harm to children before it occurs is an ethical responsibility of all actors in humanitarian contexts, including governments.   It is upon all of us to stop the cycle of violence and adversity that is harming children at such scale. As we look ahead to 2024 and beyond it is imperative that children’s rights are protected as a priority, before, during, and post conflict and crises.   http://alliancecpha.org/en/TheUnprotected2023 http://alliancecpha.org/en/unprotected-analysis-funding-cpha-2023 http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/ http://blogs.prio.org/2023/12/more-and-more-children-at-risk-of-conflict/ http://data.stopwaronchildren.org/ http://www.unicef.org/children-under-attack http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/02/imperative-protect-children-war/ http://watchlist.org/resources/advocacy-resources/ http://www.savethechildren.net/news/worlds-10-largest-crises-force-over-10-million-children-their-homes-one-year-save-children http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/number-displaced-children-reaches-new-high-433-million Visit the related web page
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