Elizabeth Kronk Warner and Randall Abate have posted “International and Domestic Law Dimensions of Climate Justice for Arctic Indigenous Peoples,” published in the Ottawa Law Review. Here is the abstract:
Climate change is disproportionately impacting Arctic American indigenous peoples. Consequently, these communities are environmental justice communities. The environmental justice claims of Arctic American indigenous peoples result from the effects of climate change intersecting with indigenous peoples’ human rights. In order to explore these realities more fully, part I of this article discusses how American indigenous nations are environmental justice communities and discusses the unique factors that may apply to environmental justice claims arising in Indian country. The article then presents two case studies to explore how, if at all, these concepts have been previously applied to environmental justice claims brought by various American indigenous communities. Part II addresses the Inuit Circumpolar Conference’s (ICC) petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in December 2005. Part III considers the Native Village of Kivalina’s lawsuit filed in federal court in the United States in February 2008 against numerous private emitters of greenhouse gases.
Although the ICC and Kivalina claims involve different forums, defendants, and legal theories, both were brought by American indigenous communities in response to the negative impacts of climate change on their communities. Accordingly, evaluation of the ICC’s and Kivalina’s claims is helpful in understanding how environmental justice as applied to indigenous communities may include consideration of factors not applicable to environmental justice claims raised by other environmental justice communities.
Moreover, this article will underscore how Arctic American indigenous peoples’ environmental justice claims also involve human rights dimensions, as climate change is destroying their environment and, as a result, their culture. As fully explained in part I, environmental justice claims arising in Indian country must take into consideration indigenous sovereignty, the federal trust relationship and the unique connection between many indigenous communities and their land and environment. In both of the case studies examined here, the legal forums failed to take these legal factors into consideration. As a result, the indigenous communities suffered.
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