Preventing a Second Atlantis: Facilitating the Enjoyment of Water in an Era of Climate Change Impacts

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the connection between climate change and human rights from a legal perspective. Its starting point is the consideration of the plight of small island developing states (SIDS) in light of the adverse impacts of climate change on their territories and populations, such as the exacerbation of resource scarcity by climate change. In light of this, the thesis focuses on how water is regulated at the regime level by international human rights and climate change law and how those laws are implemented on the ground. The thesis considers this by asking the question “In what ways might a closer integration of the international human rights and climate change legal fields facilitate the enjoyment of water in an era of climate change impacts?”. In pursuit of answering this question, the submission examines regime level and implementation level integration, in Parts One and Two respectively. In Part One the two regimes, international human rights and climate change law and how they both address the issue of water, are outlined. It is clear that the two regimes interact barely at all despite regulating the same subject matter. The need and possibilities for integration are then considered, including an analysis of the possibility of the adoption of a new treaty and/or soft law instruments. The thesis then moves on to the implementation level aspect of the research question through adopting a specific country lens and considers the situation of water scarcity and its exacerbation by climate change in Tuvalu in Part Two. Water scarcity is considered from a human rights perspective, followed by consideration of if and how international human rights and climate change laws are being implemented in the state. It is concluded there is limited implementation and it follows that regime level integration may not actually facilitate the enjoyment of water in the country. Subsequently implementation level means of integration are analysed by considering opportunities under development commitments. Finally, by way of conclusion, the thesis summarises the conclusions reached in Parts One and Two. The conclusions of the thesis illustrate that there is not only disconnect between the two legal fields themselves, but also between the regimes and their implementation. The disconnect between the fields could be resolved by regime level integration which would ensure coherence of international law. The disconnect in terms of regime and implementation may indicate a further need for regime level integration, but it also demands that there is greater integration of the two fields at the implementation level.