The Human Rights-Based Approach to Carbon Finance

This book analyses the topical and contentious issue of the human rights impacts associated with carbon projects, especially in developing countries. It outlines a human rights-based approach to carbon finance as a functional framework for mainstreaming human rights into the design, approval, finance and implementation of carbon projects. It also describes the nature and scope of carbon projects, the available legal options for their financing and the key human rights issues at stake in their planning and execution. Written in a user-friendly style, the proposal for a rights-based due diligence framework through which human rights issues can be anticipated and addressed makes this book relevant to all stakeholders in carbon, energy, and environmental investments and projects.

Part I. Carbon Projects and Human Rights: Introductory Context and Principles: 1. Introduction; 2. Climate change projects and human rights struggles; Part II. Mainstreaming Human Rights Safeguards into the International Legal Regime on Climate Change: 3. The concept of mainstreaming in international law; 4. The human rights mainstream paradigm and the question of approach; Part III. The Human Rights-Based Approach to Carbon Finance: Nature, Elements and Content: 5. Normative contents/elements of the human rights-based approach; 6. Legal framework for implementing the human rights-based approach to carbon finance; 7. Mobilizing structures: institutional framework for implementing the human rights-based approach to carbon finance; Part IV. From Theory to Practice: Practical Challenges, Paradoxes and Potentials of a Human Rights-Based Approach to Carbon Finance: 8. Making mainstreaming work: a three-step approach to implementation; 9. Minding the gap: practical paradoxes and barriers to the adoption of a human rights-based approach to carbon finance; 10. Implementing a human rights-based approach to carbon finance: summary for policy makers.