Climate crisis as a form of structural violence against children and youth
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: In August 2023, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child released General Comment 26, Children and the environment with a special focus on climate change, which declared that environmental degradation, including the climate crisis, is a form of structural violence against children; that States are obliged to ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in order to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights; and that children should be provided with ‘justice pathways’, including facilities to initiate proceedings themselves to hold governments responsible for threatening their well-being. General Comment 26 provides detailed instruction to States on how to avoid structural violence against children in the context of climate change, but neither it nor the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to which it relates contains any binding mechanism for enforcement.
Source: BMJ Paediatrics Open
Authors: Michael Bourdillon, Jennifer J Driscoll, William Myers, Claire O'Kane, Paul Rink
Institutions: University of Zimbabwe, King's College London, Pace University
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4404909344