Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations in the Area of Climate Change: Why the European Union Should Take Them Seriously

While it is by now recognised that climate change is having and will increasingly have a devastating impact on human rights and that ill-conceived climate action can also have adverse repercussions, the legal implications of these dynamics are still debated. This is particularly the case for the apparent incompatibility between the global nature of climate change and the primarily territorial nature of States’ human rights obligations. In this context, the potential human rights obligations of the European Union (EU) towards persons living in third countries when it acts – or refrains from acting – to counter climate change have been particularly neglected, notwithstanding the major role played by the EU in both contributing to and mitigating climate change. Accordingly, the Article aims to shed light on the existence and extent of EU extraterritorial human rights obligations in the area of climate change. After exploring the wide array of EU climate measures and their extensive impacts on third countries and persons living therein, the Article offers an overview of the historical evolution and current state of extraterritorial human rights obligations in general and in the context of climate change specifically, paying special attention to recent judicial and quasi-judicial developments. The Article then points to a number of peculiarities of the EU legal framework and EU climate policy to conclude that, notwithstanding potentially significant enforcement obstacles, the EU legal order could be readier than others to recognise extraterritorial human rights obligations when EU institutions act (or not) in the area of climate change.