A Fundamental Right to Climate Sustainability? EU Developments on Mitigation and Adaptation in the Light of International Law

  • Ottavio Quirico Perugia University for Foreigners, Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.3251
Keywords: European Union, climate sustainability, fundamental rights, right to environmental sustainability, right to climate sustainability

Abstract

Based on key normative references, the article argues that a fundamental “right to climate sustainability” is developing as an independent claim in the European Union (EU). However, is such a right systemically viable? In the light of the correlativeness between rights and duties, the article contextualises EU developments against the background of international law, whereby the right to climate sustainability emerges as a particular claim, rather than a universal one, and is only sporadically mentioned as a fundamental duty, more specifically as soft law rather than a strictly binding commitment. Arguably, however, the recent declaration of the fundamental nature of the right to a sustainable environment by the UN General Assembly also implies the  international recognition of the human rights nature of the right to climate sustainability, with respect to both mitigation and adaptation. Indeed, the right to climate sustainability–including correlated substantive and procedural duties–is a component of the right to environmental sustainability, at both the international and EU level.

Received: 30 September 2024 
Accepted: 23 January 2025

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Ottavio Quirico, Perugia University for Foreigners, Italy

PhD, is a Senior Researcher in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Perugia University for Foreigners and a Professor at the University of New England, Law School and Australian National University, Centre for European Studies. He is also a Member of the Centre of Transnational Legal Relations at the Federal University of Paraiba in Brazil and an Alumnus of the European University Institute. He has been, inter alia, a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow in the Law Department of the European University Institute in Florence and a Marie Curie Fellow at Université Panthéon-Assas in Paris. He has taught and researched extensively in the areas of international law and relations and EU law and policy, lecturing in several universities and institutions worldwide and acting as a consultant to the United Nations.

Published
2025-03-28
How to Cite
Quirico, Ottavio. 2025. “A Fundamental Right to Climate Sustainability? EU Developments on Mitigation and Adaptation in the Light of International Law”. Deusto Journal of European Studies, no. 72 (March), 183-209. https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.3251.
Issue
No. 72 (2025): Primera activación de la Directiva de protección temporal: Ucrania
Section
Other Articles

 

The author grants to the Publisher the distribution, public communication, and reproduction rights of her/his work subject of publication in Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES), whichever the media may be, including the permission to include it in the databases where this Journal is indexed and in the institutional repository of the Universidad de Deusto.

Upon its publication, the content of any Issue of Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) can be accessed, read, downloaded, copies, and distributed freely for non-commercial purposes and in accordance with any applicable copyright legislation.

The content of Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) can be subsequently published in other media or journals, as long as the author clearly indicates in the first footnote that the work was published in Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) for the first time, indicating the Issue number, year, pages, and DOI (if applicable). Any other use of its content in any medium or format, now known or developed in the future, requires prior written permission of the copyright holder.

The content of the work published in Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES) is each author's sole responsibility. The authors assume the responsibility of obtaining all the necessary licenses for the reproduction in their manuscripts of any text, material or illustration coming from another author, institution or publication. The liabilities that may arise from complaints for publishing plagiarised articles are the sole responsibility of the author.