Research Handbook on Law, Environment and the Global South

In this chapter we reflect on the role of human rights as part of the juridical toolbox to mediate the human-environment interface in the Global South. Our point of departure is that socio-ecological impacts disproportionally affect the livelihoods of those least resilient to withstand or adapt to these impacts, in particular people living in the Global South. It is within this context of deepening global injustice that human rights emerge, as they have in the past, as a central component of the juridical framework necessary to address the myriad socio-economic and ecological injustices that arise in the Anthropocene. It is our central thesis that human rights will continue to play an important role as part of the constitutional and broader legal interventions that are needed to determine and ultimately ensure socio-ecological security and justice in the Anthropocene, especially for those living in the Global South.