Abstract
This essay will explain how the subjugation of colonised groups in the Americas, Africa, and Asia by European powers led to climate change and dictated which populations would be the most vulnerable to its catastrophic effects. This history must inform human rights responses to climate change.
First, this essay will provide a legal history of the Doctrine of Discovery to show how legality aided the processes of colonisation which created climate change and the climate apartheid. Second, this essay explains why international human rights law does not, currently, provide an effective response to climate change. The argument is made over three parts. Part I will look at the historical processes of colonisation specifically with reference to the Doctrine of Discovery and its translation to a racist international legal order and the intertwining of capitalist ideology, politics and law. Part II explains how this history of colonisation, racism and capitalism underlies and has created the current climate crisis. Part III uses the case study of Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell to demonstrate how a lack of engagement with the content of the first two parts undermines human rights responses to climate change and are thus complicit in the racist and exploitative legal order that created the climate crisis in the first place. Finally, there will be concluding remarks about the need for human rights approaches to articulate the histories of struggle and exploitation that underlie climate change in order to facilitate meaningful change.