Climate change adaptation: not exactly a human right in Cambodia

Development agencies which address climate change adaptation are increasingly adopting human rights-based approaches as central to their policies and principles. This article in Forum for Development Studies, co-authored by DIIS Senior Researcher Ian Christoplos, looks at what this entails in civil society practice in Cambodia.

The study examines whether and how civil society organisations are applying principles of participation, transparency, accountability, and non-discrimination when entering into climate change efforts.

Findings highlight how making this link inevitably leads to political engagements that are not always on the same wavelength as more mainstream efforts to promote technical solutions to address climate risks. For this reason human rights-based approaches are only cautiously being applied to climate change, and have yet to contribute to overcoming tendencies to treat climate change adaptation as a technical concern.