The fundamental rights to life and health in climate litigation: insights from Latin America

Abstract

This paper scrutinizes the use and significance of the fundamental rights to life and health within constitutional climate lawsuits filed in Latin American jurisdictions. The study takes the normative synergies between both rights as points of departure to doctrinally and comparatively analyze how they overlap with climate change law in establishing state responsibility and corresponding remedies for acts and omissions threatening people's lives and health. By doing so in the light of Latin America’s transformative constitutionalism, it contributes to expanding our current understanding of climate litigation as a strategic endeavor to limit the global temperature from warming beyond 1.5°C, while situating this against the region’s broader socioeconomic challenges that mediate people’s vulnerability to climate change. This analysis concludes that even when the indivisibility between the fundamental rights to life and health gives rise to principles and obligations to address both the environmental and social dimensions of climate vulnerability, such a normative potential has not yet been harnessed evenly nor to its fullest extent.