Climate Change and Children's Health: Participation, Rhetoric and Human Rights

气候变化对儿童身心健康的影响将不成比例地严重，因为他们处于不同的发育阶段，认知和生理不成熟，单位身体暴露于更高的空气、食物和水，以及对照顾者的依赖。然而，传统上，儿童作为影响其未来福利的政治和法律进程的积极推动者和参与者被排除在外。随着联合国《儿童权利公约》(CRC)的广泛实施，以及年轻人在气候变化行动中的突出地位，这种情况开始发生变化。世界各地的国家法院一直是儿童和青年原告发起的与气候变化有关的诉讼的地点。这不仅关系到他们的利益，而且关系到他们积极参与将对他们的未来产生深远影响的进程。朱莉安娜诉美利坚合众国(2015年)、卡瓦略诉欧洲议会和理事会(2018年)、乌尔根达基金会诉荷兰州(2019年)和促进气候正义青年诉奥地利(2020年)等案件使人们得以深入了解正在制定的应对气候紧急情况的实体法和程序法，以及这些法律在多大程度上符合具有约束力的国际人权标准。其次，它们允许审查与地区、司法和政治制度，包括一元论和二元论国家及其法律惯例有关的儿童参与权是如何保护他们的健康的。尽管气候变化无疑是一种全球威胁，但不同的程序规则、常设条例、补救办法和法律门槛，给各国采取集体减缓和适应气候行动带来了进一步的困难。这项研究将确定和解决通过儿童行使和实现他们的参与权的共同途径，形成一个新的全球儿童社区，通过他们为气候变化辩论做出贡献的机会而联系在一起。这些案例研究为发言权和代表权的政治和道德理论提供了一个重要的试验场。对气候诉讼进行比较和跨学科研究将有助于为儿童参与制定一个规范基础，并为批评现行规则和提出改革建议提供一个框架。这项研究的明确重点是儿童参与权，因为它们与儿童在全球健康、人权、哲学和伦理的关系中的健康权相互关联，有助于在概念和实践上加强全球卫生治理模式、国家政策和国内立法，以实现儿童的公民身份并保护他们的健康，扩大现有的国际人权框架。这些考虑可能导致进一步的思考，这将有助于增强儿童在社区中的地位，增强他们的发言权，并在气候诉讼和其他方面实现他们的参与权。

The consequences of climate change will be disproportionately severe for the physical and mental health of children due to their various developmental phases, cognitive and physiological immaturity, higher exposure to air, food, and water per body unit, and dependency on caregivers. Traditionally, however, children have been omitted from consideration as active contibutors to, and participants in political and legal processes affecting their future welfare. This has begun to shift with the widespread implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the prominence of young people in the movement for Action on Climate Change.National courts around the world have been the venue for climate change-related litigation initiated by children and youth plaintiffs. At stake has been, not just the consideration of their interests, but their active participation in processes that will profoundly affect their futures. Cases such as Juliana v United States of America (2015), Carvalho v The European Parliament and the Council (2018), Urgenda Foundation v The State of the Netherlands (2019), and Youth for Climate Justice v Austria (2020) offer an insight into the developing substantive and procedural law in response to the climate emergency and the extent to which they conform to binding international human rights standards. Secondly, they allow to examine how children's participation rights are engaged to protect their health in relation to region, jurisdiction, and political systems, including monist and dualist states and their legal conventions. Although climate change is indisputably a global threat, the different procedural rules, standing regulations, remedies, and legal thresholds, pose further difficulties in pursuing collective climate mitigating and adaptation action across States. The study will identify and address the common routes through children could exercise and realise their participation rights, forming a new global community of children linked by their opportunity to contribute to the climate change debate. The case studies provide an important proving ground for political and moral theories of voice and representation. Comparative and interdisciplinary study of climate litigation will allow the development of a normative basis for children's participation, as well as a framework for critiquing current rules and proposing reforms. The explicit focus of this study on children's participation rights as they interrelate with their rights to health at the nexus of global health, human rights, philosophy, and ethics, could contribute to the conceptual and practical enhancement of global health governance models, State policy, and domestic legislation that will realise children's citizenship and protect their health, expanding on the existing international human rights frameworks. These considerations could lead to further reflections that will contribute to empowering children's membership in the community, strengthening their voices, and realising their participatory rights in the context of climate litigation and beyond.