UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy

The United Nations Human Rights Committee’s 2022 Decision, Daniel Billy et al. v. Australia (“Daniel Billy” or “the Decision”), brought by Indigenous Peoples residing on the Torres Strait Islands off the coast of Australia, is the first case before an international human rights body to find that a State’s failure to adopt timely climate adaptation measures violates the human rights of Indigenous Peoples living in that State. In Daniel Billy, the Human Rights Committee (“the Committee”) found a violation of the right to privacy, family, and home and the right to culture; but not the right to life. Drawing on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“the Covenant”), the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and recent developments in the field of climate change and international human rights law (IHRL), this Comment discusses the significance and the limitations of Daniel Billy regarding the protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and others affected by climate change. We find that the advancements made in Daniel Billy are a big step toward holding states accountable for inadequateclimate adaptation measures.

In our analysis of the Decision’s shortcomings, however, we argue that Daniel Billy promises more than it delivers on two accounts. First, we argue that the failure of the Committee to clearly determine that states have a positive obligation to adopt climate change mitigation measures, in addition to adaptation measures is a significant limitation of the Decision. Without climate change mitigation, it will not be possible for Indigenous peoples on low-lyingi slands or in other climate-vulnerable locations to protect their land and way of life, the basis for several human rights. Further, climate change is perpetuated by industrialized states, but its effects are most keenly felt by communities, like that of the Torres Strait Islanders, who have contributed little to climate change. Neglecting to link states’ duty to mitigate climate change to human rights violations therefore ignores the colonial nature of climate change. Second, we argue that the Committee failed to consider the interconnectedness of the right to life with dignity in the context of climate change and Indigenous Peoples’ right to enjoy their culture when it rejected the Torres Strait Islanders’claim that Australia’s (in)action on climate change mitigation and adaptation violated the Islanders’ right to life with dignity. Notwithstanding these limitations, we conclude that the precedent set in Daniel Billy et a. v Australia will have a long-lasting positive impact in the fields of international environmental and human rights law.