Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions and Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions Ever since, on the one hand, human rights bodies have undertaken to make formal submissions on matters under consideration under the climate regime, such as gender, adaptation, and the so-called Sustainable Development Mechanism,79 and elaborated recommendations on how to best integrate human rights into climate policy.80 On the other hand, standards developed by international bodies dealing with matters such as climate finance and REDD+81 have increasingly included human rights considerations.82 These developments clearly show that states and international organisations acknowledge the relevance of human rights law in the implementation of climate change response measures and increasingly practice systemic integration in the interpretation of their obligations under international climate change and human rights treaties.83 More generally, these developments clearly testify to states’ acknowledgement that human rights law has an important role to play in the fight against climate change. 12 30. Yet, so far, little climate change litigation has been successfully argued on human rights grounds.84 As a result, the scope to raise human rights complaints in relation to climate change impacts largely remains to be tested. Qualifying the effects of climate change as human rights violations poses a series of technical obstacles, including disentangling complex causal relationships and projections about future impacts.85 Yet, these obstacles are not insurmountable. The suitability of human rights law to address harm caused by climate change depends upon whether a victim can substantiate a claim that a duty bearer has contributed to climate change, in such a way to amount to a human rights violation.86 In this regard, Special Rapporteur Knox has persuasively argued that, as scientific knowledge improves, tracing causal connections between particular emissions and resulting harms is less difficult.87 Furthermore, states’ well-established obligation to address environmental harm that interferes with the full enjoyment of human rights can be interpreted in a way to extend to human rights violations caused by climate change impacts.88 As not all parties to the climate regime have ratified the same human rights treaties,89 states’ obligations in this connection may vary to a certain extent. Yet, the work of the Special Rapporteur demonstrates that it is possible to identify a set of core obligations associated with the protection of human rights in relation to environmental matters.90 31. The Special Rapporteur clearly outlines how these core obligations include procedural obligations to assess environmental impacts on human rights and to make environmental information public, to facilitate participation in environmental decision-making, and to provide access to remedies.91 Furthermore, states have substantive obligations to adopt legal and institutional frameworks protecting against environmental harm interfering with the enjoyment of human rights. Most saliently for the present purposes, this includes harm caused by private actors. The obligation to protect human rights from environmental harm does not require states to prohibit all activities that may cause any environmental degradation. Instead, states have discretion to strike a balance between environmental protection and other legitimate societal interests. The Special Rapporteur has emphasized how this balance cannot be unreasonable, or result in unjustified, foreseeable infringements of human rights. In assessing whether a balance is reasonable, national and international health standards may be particularly relevant, with a strong presumption against retrogressive measures. Finally, the Special Rapporteur has specified how, in addition to a general non-discrimination requirement, states may owe specific obligations to members of groups particularly vulnerable to harm.92 32. All of the elements above are of clear significance for the petition before the Commission. The petition addresses harm caused by private actors, which is largely foreseeable and that also affects groups particularly vulnerable to harm. In this regard, it is worth emphasising that the Paris Agreement refers for the first time the matter of loss and damage caused by climate change, while the decision adopting it established a process to develop recommendations for approaches to avert, minimise and address human displacement, and facilitate parties’ efforts to develop and implement comprehensive risk management strategies.93 33. In sum, human rights law provides means to tackle loss and damage and hold to account human rights duty bearers, including corporations, for human rights violations associated with the impacts of climate change. The next section considers how this can happen in practice.