In the area of climate change, we have found a noteworthy trend of States having recourse to arguments that are not strictly human rights-based but rely on notions that are connected to human rights. Examples of such notions in connection with climate change include sustainable development, the protection of health, the welfare state, intergenerational equity, and consumers’ interests.
Some of these notions are more closely related to the idea of the protection of rights of individuals and groups (e.g., consumers’ interests or intergenerational equity), while others are more easily located in the sphere of public/State interest (e.g., security in the area of migration). Many can be placed in the middle – such as development, which can be conceived as the object of both a State interest and an individual or group right; or the protection of health. More generally, “related notions” appear to blur the lines between the protection of the public interest and the protection of the rights of others and therefore constitute a phenomenon worthy of examination in the context of human rights justifications (HRJs).