Deforestation: The Elephant in the Climate Room: A research into the protection of forests through the lens of human rights

Forests play a key role in the fight against climate change. Despite growing awareness of this role, forests are under threat due to large scale deforestation. The current regime under international environmental law does not yet sufficiently address deforestation, as there are few concrete binding obligations to combat it. This paper therefore explored to what extent international human rights law can be used to protect forests against deforestation, in particular the human rights laid down in the American Convention on Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. This paper reveals that there is much potential in both human rights systems to address deforestation, under the rights of life, private and family life, property and a healthy environment. The Inter-American system has the most potential to address deforestation, as the scope of the protection is wider and more concrete measures are expected from States than in the European system. Despite the potential to address deforestation, important challenges exist.