REDD+ and human rights: Addressing the urgent need for a full community-based human rights impact assessment

This article makes the case for carrying out a series of community-based human rights impact assessments (HRIA) on the international mechanism, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus conservation and sustainable development (REDD+). In outlining the prima facie case, this article discusses the key areas of concern surrounding REDD+ and the repercussions for the rights and interests of local forest and indigenous communities. Furthermore, in its discussion on why REDD+ necessitates a HRIA, the article explores the implications that a specific link between human rights and REDD+ would have on the promotion and protection of forest peoples and indigenous human rights. In the context of the climate change crisis, formulating a specific link between human rights and climate change mitigation strategies such as REDD+ is highly pertinent if they are to have a positive impact at a local level. Formulating this connection could potentially secure the protection of traditional knowledge, law, customs and lands of those communities in which it operates, ensuring that the most vulnerable and poorest members of society do not bare the negative costs of such policies.