A Toolbox - Human Rights, Sustainable Development, and Climate Policies: Connecting the dots

This Toolbox, which builds on the Handbook entitled Making Human Rights Work for People Living in Extreme Poverty: A Handbook for Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, focuses on the international mechanisms that can help support the protection of human rights at local and national levels and on the need to ensure a rights-based approach to sustainable development efforts. 

This Toolbox aims to help civil society promote an integrated and coherent human rights-based approach to sustainable development, poverty eradication, and environmental justice by:

• Highlighting the importance of rights-based monitoring of sustainable development and climate change policies as well as how violations of human rights can harm or hinder the implementation of SDGs and make people more vulnerable to climate change;
• Connecting the dots between human rights, sustainable development, and climate change at national and international levels to better inform the various review mechanisms; and
• Helping people make full use of existing mechanisms and promote an integrated approach that respects and protects human rights.

There are a number of different sections in the Toolbox, including:

• A mapping of the existing instruments and review mechanisms in the areas of human rights, sustainable development, and climate policies. 
• A visual demonstration of how these mechanisms deal with different topics and possible areas of overlap, both practical and thematic.
• Guidance on how civil society can promote better coherence between the different mechanisms and make sure they systematically integrate human rights in their work.