A/HRC/31/52 45. The duty of international cooperation provides a framework for considering the application at the international level of the human rights norms described above. The obligations to protect human rights against environmental harm, which have been clarified by human rights bodies principally in the context of internal environmental harm, can also inform the content of the duty of international cooperation when that duty pertains to a global environmental challenge such as climate change. Therefore, in addition to employing a human rights perspective to examine how individual States should address climate change at the national level, based on the obligation of each State to protect against the effects of climate change within its own jurisdiction, it is also appropriate to examine how States should address climate change in cooperation with one another. 46. To be clear, the duty of international cooperation does not require each State to take exactly the same actions in response to climate change. The language in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change calling for States to cooperate with one another immediately adds: “in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions”. 28 All States have a duty to work together to address climate change, but the particular responsibilities necessary and appropriate for each State will depend in part on its situation. 47. A human rights perspective helps to clarify this point. A foundational principle of human rights law is that all human beings, wherever they happen to live, are entitled to the same rights. But the content of some of the human rights obligations of States varies according to the situation of the State in question. Not all obligations vary in this way: article 2 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for example, simply requires each of its parties “to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant”. To take an extreme example, no State may use its political or economic situation to justify torture or slavery. As is well understood, however, economic, social and cultural rights cannot always be fulfilled immediately. Article 2 (1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reflects this understanding.29 48. This distinction is relevant to all of the human rights obligations of States in relation to climate change, including the duty of international cooperation. As in human rights law generally, some of these obligations are of immediate effect and require essentially the same conduct of every State. For example, every State must respect the rights of free expression and association in the development and implementation of climate-related actions. At the same time, the implementation of other responsibilities — e.g., efforts to 28 29 12 Convention on the Law of Treaties (2009), p. 367. The failure of States to effectively address climate change through international cooperation would prevent individual States from meeting their duties under human rights law to protect and fulfil the human rights of those within their own jurisdiction. This language is also included in resolutions 26/27 and 29/15. It would be an oversimplification to suggest that all duties relating to economic, social and cultural rights are subject to progressive realization based on the situation of States, and that all duties relating to civil and political rights require exactly the same conduct of States. As the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has made clear, some obligations under that Covenant, including the duty of non-discrimination, are of immediate effect (see the Committee’s general comment No. 3 (1990) on the nature of States parties’ obligations, para. 1). And while all parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are required to respect civil and political rights by taking (or refraining from taking) essentially the same actions, the Human Rights Committee has stated that, under some circumstances at least, States are also required to exercise due diligence to prevent and redress the impairment of rights by private persons or entities (see the Committee’s general comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, para. 8). What diligence is due in a particular instance could be affected by a number of factors that might vary from situation to situation.