Gail Rego

How can General Comment No. 26 be used as a powerful tool for justice? Can it be a way to raise our voices and involve other young people? These were some of the questions debated by child and youth activists and child rights and environmental campaigners during an interactive workshop organised by Terre des Hommes, Future Rights, the Child and Youth Advisory Committee (CYAC) of the Congress, and Red Interquorum Pasco (a youth activist group in Cerro de Pasco) during the World Congress on Justice with Children on 4 June 2025.

Using UNCRC General Comment 26 as a lens, participants studied children’s experiences in Cerro de Pasco in Peru and the Sundarbans delta region and explored how justice for and accountability towards children can increase when children and their rights are prioritised in environmental decision-making. Participants also considered how children’s identities affect their experiences of environmental degradation and climate change.

The situation in Cerro de Pasco and Sundarbans highlights the detrimental effects of environmental harm and climate change on children. Failure to uphold children’s rights in both contexts is a powerful reminder that environmental harm is injustice. Discrimination – especially against indigenous children – compounds environmental injustice. Rights violations in these situations are not only technical failures, but deeply rooted in social, political, and historical inequalities. Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights, highlighted the same, saying that when we reflect on General Comment 26, any decision from the State that has allowed for environmental degradation to occur has discriminated against children because they are more vulnerable to the effects. Anything that harms their rights is discriminatory to children.

How can we change this?

Here are some of the recommendations from participants at the workshop:

1. Place children’s rights at the centre of environmental and climate justice efforts. That means not just recognising harm but challenging the systems that produce it. It means standing with children and communities on the frontlines as allies.
2. Ensure that children, particularly marginalised children, are better able and empowered to access justice in environmental and climate crises, and more specifically that children are:
   • Empowered as human rights defenders;
   • Protected from retaliation and harm;
   • Supported to shape their own futures including through education on environment, climate, child rights and accessing justice; and
   • Able to access the services they need to fully enjoy their rights and thrive.
3. Address systemic discrimination which is closely linked with environmental harm in both examples. Decisions about where to permit polluting industries, where to invest in services, and whose voices are heard reflect deeply unequal power dynamics. Participants highlighted colonial legacies and extractive economic models that continue to shape the realities of many communities. These structural factors need to be addressed, or interventions will remain superficial and insufficient.
4. Learn from children’s knowledge which is rooted in lived experience. A central message of the workshop was the need to listen to children not just as symbolic voices, but as experts in their own right and as equal rights holders. As one participant said, “Children are not waiting to be included—they are already participating, observing, and imagining better futures.” Children’s unique perspectives expose the failures of current systems and hold the potential to reframe what justice means in environmental contexts.
5. Shift power. Strategic litigation can be a powerful tool but is not enough. An interdisciplinary approach and more awareness on rights and legal frameworks is needed. Legal efforts have brought cases to regional and international courts and are beginning to force governments to reckon with their obligations. But the extent to which this is a viable pathway to justice was questioned by participants, especially for marginalised children such as indigenous girls in remote communities. Participants stressed the need for:
   • Stronger accountability frameworks for companies
   • International enforcement mechanisms
   • Greater investment in child-friendly environmental and climate education
   • Laws that protect the right to protest and organise.
   • Critically, reforms must be co-designed with children and communities.
6. Ensure enabling environments, trust, and accountability mechanisms that protect environmental human rights defenders. Children’s rights to access information, participate, express themselves and form or join a peaceful assembly are crucial to ensure child environmental defenders can access justice when their rights are violated because of environmental degradation and climate change.
7. Support children as experts in their own stories. Provide tools and facilitate spaces and conversations where children and youth can tell their own stories on their own terms.
8. Strengthen governance and accountability. Participants felt that government actors either lack the power or the will to hold industries accountable, and that corruption, political instability, and corporate lobbying can obstruct reform and, in some situations, suppress community resistance. Criminalisation of NGOs and activists is also increasing and very concerning. Shrinking civic space leaves children and families without allies to help amplify their concerns.

The workshop highlighted the need for child-friendly resources for children and young people to use General Comment 26 as a means to analyse different climate and environmental crises – such as tools to identify key violations of children’s environmental rights, help understand which groups of children are most affected, recognise who is responsible, and determine pathways to seek justice through the different mechanisms and laws available. Developing such tools will be a concrete follow-up to the workshop – led by children and youth who were central to the design and delivery of the workshop.

“As young people, we feel the responsibility to raise our voices — to demand that our rights be respected: the right to a healthy environment, the right to health, and the right to a dignified life.” (Mireya and Norman, Members of Red Interquorum)

CASE STUDY 1: PERUVIAN CITY OF CERRO DE PASCO

“The world needs to see what is happening here. Environmental degradation directly affects children but also devastates vulnerable families who are unable to protect their children’s well-being. This crisis touches every corner of the community.” (Katty and Rosa, Members from Red Interquorum Pasco).

Children grow up with environmental devastation caused by open-pit mining. Poisoning lead and other heavy metals is widespread with devastating health impacts. Despite multiple declarations of health emergencies and international concern, the Peruvian government has failed to deliver essential services like clean water, social protection, adequate healthcare, and education for children with mental and physical impairments.

There are limited spaces for children to raise their voices safely. Children are surrounded by destruction which has become normalised, often leading to a sense of hopelessness. They are often seen as victims rather than rights-holders. Harm has been normalised in a context where mining companies are powerful, government institutions are weak and there is little accountability from companies.

“As young volunteers, we continue our fight for environmental justice. But we need the support of civil society in these key areas: Awareness and outreach, Legal and technical strengthening, Mobilisation and coordination, and Political advocacy and financial support.” (Rosa, Member of Red Interquorum)

Watch the video by Red Interquorum here.

CASE STUDY 2: THE SUNDARBANS DELTA IN SOUTH ASIA

Children face increasingly frequent floods, cyclones, and displacement due to climate change, threatening many of their rights.

The harm is real but hard to attribute. There is no single polluter and no clear chain of accountability. The impacts unfold gradually, often in ways that evade international attention.

The most affected are those who have contributed the least to the crisis.

Child activist, Dhruv, shared how children are keenly aware of this.

“I started my activism when I was quite young, and I did not know about rights. I did not know I had those. But I knew which services were missing or failing – children know this straight away. I come from a community where I had access to information from outside, so I knew children from other countries were not affected like me…it is important to learn from children and their experiences.”

Watch the video by TDH on the impact of climate change on children here.