Gender, Climate Breakdown and Resistance: The Future of Human Rights in the Shadow of Authoritarianism

Abstract

In this article we examine the future of human rights by looking at how 'authoritarianism', in its multifaceted forms and manifestations, intersects with existing discourses on climate change, environmental protection, populism and 'gender deviance'. By adopting an intersectional lens, we interrogate the emergence of the right to a healthy environment and reflect on whether it will help against the double challenge faced by human rights: of climate breakdown and rising authoritarianism. We study the link between authoritarianism and populism, focusing on far-right populism and the creeping authoritarian features that we can associate with far-right groups, both movements and parties. We also consider how certain understandings of nature and the environment are put forward by authoritarian regimes. This leads us to consider so-called 'ecologism' and the ways in which far-right movements draw upon green thought on the natural environment to further a gendered agenda based on conceptions of nature as a 'national treasure'. These conceptions, as we demonstrate, go hand in hand with policies that promote national identity and directly undermine the rights of migrants, ethnic minorities, women and LGBT+ groups.