Oil giant, climate saviour, or somewhere in between Human rights and the Norwegian climate paradox

Abstract

Norway's recent decision to expand oil and gas exploration further North into the Barents Sea is contrasted with its active leadership role in global climate policymaking. We argue that this contradiction is a result of the key role petro-capitalism still plays in Norway, in addition to the country's geopolitical aspirations in the Arctic. However, solely legalistic approaches to human rights and sustainability often miss out on the dynamics of power, capitalism, and industry interests and their influences on climate litigation. Thus, this article presents a critical assessment of climate and environmental litigation at the European Court of Human Rights by also looking at the recent application Greenpeace Nordic and Others against Norway. The goal is to understand both the possibilities and limitations of the human rights-sustainability  Erasmus Mundus scholar and Social Work graduate student at the University of Stavanger, Department of Social Studies. He is interested in critical approaches to human rights and public policy and his works have appeared before in publications such as the Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, Brazilian Journal of International Law, among several others. He was formerly affiliated with the Human Rights Nudge project (University of Copenhagen), and the Human Rights & Citizenship research project (University of Vale do Itajai), where he conducted research on topical human rights issues from an international perspective.