Contesting Climate Injustice: Transnational Advocacy Network Struggles for Rights in UN Climate Politics

Scholarship on transnational advocacy networks has not articulated the diversity and range of rights struggles that take place in international regimes, particularly those of networks representing marginal or vulnerable groups. In this article I explore the engagements of three networks in the UN climate change regime: gender equality advocates, indigenous peoples, and waste pickers. These networks have all sought to gain rights to counter what they refer to as forms of “climate injustice.” Drawing upon relevant scholarship, I develop a framework for “regime rights” analysis, and identify four types of related network interventions. These include struggles for recognition, representation, capabilities, and extended rights. I find that most network gains have been in the form of recognition, which have provided legitimacy to the regime without challenging core relations of power and inequality. The networks have realized comparatively fewer gains for representation, capabilities, and extended rights.