Shining a Light: Leveraging Green Amendments and the Right to a Clean and Healthful Environment to Combat Gender-Based Violence in the United States

Abstract

It is well documented that anthropogenic climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather and climate events, which in turn visibly devastate communities and the environment. However, this article examines a less visible consequence of climate change: the increase in rates of gender-based violence following climate-related disasters. In the United States, women, girls, and gender nonconforming individuals disproportionately experience both climate impacts and gender-based violence, often with limited legal recourse to address these momentous and compounding harms, as illustrated by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. This article advances two central proposals. First, it argues that states should adopt a Green Amendment providing a constitutional right to a clean, safe, and healthy environment. Second, it argues that states should fund scientific research on the relationship between climate change and gender-based violence. Together, these measures would strengthen both substantive and procedural pathways for accountability. Building on recent climate litigation, individuals suffering from climate change-exacerbated gender-based violence may draw on the legal strategies developed in cases such as Held v Montana and Navahine F. v Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation to hold state governments accountable for their contributions to rising greenhouse gas emissions which violate the right to a clean and healthful environment. State-funded research can be used as crucial scientific evidence for standing purposes and provide legitimacy in demonstrating causal links between climate impacts and gendered harms. The article concludes that a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will likely reduce the increasing intensity and frequency of climate disasters and therefore also reduce the associated rise in of gender-based violence.