On April 9, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that the Swiss government violated human rights by not taking sufficient action to mitigate climate change. When considering the potential impacts of this ruling, does framing climate change as a human rights issue alter public opinion? Does it lead to changes in attitudes and behaviors toward climate change? I argue that when climate change is framed as a human rights issue, people become more concerned about climate change, perceive it as more important, are more supportive of climate policy, and are more inclined to participate in activities to mitigate climate change. To test the argument, this paper presents a survey experiment in which participants were provided with information on how climate change violates human rights as a treatment. The experiment then measured the framing effect of human rights. With 2,103 respondents in the United States, the results show that human rights framing is effective in changing public perceptions and attitudes, but not behavior toward climate change. Additionally, framing climate change as a human rights issue proves to be more powerful than framing it as a national security issue.

In progress.

In progress.

In progress.