CCPR/C/135/D/3624/2019 be directly involved with communities in the Torres Strait to enable them to respond to climate change impacts. 4.6 The Torres Strait Regional Authority also played a lead role in securing the information and funding to progress the construction of a new sea wall for the low-lying island of Saibai. The Regional Authority is working with local councils to progress a more detailed assessment of coastal hazards that would inform coastal adaptation measures and actively seeks opportunities to reduce the region’s carbon footprint through the uptake of clean energy technologies. Article 6 4.7 Article 6 (1) of the Covenant requires States to protect against arbitrary deprivation of life for persons within its jurisdiction, but does not require States to protect those persons from the general effects of climate change.19 The authors do not claim that they have been arbitrarily deprived of their lives. The Urgenda case was based on negligence provisions in the Dutch Civil Code.20 Establishing factual causation under international law is a nearly impossible barrier to such tort claims. As in the Teitiota case, the State party is taking adaptation measures in the Torres Strait, thus rendering the harm invoked by the authors too remote to demonstrate a violation of the right to life. 4.8 The authors have failed to demonstrate that article 6 (1) of the Covenant includes a generalized right of protection against the effects of climate change and that relevant domestic legislation is manifestly insufficient or lacking altogether.21 The extension of article 6 (1) of the Covenant to a right to life with dignity, although a laudable policy objective shared by the State party, is unsupported by the rules of treaty interpretation, the ordinary meaning of article 6 (1) and any relevant jurisprudence. 4.9 Alternatively, if the Committee maintains the right to a life with dignity, it should only be recognized in limited and particular circumstances. In contrast to the situation in the Committee’s recent Views on Portillo Cáceres et al. v. Paraguay,22 the actions in the present case were not attributable to the State party, which did not fail to enforce domestic law or infringe any domestic laws. The authors in the present case have not suffered any poor health, let alone poisoning or death. Article 27 4.10 The State party has enacted laws to protect the survival and continued development of the Torres Strait islanders’ cultural identity. The authors merely assert future hypothetical violations of this right. All of the cases in which the Committee has found violations of this right relate to existing, not future violations. Article 27 of the Covenant was never intended to protect against the effects of climate change. Article 17 4.11 The authors focus entirely on the future disruptions to family life that climate change may cause. The authors have not made any claim that their families (including relatives in extended families) have experienced arbitrary or unlawful interference by the State party. The interference prohibited under article 17 of the Covenant must be real and effective, not potential or future, and must emanate from State authorities or natural or legal persons authorized by the State. The authors’ allegation that they could be relocated in the future is speculative. 19 20 21 22 6 General comment No. 36 (2018), para. 20. Supreme Court of the Netherlands, State of the Netherlands (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy) v. Urgenda Foundation, Case No. 19/00135, Judgment, 20 December 2019. Manfred Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, 2nd revised ed. (N.P. Engel, Kehl am Rhein, 2005), p. 123. CCPR/C/126/D/2751/2016.