have continued to rise. At different points in 2023, it was estimated that 78% of Sierra Leone’s population were food insecure, 46% of South Sudan’s population were experiencing high levels of food insecurity and 5 million people in Somalia were experiencing a food crisis. By mid-December, 93% of people in Gaza were starving, according to the WHO, making them vulnerable to death from otherwise curable diseases, with pregnant and breastfeeding women at particular risk. Some countries are taking steps to change global tax and other forms of economic governance in order to better support economic and social rights realization. As part of this, there has been progress towards establishing a global regime for fairer taxation that could help mobilize resources for lower-income countries. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a two-step process to negotiate a UN Framework Convention on Effective and Inclusive International Tax Cooperation. It was proposed by Nigeria and backed overwhelmingly, despite opposition from a significant number of higher-income states including EU states, Japan, the UK and the USA.8 RIGHT TO A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT Extreme weather events and slow onset crises made more likely and more intense by climate change have affected countries at all levels of income, but disproportionately affected lowerincome ones. Governments and corporate actors have failed to tackle these adequately or to prevent acute environmental degradation. Governments, especially those historic and high emitting countries facing heightened obligations under the legal principle of common but differentiated responsibility, have done far too little to phase out fossil fuels and other drivers of climate change. Many have continued to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, including with public funding. The choice of the United Arab Emirates as the host of the last climate change conference, COP28, proved controversial not least because the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, headed by the COP28 president, had announced plans to aggressively expand its fossil fuel production. The COP28 agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels for energy was the first time that fossil fuels had been mentioned in a COP decision. However, it fell far short of what was needed, leaving loopholes that allow fossil fuel producers and states to continue with business as usual.9 Meanwhile, the total of USD 700 million pledged at COP28 to the Loss and Damage Fund, which is intended to assist communities in lower-income countries who are suffering from disastrous weather events and other harms caused by global warming, was barely enough to get it up and running.10 In more positive developments, several national and regional courts, including courts in Cyprus and Ireland and the European Court of Human Rights, have recognized the right of groups and individuals to file claims that governments have taken insufficient action to tackle climate change or environmental degradation. These cases have the potential to hold governments and fossil fuel companies to account for specific harm and to lay the groundwork for further climate change litigation. Meanwhile, in March 2023, the UN General Assembly backed Vanuatu and other Pacific Island states by asking the International Court of Justice to provide an authoritative opinion on states’ obligations and responsibilities surrounding climate change.11 DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT ON MARGINALIZED PEOPLE Racialized groups, including Indigenous Peoples and others experiencing intersecting discrimination, have suffered disproportionately from the human rights harms associated with economic crises, climate change and environmental degradation. This disproportionate harm is attributable to several factors, including the cumulative impact of present and past structural and direct discrimination. Consequently, marginalized 20 The State of the World’s Human Rights