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Background The global pandemic and subsequent denials, delays, and disruptions in essential daily activities created significant challenges for children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and their parents. Public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic limited access to supports and services required by children with NDDs to maintain their health and well-being. Objective This study sought to understand the impacts of these public health measures and restrictions on mental health from the perspective of parents with children with NDDs to inform pathways for public health policies responsive to the needs of this population. Method Interpretive descriptive design was used to guide data collection and data analysis. Forty caregivers were interviewed about their experience with pandemic restrictions. Findings Generic policy measures contributed to many gaps in families’ social support systems and contributed to mental health challenges for children and their parents. Four themes emerged: 1) lack of social networks and activities, 2) lack of access to health and social supports, 3) tension in the family unit, and 4) impact on mental health for children and their parents. Recommendations Emergency preparedness planning requires a disability inclusive approach allocating resources for family supports in the home and community. Families identified supports to minimize further pandemic disruptions and enhance recovery.

Our article provides an in‐depth analysis of the framing processes and outcomes associated with a petition submitted by Inuit communities in the arctic on the human rights violations caused by climate change before the Inter‐American Commission of Human Rights in 2005. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews conducted in two different Inuit communities in Canada that have ties to the petition and with lawyers and activists in the transnational climate justice movement, we process‐trace the role that the petition has played in promoting discursive and collective action frames related to the recognition of the “right to be cold.” We argue that the Inuit petition articulated a novel “climate rights” frame through an innovative combination of legal argumentation, scientific research, and the oral testimony of Inuit communities concerning the ways in which climate impacts were affecting their human rights and traditional practices. Our findings reveal that the resonance of this frame has varied significantly among different actors, influencing the ideas and strategies of climate activists and lawyers around the world, but having limited resonance among policymakers in the United States or Canada or among Inuit communities themselves. Our research thus speaks to the complex challenges and ethical responsibilities that must be addressed in initiatives that seek to draw on international human rights law to influence policy decisions and empower Indigenous communities in the context of climate change.

Young people are increasingly taking governments to court for their failure to meaningfully abate climate change. They argue that states have a responsibility under domestic and international law to protect, respect and fulfil the rights of children against worsening climate change. Such cases form a unique subset of rights-based climate change litigation due to their emphasis on intergenerational equity. Young people are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis and face distinct age-related vulnerabilities and adverse discrimination linked to the impacts of climate change. The unequal burden that young people bear in this context is also shaped by the social, legal, political and economic structures that marginalize their interests and voices in societies around the world. To reclaim their agency in the face of the crisis, young people are increasingly mobilizing against policies and actions that perpetuate the status quo. They do so through participation in activist efforts, and as we discuss in this paper, litigation cases. As of May 2021, the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law’s database of climate litigation included 32 youth-focused cases in 14 countries. Our article takes stock of this wave of climate litigation and offers both a typology for and analysis of the types of claims in this jurisprudence. We identify three types of youth-focused cases, including those focused on: (1) insufficient efforts to reduce carbon emissions and meet climate commitments; (2) insufficient efforts to implement mitigation and adaptation measures; and (3) specific regulatory approvals that are expected to have dramatic climate impacts. We also identify a worrisome trend in which youth-focused cases are dismissed due to a lack of justiciability or standing at a procedural stage. We suggest that courts’ refusal to deal with the merits of these claims undermines not just the agency of young people, but also constitutes a denial of their rights to redress for human rights infringements resulting from worsening climate change.

This article aims to understand the complex relationship between transnational pathways of policy influence and strategies of domestic policy entrepreneurship in the pursuit of REDD+ in developing countries. Since 2007, a complex governance arrangement exerting influence through the provision of international rules, norms, markets, knowledge, and material assistance has supported the diffusion of REDD+ policies around the world. These transnational pathways of influence have played an important role in the launch of REDD+ policy-making processes at the domestic level. Indeed, over 60 developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have initiated multi-year programmes of policy reform, research, and capacity-building that aim to lay the groundwork for the implementation of REDD+. However, there is emerging evidence that the nature of policy change associated with these REDD+ policy efforts ultimately depends on the mediating influence of domestic factors. This article offers an analytical framework that focuses on whether and how domestic policy actors can seize the opportunities provided by transnational policy pathways for REDD+ to challenge or reinforce the status quo in the governance of forests and related sectors.