Energy and the Good Life: Capabilities as the Foundation of the Right to Access Energy Services

Access to an adequate level of uninterrupted, high quality, affordable, sufficient and useful energy services varies dramatically across countries. While some nations still experience energy poverty and struggle to fulfil basic needs, others consume well over what is considered sufficient to sustain wellbeing and human flourishing. These imbalances represent fundamental injustices that must be urgently addressed and resolved. Given current inequalities, this paper asks, in general, whether it is possible to establish a human right to energy and, more specifically, whether the Capabilities Approach (CA) can provide a solid theoretical foundation for the claim to a human right to access energy services. We argue, on the one hand, that it is possible to identify concrete ranges of individual energy consumption that, if “translated” into useful energy services, constitute the adequate (not just minimal) preconditions for achieving core capabilities in different geographical contexts. On the other hand, we use the CA as a normative framework to argue for a capability-based human right to access necessary energy services such as nutrition, cooking fuel and electricity. We support these claims in two main ways. First, by looking at how individual energy consumption impacts human development and wellbeing. Second, we offer a comparison between access to specific energy services and the Human Development Index (HDI). The human right to access necessary energy services should be understood in both moral and legal terms. It should be integrated within both the international United Nations human rights framework and international energy law.