MILAN, Italy - Inuit hunters said Wednesday that a thawing of Arctic ice threatened their human rights in a novel bid to raise pressure on the United States to do more to fight global warming.

"The human rights of Inuit are under threat as a result of human-induced climate change," Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), told a news conference during a 180-nation U.N. meeting on climate change in Milan.

The ICC represents about 155,000 Inuit in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia and says that rising temperatures are undermining traditional lifestyles based around hunts of animals like seals, whales, walruses and polar bears.

In recent years, some hunters have drowned by falling through thinning ice, while thawing permafrost is destabilizing buildings and triggering mudslides. U.N. studies say the Arctic Ocean may be largely ice-free in summer by 2100.

"These are issues of life and death," Watt-Cloutier said. "We go out to hunt on the sea ice to put food on the table. You go to the supermarket."

She said the group was exploring legal ways to link human rights and climate change to put pressure on the United States and other nations to do more to cut emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

She said the Inuit were likely to complain about global warming to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a part of the Organization of American States.

The Commission's rulings are non-binding but "powerful governments do not like to be branded as human rights violators," she said. "We will probably decide exactly what to do around April next year."

U.N. climate models say global warming, blamed mainly on carbon dioxide from cars and power plants, is felt first in polar regions. Heat rebounds off white ice but when the ice thaws, the darker water and land below soak up far more heat.

"The Arctic is the barometer of global environmental health," Watt-Cloutier said. Climate change was threatening many Arctic animals while bringing new species like barn owls and ducks, as well as swarms of flies in summer.

She urged nations to sign up for the U.N. Kyoto protocol meant to curb global warming. Washington pulled out in 2001, saying Kyoto unfairly excluded developing nations and was too costly to implement. Russia has yet to decide whether to ratify.

Paul Crowley, a lawyer for the Inuit, said they were unlikely to try to sue the United States for global warming because it was probably too expensive. Suing is an idea suggested by some low-lying Pacific Island states that could be washed away by rising sea levels.

©2003 Copyright Reuters Ltd

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