UN recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment: past developments and future prospects

When: 12 April, 2022 | 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

Where: New York, United States. Register to follow the live stream.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Universal Rights Group, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, and New York University are inviting states, UN entities, civil society, academics and environmental defenders to participate in an important expert seminar on UN recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment: past developments and future prospects.

The event will feature interactive roundtable discussions with interventions by UN senior officials, UN Special Rapporteurs, UN entities, academic experts, civil society leaders, business representatives, and environmental human rights defenders.

To encourage further discussions at UN headquarters about the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, including its merits for people and planet, and to take forward the Council’s invitation that ‘the General Assembly (GA) [...] consider the matter’, on 12 April UNEP, the Universal Rights Group, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and environment, New York University, and others, will convene an expert seminar to consider developments to-date, discuss key issues and questions (including legal questions) related to the right to a healthy environment (including those posed during negotiations over resolution 48/13), look ahead to possible GA recognition and what it would mean, and reflect on the benefits of recognition for individual rights-holders around the world, including environmental human rights defenders, as well as for the natural environment (including addressing the three interwoven planetary crises of biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change).

Speakers

• H.E. Ligia Noronha, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Head of New York Office, UNEP
• H.E. Ilze Brands Kehris, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, OHCHR
• Senior official from the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (TBC)
• Kelly Ann Naylor, Associate Director for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, UNICEF
• Dr David Boyd, Special Rapporteur on human rights and environment
• Prof. John Knox, Wake Forest University
• Dr Maria Antonia Tigre, Global Climate Litigation fellow, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School and Deputy Director, Global Network for Human Rights, and the Environment
• Prof. Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, New York University
• Marya Farah, Franciscan International
• Samia Shell, Youth climate activist

The event will be co-moderated by Marc Limon, Universal Rights Group Executive Director, and Daniel Magraw, President Emeritus Center for International Environmental Law.