3 October 2022: CIL Director Dr Nilüfer Oral was Invited to Speak at a Panel at Oslo 3^rd International Environmental Law Conference.

The 2022 IUCN WCEL Oslo International Environmental Law Conference was titled “The Transformative Power of Law: Addressing Global Environmental Challenges”

This Conference inquired about the ability of law, both on the international, regional as well as national level, to facilitate the necessary systemic changes across all sectors and levels. It invited critical presentations on the adequacy, effectiveness, legitimacy and fairness of current legislation or litigation considering the challenges posed by climate change, nature decline and pollution. A core question addressed was: “Can the challenges be solved by using the legal tools available?” It inquired into the possibilities and emerging legal tools, but also limits and shortcomings, of legal responses to those challenges. The conference brought together innovative academic legal thinking and practice on how legal tools can be improved, advanced, amended or changed. What was needed of the law to act as a catalyst for transformative change? The focus of the conference was a diligent analysis of environmental law. However, also other areas of law, such as human rights law, trade and investment law, commercial law, criminal law, civil law, outer space and others play an important role in transforming society to address critical environmental challenges.

The year 2022 marks several important anniversaries in environmental law making: 50 years of Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment and the establishment of UNEP in 1972, 40 years of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and 30th anniversaries of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Rio Conventions: UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD. These anniversaries provide an opportune moment for reflection on the power of law in bringing about the transformative changes needed to address environmental crises of climate change, nature destruction and pollution.

The session that Dr Oral spoke at was titled “Transforming Ocean Governance: UNCLOS as Living Instrument to Protect the Marine Environment”.

Chair: Prof. Catherine Banet, UiO

• Prof. Nilufer Oral, National University of Singapore (online)
• Christine Finbak, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway
• Prof. Ronan Long, World Maritime University
• Prof. Cymie Payne, Rutgers University; Chair, WCEL Oceans Law Specialist Group
• Prof. Denise Antolini, University of Hawaii (online)
• Maria Goreti Muavesi, Senior Environmental Legal Officer, IUCN Oceania Regional Office, Fiji
• Pradeep Singh, (Deputy Chair, WCEL Oceans Law Specialist Group)

More about the conference at the link: https://www.iucn.org/events/external-event/2022-oslo-international-environmental-law-conference