Introduction

The webinar addresses the emerging right to a safe, stable and healthy climate as a core component of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. In the context of the escalating climate crisis, the recognition and effective realisation of this right have acquired critical importance. The webinar brings together world-leading practitioners and scholars to discuss key and controversial issues: Can existing international human rights law adequately respond to the climate crisis as well as to the demands of climate justice? Should the right to a safe, stable and healthy climate be recognised as a stand-alone human right? What are its substantive and procedural elements? What special protection is required for those most vulnerable to and severely affected by the climate crisis, including Indigenous Peoples, inhabitants of small island states, people living in poverty, climate refugees, etc.? What obligations of states and non-state actors, particularly corporations, derive from, and correspond to, the right to a safe climate? To what extent can the right to a safe, stable and healthy climate contribute to countering eco-colonialism? What role do international, regional and domestic courts and tribunals play in protecting and enforcing the right? How can the right of future generations to a safe climate be realised? Can nature and non-human species be holders of the right? Is a shift from an anthropocentric to an eco-centric global order necessary and possible? How can the right to a safe, stable and healthy climate help challenge and redress eco-colonialism? What institutional architecture is required for the implementation of climate-related rights? What are the best practices for advancing the right to a safe, stable and healthy climate?

This webinar will be moderated by Dr. Elena Pribytkova

Speakers

Professor Elisa Morgera | U.N. Special Rapporteur on Climate Change; Professor at Durham University, the United Kingdom; Professor at the University of Eastern Finland, Finland

Elisa Morgera is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Climate Change. She is also a Professor of International Law and Sustainability at Durham University (U.K.) and Professor in International and European Union Environmental Law at the University of Eastern Finland. Previously, she worked with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Italy and the United Nations Development Programme in Barbados; and continued to collaborate with the United Nations and other international organizations as consultant and independent expert. She advised governments and civil society in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. Ms. Morgera has published extensively on human rights and the environment, the human right to science, as well as the human rights of small-scale fishers, Indigenous Peoples, and children, at the climate-biodiversity and climate-ocean nexus, as well as on business responsibility to respect human rights, and the international principle and standards of equity among and within States, based on international environmental and human rights law.

Professor Astrid Puentes Riaño | U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment; Professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico

Astrid Puentes Riaño is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment. She also teaches at the Berta Cáceres Environmental Justice Clinic at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, Mexico, and has more than twenty years of experience on environmental law, human rights and climate change, and the intersection of these, with a perspective of climate justice, diversity, equity and inclusion. She has worked for and with communities, environmental defenders and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America, contributing to the protection of their rights and territory, including in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Ms. Puentes has also advised organisations including Franciscans International and Greenpeace International. She has also collaborated with the UN, including with the United Nations Human Rights Office in Mexico, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment. She served as co-executive director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) from 2003 to August 2021.

Professor Surya Deva | U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development; Professor at Macquarie Law School, Australia

Professor Surya Deva is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development. He is also a Professor at the Macquarie Law School and Director of Macquarie University’s Environmental Law Research Centre as well as the B&HR Access to Justice Lab. He is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of business and human rights and he is a former member of the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights (2016-22). He has advised U.N. entities, Governments, national human rights institutions, multinational corporations, trade unions and civil society organisations on issues related to business and human rights. Deva researches in the areas of business and human rights, comparative constitutional law, international human rights law, sustainable development, climate change, and gender equality. He is one of the founding Editors-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Law Journal and is an elected Vice President of the International Association of Constitutional Law (2022-26).

Ms. Helen Magata | Executive Director, Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education), Philippines

Ms. Helen Biangalen-Magata is Executive Director of Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education) in the Philippines. A member of the Kadaclan people of Paracelis, Mountain Province, she has dedicated 15 years to Tebtebba’s work at the intersection of Indigenous peoples’ rights, climate change, community development, and climate finance. She previously coordinated the Climate and Biodiversity Programme, where her leadership helped secure the adoption of the Green Climate Fund’s Indigenous Peoples Policy. As Executive Director, she advances research, education, and strategic advocacy to embed Indigenous rights in global climate finance and policy processes. She holds a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University.

Professor Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh | Professor of Sustainability Law at the University of Amsterdam; Adjunct Professor at the University of Fiji; Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague

Professor Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh is an Associate Professor of Sustainability Law at the University of Amsterdam, co-founder of  the university’s climate institute SEVEN, Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Fiji, and Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. She has published widely in the field of climate change and sustainability law, drawing on two decades of involvement in international climate negotiations. She has advised and represented governments, NGOs, international organisations, and UN agencies, serves on the Human Rights Committee of the Netherlands Advisory Council on International Affairs, and advises the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on the development of policies addressing environmental crime under the Rome Statute. She is affiliated with Blue Ocean Law, a boutique firm based in Guam specialising in human rights and environmental law. She co-led the legal team of the Republic of Vanuatu in the climate advisory proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and acted as counsel for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law in the climate advisory proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Moderator

Dr. Elena Pribytkova | Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore

Dr. Elena Pribytkova is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore. She received a Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) degree from Columbia Law School and is a Habilitation candidate at the Faculty of Law of the University of Basel. Her main research areas are Human Rights Law, Public International Law, Digital Technologies, Environmental Law, Sustainable Development, Comparative Law, and Legal and Political Philosophy. In particular, she focuses on the role of international law and human rights in reducing poverty and inequality as well as in promoting social, global, digital, and environmental (including climate) justice and sustainable development. Elena has held various research and teaching appointments at leading universities and research institutes all over the world, including Columbia Law School, New York University School of Law, University of Oxford, European University Institute, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg University, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, University of Basel, University of Michigan Law School, and National University of Singapore.