About the Conference
Climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss are severe threats to humanity, with significant impacts on the realisation of human rights, such as the rights to health, housing, food, water, and several civil and political rights.
Defining and framing these issues as human rights harm or violations challenges law, politics, and practice to approach climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as symptoms of unsustainable and unequal developments in energy use, land utilization, consumption patterns, lifestyles, etc.
Time and Location
26 - 27 October 2023 at the University of Oslo, Faculty of Law.
Public Opening Session
The opening session on day one is open to the public. Please note that only a limited number of spots will be available due to capacity. More information and registration will be announced.
Keynote Speakers
- David R. Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment
- Professor Christina Voigt, Faculty of Law, UiO and Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL)
- Panel discussion
The Conference Focus Area: Litigation and Civic Action
This conference focuses on climate change and how they are associated with human rights primarily along two analytical dimensions: litigation and civic action.
The growing number of litigation and actors using environmental legislation to seek justice calls for new and better analytical insights into innovative litigation practices and their outcomes. Human rights defenders and other civic actors mediate between threats to the environment and individual and groups’ human rights, not least indigenous peoples’ rights.
The Objective
There is a pressing need to learn from legal and civic practices and experiences and to reflect on conditions and modes of effective social action and legal effectiveness. The overall objective of the conference is to explore responses of international human rights law and civic action to protect individuals and communities against the effects of climate change, pollution, and loss of biodiversity.
A fundamental question explored throughout the conference is: how and when are legal and civic interventions capable of altering underlying systemic processes which generate environmental and human rights harms, for example, harmful resource extraction, land use conversion, and/or CO2 emissions?
An essential part of this debate is exploring whether human rights advancement may form part of worldviews and economic development models causing climate change. We also ask how to avoid that human rights implementation, as an unintended consequence, becoming part of the problem by producing carbon footprint in pursuing human rights realisation.
The conference will bring together researchers from law, social and environmental sciences with practitioners and policymakers to discuss and explore strategies for protecting the environment, communities, and people affected.
The Specific Aims of the Conference:
- To provide a forum for discussing academic research on human rights and climate change
- To provide an opportunity to discuss climate change-related policies and legislation (national and international)
- To bring together experts and practitioners to explore strategies for protecting and supporting human rights and human rights defenders working to address the impacts of climate change
- To identify processes and practices which may produce better outcomes for human rights and the environment
Suggested Paper Topics
The conference welcomes papers on issues or questions listed below.
Panel 1: Policy and Normative Developments
The panel welcomes papers addressing (among other things) these issues/questions:
- How is the relationship between the climate crisis and human rights violations being framed across policy forums? How should this framing be developed?
- Which mechanisms are used to secure accountability for climate crisis-induced human rights violations, and what are the alternatives?
- What actions should be taken to mitigate human rights violations caused by the climate crisis, and how can these actions be motivated?
Panel 2: Litigation
The panel welcomes papers addressing (among other things) these issues/questions:
- Where are cases being brought, on what legal basis, and with what level of success (e.g., national/ international levels; treaties/constitutions/legislation)?
- Which actors are bringing cases, what challenges are they facing in lodging claims, and how are they being overcome?
- How should we conceptualise the growing body of case law on the climate crisis and human rights (e.g., a global jurisprudence of climate change and human rights)?
Panel 3: Environmental Defenders
Environmental human rights defender is a broad term belaying different subjective and objective meanings, experiences, capacities, and access to networks, resources, and protection. There are different types of defenders, and some major threats they encounter, e.g., criminalisation and stigmatisation, have become better understood and identified in recent research.
The panel particularly welcomes papers addressing and explaining successes and learning from less successful outcomes in environmental defence. Papers may address i.a. the following issues:
- How do environmental human rights defenders mobilise and organise to mitigate impacts?
- What is the role of human rights advocacy networks?
- What is the role of law for human rights and climate activists across different scales?
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Roles and mechanisms of youth and children’s engagement as climate activists
Submission Process
Submission to propose a paper should include the following:
- a working title
- an abstract (maximum 250 words)
Abstracts are to be submitted by 30 June. The papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a special journal or academic volume issue. The conference will accept a restricted number of articles due to the limited space available.
Financial information
Financial support covering travel and accommodation is available for a limited number of those accepted to present papers. Hybrid presentation of papers may be considered.
Questions
For questions, please click here.