The Environment and Human Rights: the International Community’s Responses to Emerging Local and Global Challenges
Recent natural disasters have confirmed that environmental damage can have negative implications for the effective enjoyment of human rights. While the many linkages between protection of human rights and protection of the environment have long been recognized, the use of a human rights-based approach to address this increasingly urgent challenge remains contested from both a policy and a legal point of view.
The United Nations has taken up the issue on numerous fronts. Recently, the Human Rights Council in Geneva adopted a Resolution on human rights and environment. Other multilateral environment fora have also recognized in some way the need to take human rights into consideration when developing environmental policies and sustainable development.
This event will address the interrelation between environmental damage and
human rights, and examine how the international community—and in particular
the UN—has approached this issue at a local and global level and discuss
possible ways to optimize approaches and processes.
This event will address the interrelation between environmental damage and human rights, and examine how the international community—and in particular the UN—has approached this issue at a local and global level and discuss possible ways to optimize approaches and processes.
The event is part of the U.S.-Swiss Dialogue and being co-hosted by the Embassy of Switzerland and the Wilson Center.
Other partners include:
Event Sponsors
Speakers
Professor and Associate Dean, George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, Ohio University; Associate Senior Fellow, Environment of Peace Initiative, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Visiting Scholar, Environmental Law Institute; Research Associate, Columbia University Business School’s Center for Decision Sciences
Hosted By
Global Europe Program
The Global Europe Program is focused on Europe’s capabilities, and how it engages on critical global issues. We investigate European approaches to critical global issues. We examine Europe’s relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our initiatives include “Ukraine in Europe”—an examination of what it will take to make Ukraine’s European future a reality. But we also examine the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE, Europe’s energy security, transatlantic trade disputes, and challenges to democracy. The Global Europe Program’s staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media. Read more
Environmental Change and Security Program
The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) explores the connections between environmental change, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy. Read more