Sharing considerations on the climate-biodiversity-ocean nexus
Prof Elisa Morgera, Hub Director, was invited to contribute to an international workshop on “Climate and Change: Legal and Ethical implications” organized by the Sant’Anna University, Pisa, Italy. The workshop explored the role of scientific assessments, the functions of law, the societal models and the economic strategies, as well as cultural approaches around climate change and the need for novel concepts and techniques to better tackle the inescapable changes in political and ethical understanding. Prof Morgera contributed to a session together with former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, Prof John Knox, and Dr Karin Arts, an expert in children’s human rights from Erasmus University of Rotterdam.
Prof Morgera’s presentation focused on considerations arising from the climate-biodiversity-ocean-human rights nexus, underscoring that:
- the inter-linkages across actions on climate change, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, and ocean management, and their human rights implications, are not equally or sufficiently addressed across all relevant international agreements;
- the guidelines adopted by the State Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity on climate change is practically and legally significant to consider these linkages more systematically at the level of national implementation, including with a view to enhancing respect of human rights; and
- the climate-biodiversity-ocean-human rights nexus needs to be considered also in the UN negotiations on marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, at the International Seabed Authority, and the UN process to develop a General Comment on children’s human rights to a healthy environment, among other international processes.
The video-recording is available here.