Sharing with the UN Environment Management Group our Insights on Marine Biodiversity and the Human Right to a Healthy Environment
Following up on the historic recognition by the UN General Assembly of the human right to a healthy environment, the UN Environment Management Group invited the Hub Director, Prof Elisa Morgera, to deliver a keynote speech on the topic of “the right to a healthy environment in the context of biodiversity loss” on 21 September 2022. The Group convenes 51 UN agencies and bodies to foster system-wide coherence and effectiveness on the environment.
Building on previous UN dialogues on the human right to a healthy environment (see here and here), Prof Morgera gave a presentation to around 50 UN Staff members on international law and policy developments in the area of human rights and biodiversity, as well as research insights on advancing the human right to a healthy environment to address the planetary crises (climate change, biodiversity loss, and toxic pollution). As part of the presentation, she shared research insights from across the Hub on:
- the role of human rights for transformative ocean governance
- the human rights of Indigenous Peoples and small-scale fishers, and the need to look into the contribution of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants;
- children’s human rights that are dependent on a healthy ocean, including in their fight against climate change;
- everyone’s human rights at the ocean-climate nexus;
- everyone’s right to science and its implications for international cooperation on the ocean; and
- the need to consider human rights across international processes on deep-seabed mining, marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, plastics, fisheries subsidies, as well as in the context of the UN Decade for Ocean Science and the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration.
Other speakers at the event included Ben Schachter from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Q”apaj Conde Choque from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Tina Rai from Women4Biodiversity.
Video recording of the event will become available at https://unemg.org
The relevance of these research insights from the global to the sub-national levels
These research insights, as well as innovative art-based research practices across the Hub, were also shared in September with:
- the Scottish Parliament, where a new biodiversity strategy is being considered, and Prof Morgera was invited by the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee to provide evidence on 6 September 2022;
- the international academic community on the occasion of the “Stockholm + 50:International Environmental Law in Perspective” conference organised by the University of Stockholm on 15‐17 September 2022; and
- UN General Assembly’s Science Summit: Prof Morgera was invited to present her thoughts on marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction during a virtual session on the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems convened by Claire Lajaunie (23 September 2022).
Photo: Nessim Stevenson