Upcoming Events | One Ocean Hub

COP28 side-events:

Children’s rights to a healthy environment at the ocean-climate nexus

When: 09-Dec-23, 09:00-10:30 (Dubai time)

Venue: Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet Pavilion, TA 2 – 130 Ground Floor Blue Zone of COP28

The event will explore the transformative role of children’s right to a healthy environment including coastal and marine spaces following the recent adoption of the UN General Comment 26 on children’s human rights and a healthy environment, with a special focus on climate change. It will highlight the importance of children’s right to be heard in ocean governance decision-making fora, the need to facilitate children’s participation in international processes, and the scope of State obligations to ensure respect of children’s rights and interests. The event will bring together representatives of children, civil society, international organisations, and researchers to provide opportunities for intergenerational dialogue on the protection of children’s human rights in the context of changing climate.

General comment 26: how can it be game changing at COP decisions with the lens of child rights

When: 9 Dec 2023, 15:00—16:30 (Dubai time)

Venue: SE Room 5, Blue Zone of COP28, Dubai

The event will explore how the General Comment 26 of the UNCRC on children’s rights and the environment with a focus on climate change can help to ensure that all climate decisions safeguard the rights of the most vulnerable, particularly children, and cooperate with language on policy coherence at COP decision.

Ocean Climate Spotlights at Ocean Decade x OceanX Pavilion: An Ocean Solutions Partnership

When: 10 December 2023, 14.00-15.00 (Dubai time)

Venue: Ocean Decade + OceanX Pavilion, Blue Zone of COP28

The ten-minute talk by Dr Mitchell Lennan will reflect on the One Ocean Hub’s research and experience on the importance of transdisciplinary knowledge co-production for sustainable ocean-climate action. Transdisciplinary research involves working with stakeholders and rightsholders, including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and children, experts from varied disciplines, and other knowledge holders in the co-production of ocean governance solutions. This talk will engage attendees with an extract from a short film produced by the One Ocean Hub titled “The Story of the Topnaar People in Namibia.” The Topnaar people were the first inhabitants documented as settling in Walvis Bay along the Namibian coast. For several centuries, their cultural livelihoods depended heavily on ocean resources. During colonial and apartheid rule, they were forcibly displaced from their coastal dwelling places, with their access to coastal marine resources and fishing grounds restricted. The short film dives deeper into the Topnaar people’s struggles and shows how the One Ocean Hub has been facilitating connections between the Topnaar people, the ocean and decision-makers, so they can be recognised as bona fide stakeholders and right-holders in ocean-climate governance processes.

The UN CC:Learn Climate Classroom: Climate change and the oceans

When: 11 December 2023 at 9 am GMT

Venue: online event

Speaker: Mitchell Lennan

The class will first introduce students to the concept of the ocean-climate nexus, the various climate change impacts on the ocean and consequential impacts on human rights, especially children’s rights. Then, where the ocean sits within the UN climate legal framework will be explored, taking into account the introduction of “ocean-based climate action” into the international climate discussion at COP26 in 2021. The final part of the class will discuss the potential for ocean-based climate action to protect the marine environment, the climate while simultaneously respect, protect and uphold human rights.

other events:

CALL FOR PROPOSALS AND POSTERS FOR THE WORLD BIODIVERSITY FORUM 2024

Hub researcher, Dr Lynne Shannon (University of Cape Town, South Africa) is on the Scientific Steering Committee of the 3^rd World Biodiversity Forum to be held in Davos, Switzerland, from 16-20 June 2024. The conference theme is “From Science to Action” and we have selected a series of sessions guaranteed to fascinate, enthral and challenge the mind! There are sessions on arts-based approaches, law, alternative knowledge systems, climate-biodiversity, modelling, amongst others, and particular focus on uptake of the action targets proposed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Hub research is all highly relevant to the forum theme.

The WBF2024 will be strictly an in-person event with no remote participation accommodated this time. As such, it promises to be vibrant and rewarding and to provide a platform to showcase and encourage uptake of our research. Please see the full session complement in the link provided (here), and note that the abstract submission deadline is 19 November 2023. For more information on abstract submission please visit this page here.

EXPERT GROUP MEETING FOR DEVELOPING A LEGISLATIVE GUIDE ON COMBATTING POLLUTION CRIME

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has invited One Ocean Hub on 25 September 2023 to participate in an Expert Group Meeting that is aimed for developing a Legislative Guide on Combatting Pollution Crime, and its Annex on the Pollution of the Marine Environment on 20-23 November 2023. The primary objective of the Expert Group Meeting is to discuss and provide inputs to the draft Legislative Guide addressing pollution crime, along with its Annex focused on Pollution of the Marine Environment, including the proposed model legislative provisions. The Guide aims to comprehensively address areas pertinent to the operational implementation of treaty obligations, particularly those stemming from the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), with the overarching goal of preventing and combatting pollution crimes in all their forms.

Expert Group Meeting composed of leading experts in the fields of pollution crime from around the world, including academics, practitioners, government experts and experts from the relevant regional and international organisations. The One Ocean Hub will be represented by Dr Alana Lancaster (the University of the West Indies, Barbados) and Dr Bolanle Erinosho (the University of Cape Coast, Ghana) at the Expert Group Meeting. Dr Lancaster and Dr Erinosho are leading the Hub research strand on breaking laws on the sea that sheds new light on human rights dimension of ocean crime (see here, here, here, and here).

The development of the Legislative Guide on Combatting Pollution Crime has been conducted by UNODC in close collaboration with International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) including Minamata Convention Secretariat and Montreal Protocol Ozone Secretariat, the World Customs Organisation (WCO), the secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (BRS Secretariat), International Maritime Organisation (IMO), and other international and regional organisations.

For more information about Hub research on marine pollution read our policy briefs and info-sheets here, here, here, here, here and here.

Expert Seminar on the responsibility of businesses to respect the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment

The Hub Director, Prof Elisa Morgera, has been invited by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Dr David Boyd, to attend a one-day expert seminar in a hybrid format onthe responsibility of businesses to respect the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment on 24 November 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland.

In pursuant to the Human Rights Resolution 52/23, the mandate on human rights and environment was requested to organise a one-day expert seminar on the responsibility of business enterprises to respect the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The seminar aims to discuss issues around but not limited to the effectiveness of current normative frameworks, proposed way forward and the need for systematic and transformative changes. It will bring together academic experts, civil society organisations, business and finance representatives, experts of UN agencies, funds and programmes, treaty bodies, other international organisations and conventions.

A summary report will be submitted to the Human Rights Council at its 55^th session in March 2024 and will include recommendations stemming from the seminar for consideration of further follow-up action.

Future Governance of Ocean-Based Negative Emissions Technologies: A Scenario Workshop

Hub Director, Prof Elisa Morgera, has been invited to Future Governance of Ocean-Based Negative Emissions Technologies: A Scenario Workshop (hybrid) on 30 November-1 December 2023. Although the deployment of NETs for large-scale carbon dioxide removal holds potential for alleviating climatic pressures on the ocean, a range of challenges have been identified, including related specifically to governance of the technologies. The aim of this two-day workshop is to look towards the future and identify opportunities within the global ocean governance regime to govern ocean-based ‘negative emissions technologies’ (NETs) in a comprehensive manner.

The workshop is organised by the Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (RIFS – formally Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies / IASS) The workshop will ask participants to take part in both breakout groups and plenary discussions to explore scenarios that reflect on identified governance challenges within the current and alternative global ocean governance regimes. Participants will be asked to develop “good governance” responses within given prompts and interactively advance discussions on the future governance of ocean-based NETs.