The World Court and Climate Change: Toward an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal responsibility to ensure a stable climate for current and future generations
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What question to ask the Court? What sources of law to use?
Global webinar
Tuesday August 24, 2021
8am-10am Pacific Time USA / 11am-1pm Eastern Time USA / 4pm-6pm London / 5pm-7pm Central Europe
Simultaneous translation English/French. Click here to register
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Basel Peace Office is proud to support this second webinar in a 4-part series on an exciting initiative to take the issue of climate change to the International Court of Justice. The initiative is led by World's Youth for Climate Justice, one of the two winners of the 2021 Basel PACEY Award. We encourage you to join this webinar to find out more about the campaign and how it could help address and reverse climate change, an existential threat to humanity.
Click here for the event flyer.
Introduction:
Normandy Chair for Peace and World’s Youth for Climate Justice are organising a series of four global webinars over the second half of 2021 to explore a range of questions concerning the value of such an International Court of Justice case on climate change, what to ask the court, how to win the case and how the outcome could be implemented to impact significantly on policy and practice.
The first webinar held in June focused on the importance of climate litigation and assessed lessons from other Advisory Opinions, in particular the historical 1996 ICJ opinion on nuclear weapons. You can watch the recorded sessions on facebook. Session 1. Session 2.
This webinar on August 24 will focus on: a) the question to be asked of the ICJ in order to facilitate success and to ensure maximum impact, and b) the sources of law to draw upon to build the case, including international agreements, customary international law, general principles of law and judicial decisions in domestic courts.
Program:
Chair: Manon Rouby (France/UK). LLM Student, University of Strathclyde. Core team member, World’s Youth for Climate Justice; (Manon Rouby bio)
Welcome: Prof Emilie Gaillard (France), Director, Normandy Chair for Peace. Associate Professor, Sciences Po Renne. Expert in law protecting future generations. (Prof Gaillard bio)
Speakers:
- Maria Fernanda Espinosa (Ecuador). Member, World Future Council. President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly (2018-2019). Former Ecuador Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Heritage (Maria Fernanda Espinosa bio);
- Monica Feria-Tinta (Peru/UK), Barrister, Twenty Essex Law firm. Expert in environmental law and international courts. UK Barrister of the Year Finalist 2020. (Monica Feria-Tinta bio);
- Professor Michael B. Gerrard (USA). Founder and Faculty Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Expert in environmental law and climate litigation. (Professor Gerrard bio);
- Daniil Ukhorskiy (France/UK). Student, University of Oxford. Member, World’s Youth For Climate Justice. Co-editor of Human Rights in the face of the climate crisis (see below). (Daniil Ukhorskiy bio)
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Recommended background reading:
- Human rights in the face of the climate crisis: a youth-led initiative to bring climate justice to the International Court of Justice, July 2021, World’s Youth for Climate Justice (also available in French, unpublished)
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Global Climate Litigation Report: 2020 Status Review , United Nations Environment Progamme & Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (2020)
Contacts: Alyn Ware alyn@pnnd.org +420 773 638 867 or Laura Duarte laura.duarte@unicaen.fr