Environment and Human Rights: Legal Paradigms Symposium

We invite submissions for papers that address challenges for Environment and Human Rights across a range of areas, including:

• Intersection between environmental and human rights law and policy.
• Human rights as a cause of action for climate change litigation
• International law and environmental principles
• Climate justice and human rights
• Rights to life and health when impacted by environmental damage
• Indigenous rights and relationships with land and natural resources
• Human rights and mining
• Pandemics, human rights and the environment
• Children’s rights and intergenerational equity
• Protection of biodiversity and ecosystems
• Gender equality and sustainable development
• Rights to healthy environments, leisure and protected areas.
  
  

A selection of papers presented at the conference will be submitted to the Environmental and Planning Law Journal.

Please send a 250-300 -word abstract of your proposed paper to the symposium convenors by Wednesday, 1 December 2021.

A full conference program will be made available for download shortly.

A list of confirmed speakers can be found under the 'Speakers' section of this web page.

Professor Benjamin J. Richardson is a scholar of environmental law, presently at the University of Tasmania. Professor Richardson’s global career includes appointments as the Global Law Visiting Chair at Tilburg University, Netherlands, and the Senior Canada Research Chair in Environmental Law, at the University of British Columbia. Professor Richardson’s expertise extends to corporate social responsibility, Aboriginal legal issues and legal philosophy. His recent publications include the books The Art of Environmental Law (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Time and Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He is active in a variety of community and professional groups, including the Tasmanian Independent Science Council and Extinction Rebellion.

Professor Sarah Joseph is a Professor of Human Rights Law at Griffith University. Professor Joseph’s publications focus on human rights internationally and in Australia, with particular expertise on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, business and human rights, trade and human rights, and issues concerning the media (and social media) and human rights. She has also published in the area of Australian constitutional law. Professor Joseph has conducted numerous human rights consultancies, including training programs in Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar, and in Australia for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and courses funded by AusAID (including for Iraqi government officials).

Associate Professor Stephen Humphreys is an Associate Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics. Associate Professor Humphreys is a Commissioner of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C and Academic Adviser to the International Bar Association's Task Force on Climate Justice and Human Rights. He was formerly a Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Geneva, and previously Senior Officer at the Open Society Institute's Justice Initiative in New York and Budapest. Associate Professor Humphreys is noted for policy work on climate change and human rights and his research interests include international legal and critical theory and climate change and human rights. Associate Professor Humphreys’ work includes the edited volume, Human Rights and Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Ms Rebekah Leong joined the Queensland Human Rights Commission as a principal lawyer in the Legal Research and Policy team in 2019. Ms Leong has considerable professional experience in the community legal sector, including at LawRight (formerly QPILCH), which focuses on increasing access to justice in public interest matters, and as principal solicitor at Queensland Advocacy Incorporated, an organisation promoting the human rights of people with disability. Ms Leong has a Bachelor of Laws (Hon) and a Bachelor of Science from The University of Queensland.

Topics will include:

• First Nations and Fresh Water
• African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights deciding Indigenous Property Rights in Kenya
• Impact and Prospect of the Court Centered Environmental Movement in China
• The Queensland Human Rights Act and Coal
• Human Rights Declarations and their Relevance to the School Classroom
• Tasmania's Salmon Farming: Environmental Pollution, Motor Neurone Disease, and the Law
• Contestability of Ownership - Conceptions and Adverse Possession
• Litigation invoking the Queensland Human Rights Act against Waratah Coal Project in the Galilee Basin

A full list of biographies and abstracts for all speakers will be made available closer to the conference date.

The Environmental & Human Rights Symposium Convener's invite you to consider the opportunity to sponsor this year's symposium.

Sponsorship is a fantastic way to advertise your services and expertise to the community.

Contact the Symposium Conveners to find out more.