Human Rights and Climate Change Human Rights and Climate Change Friday 19th November 2021

Conference Human Rights and Climate Change

Human Rights and Climate Change

Friday 19th November 2021

9 – 17 CET

The registration has been already closed.

The conference Human Rights and Climate Change is over. We thank all speakers and participants for their attendance! 

The video recordings of the most presentations have been already uploaded to our YouTube channel, you can view them in a separate playlist.

You can view some photos from the conference here:

Photo credit: David Ondřich

Looking back at the conference:

The conference is being organised by the Centre for Climate Law and Sustainability Studies (CLASS) at the Institute of State and Law of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It is one part of the SOLSTICE project called ‘Socially Just and Politically Robust Decarbonisation: A Knowledge Base and Toolkit for Policymakers’ (JUSTDECARB).

The application of human rights instruments in the protection against negative impacts of climate change is a topic attracting rapidly growing attention among both law scholars and climate litigants. The interlinkages between human rights and climate change, and possible barriers to using the rights-based approach to climate protection and their solutions present one of the highlights of the newly developing scholarship of climate change law. At the same time, the potential of international human rights law for solving climate crisis is being tested in a rising number of climate litigations throughout the world, against both state and non-state actors, and sometimes with interesting or surprising results. Against this background, the aim of the conference is to explore the capabilities and limits of framing climate change risks and harms in terms of human rights violations, to analyse human rights approaches to protection and redress in climate cases, as well as to examine how human rights litigations may prompt states and corporate actors to fulfil all of their obligations under national and EU law.

The conference will cover topics such as developing theoretical foundations for linking human rights and the climate, examining human rights-based climate litigation from various theoretical and practical perspectives, re-interpreting traditional human rights to cover climate risks, developing new environmental and climate human rights, seeking solutions for barriers found in the application of traditional human rights in climate protection (e.g. problems of extraterritoriality or duties towards future generations), solving causation and attribution hurdles in rights-based climate litigation, exploring human rights aspects of climate justice in transition and decarbonisation policies, and outlining future pathways to apply human rights instruments in climate protection more effectively.

The conference will take the form of a hybrid event, combining in-person speakers presenting at the Czech Academy of Sciences, and online speakers participating via Zoom. No registration fee is required.

Programme

8:30 Registration
9:00 Opening of the conference
9:05 Welcome address: Pavel Zámyslický, Director of the Energy and Climate Protection
DepartmentMinistry of the Environment
9:15 Human Rights and Climate Change: A Short Introduction
Hana Müllerová
9:25-10:45 SESSION 1
9:25 Marc Limon (Universal Rights Group, Geneva)
Why did the UN Human Rights Council join the fight against climate change and environmental degradation, why did it proceed along two separate tracks, and are those tracks complementary or contradictory?
9:45 Ivana Jelić (European Court of Human Rights)
Climate Change and Protection of Related Human Rights: A Challenge for the ECtHR
10:05 Christina Voigt (University of Oslo)
Climate Dimension of Human Rights Obligations
10:25 Discussion
10:45 Coffee break
11:00-12:40 SESSION 2
11:00 Sanja Bogojević (University of Oxford)
Human Rights and Climate Change: What Lessons For Future Climate Action?
11:20 Eva Schulev-Steindl (Research Centre ClimLaw, University of Graz)
Human Rights-Based Climate Litigation in Austria
11:40 Felix Ekardt (Research Unit Sustainability and Climate Policy, Leipzig)
Paris Target, Freedom, Human Rights, and Climate Litigation
12:00 Milan Damohorský (Faculty of Law, Charles University Prague)
Adaptation to the climate change from the European and Czech law perspective
12:20 Discussion
12:40-13:30 Lunch Break
13:30-15:10 SESSION 3
13:30 Pavel Šturma (Institute of State and Law, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Climate Change Reflected in the Works of the International Law Commission
13:50 Klara Polackova Van der Ploeg (University of Nottingham)
Climate Change and Business: Corporate Environmental and Human Rights Responsibilities?
14:10 Eva Balounová (Centre for Climate Law and Sustainability Studies, Institute of State and Law CAS)
Climate Change, Aviation, and Human Rights
14:30 Larissa Houston (Research Centre ClimLaw, University of Graz)
Go Green or Go Home: The Right to Energy Access within the Context of Climate Change
14:50 Discussion
15:10 Coffee Break
15:25-16:45 SESSION 4
15:25 Veronika Tomoszková & Maxim Tomoszek (Faculty of Law, Palacký University Olomouc)
Human Needs-Based Interpretation of Human Rights: A Solution to Conflict of Current and Future Generations (and Much More)
15:45 Pasquale Viola (Faculty of Law, Charles University Prague)
How Much Justice Is There within Litigation (and Vice Versa)? Climate Change, Human Rights, Scientific Data
16:05 Vojtěch Vomáčka (Faculty of Law, Masaryk University Brno) Advancing Gender Equality through Climate Action
16:25 Discussion
16:45 Closing of the conference

Here is the latest printable version of the conference programme and abstracts. Check back for updates.

Conference programme

The registered participants, both in-person and online, will receive an email with further information including the access to the conference the day before the event.