Human Rights and Environmental Law

The course begins with an introduction to the architecture of international environmental law. In the first three sessions, participants will explore the major types of international environmental problems and the main tools available to address them, trace the evolution of international environmental law, discuss issues of compliance and enforcement, and be introduced to the ethical grounds for environmental policy-making. This discussion will enable a more insightful examination of the points of intersection and divergence between international environmental law and international human rights law.

In the next five sessions, participants will discuss the ways that environmental protection can be articulated in the language of human rights. They will examine the “greening” of human rights to life, health, and property, among others, which has given rise to a detailed body of environmental human rights law; consider the human right to a healthy environment as it has been adopted at national and international levels; and discuss the movement to recognize “rights of nature”.

The final three substantive sessions will look at the application of human rights norms to two urgent global environmental challenges: the loss of biodiversity, and the effects of climate change.

The last session is reserved for revision.

Tutor: Prof Knox