Environmental Law Seminar: Human Rights and the Environment

For several decades, certain traditional human rights increasingly have been seen as having a significant environmental component, while it has also become more common to view environmental rights as part of a panoply of human rights. This seminar will address obligations and responsibilities of States and other actors under human rights treaties, multilateral environmental agreements, and other vehicles. Certain procedural rights, especially access to information, participation in decision-making, and access to justice, are central and have deep roots in both human rights law and environmental law and will be explored, along with topics such as corporate accountability, protection of environmental advocates/defenders, challenges involving indigenous peoples, human rights implications of climate change, and tensions between human rights advocacy and environmental advocacy.