In October 2021, the UN Human Rights Council recognized a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (R2HE) as a human right. The Council’s adoption of Resolution 48/13 is an important tool to address water resources degradation and overuse. Water is most often the medium through which climate change effects are experienced, especially by poor and vulnerable communities.
While 150 states already recognize this right in national legislation and policies, the right to a healthy environment requires more effective and ambitious implementation and action at national level.
SIWI’s Swedish Water House and Sida are organizing a webinar on 18 January to discuss this ‘new’ human right related to water protection and governance, freshwater biodiversity, climate change, and ecosystem services. Some of the questions that we will explore are: Why is the human right to a healthy environment necessary? How does it affect the way we address and work with water resources issues and activities? What does it add to already existing human rights, in particular the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation?
This webinar will be the first in a series; exploring how to advance the application of a Human Rights-Based Approach that safeguards all water-related human rights and ensures that no one is left behind.
You are warmly welcome to join us for this discussion!
Agenda
Welcome and introduction
- SIWI and Sida
Keynote speaker:
- David R. Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and Associate professor of law, policy, and sustainability at the University of British Columbia
Panelists:
- Claudia Ituarte-Lima, Senior Researcher, Raoul Wallenberg Institute
- Amanda Loeffen, Chief Executive Officer, Human Right 2 Water
- Annalisa Savaresi, Associate Professor, University of Eastern Finland
- David Langlet, Professor of Environmental Law, Uppsala University
- Christina Niemelä Ström, Head of Sustainability, IKEA Supply
Moderator:
- Jenny Grönwall, Advisor Water Policy & Rights, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)
