Confronting Conflict Pollution: Principles for Assisting Victims of Toxic Remnants of War Launch (A Road to Geneva Event)
Sep 30, 2020
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Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, Conflict and Environment Observatory, Environmental Peacebuilding Association Law Interest Group
online
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Armed conflicts and military activities take a toll on the environment that significantly affects both people and ecosystems. Conflict-related pollution inflicts severe and long-term physical, psychological, socioeconomic, and cultural harm on local communities. Peacetime military activities leave a similar legacy, and veterans and contractors have had to fight for recognition of health problems. While UN bodies have begun to address conflict pollution and toxic remnants of war, a framework to meet the short- and long-term needs of those affected has been absent. The concept of “victim assistance,” however, has become a widely accepted component of humanitarian disarmament law. Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the Conflict and Environment Observatory have adapted humanitarian disarmament’s norms of victim assistance to the context of toxic remnants of war. Our report Confronting Conflict Pollution identifies 14 principles designed to establish the missing assistance framework. It also includes a commentary elaborating on the principles and providing legal and policy precedent for each. The principles embody a collective commitment to work towards victims’ full and effective participation in society and the realisation of their human rights. At this launch webinar, the authors will introduce the report and its new framework, and experts will offer perspectives on its applicability to environmental human rights, humanitarian assistance and conflict health.
Speakers
Bonnie Docherty (Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic)Doug Weir (Conflict and Environment Observatory)Discussants
Baskut Tuncak (Former UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Toxics)Emilia Wahlstrom (Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit)Prof. Richard Sullivan (KCL Centre for the Study of Conflict and Health, King’s College London)Facilitator
Oli Brown (Chatham House, Peaceworks)This event will add value to the Road to Geneva by addressing one of the core forms of environmental harm associated with armed conflicts - pollution - the minimization and management of which is important to peacebuilding activities.
When: 30th September 2020 - 16:00-17:30 CEST, 10:00-11:30 EST
Where: Online, Registration: http://bit.ly/TRWPrinciples