Context
Last year, in a landmark resolution, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly recognized the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This development sat in parallel with a growing consensus that environmental rights abrogation can drive conflict and threaten peace and security.
Such evidence has evolved rapidly. Food and water insecurity for example have a particularly strong causal relationship with diminutions in safety and security and conflict protraction. Protection against climate change, environmental good governance and the promotion of the right to a healthy environment should thus be seen both as a tool of conflict prevention and key to conflict resolution and non-recidivism. Such causal relationships, however, have not been sufficiently integrated into multilateral policy debates and decision-making processes.
Objective
This project will develop guidance to inform security, human rights and environmental debates on the linkages between environmental rights and conflict, and how their better management can serve as a tool in conflict prevention, resilience and early warning.
Homing in on six country hotspots for environmental conflict spillovers, we will also identify entry points for engaging at the UN Human Rights Council and UN Security Council, as well as strategies to overcome challenges to policy uptake.
