Prof Morgera delivered training on human rights and the environment to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Apr 2021 — On 30th March-1st April 2021, Prof Morgera delivered a training session on "International human rights and the environment: what do they mean for the mandate of FAO?". More than 30 legal officers from FAO participated in the training session.

 

Image by John O’Nolan via Unsplash 

This was a two-part training co-delivered with Prof John Knox, Wake Forest University School of Law and former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment (who prepared the Framework Principles). It built on ongoing collaboration with Prof Knox, going back to Prof Morgera’s BENELEX contributions to the 2017 UN Special Rapporteur’s Report on biodiversity and Human Rights, and Principle 15 of the 2018 UN Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment. 

The training focused on the inter-linkages between international human rights and environmental law, with particular attention to the inter-dependence of human rights and biodiversity. It aimed to explore how embedding these inter-linkages into FAO's work supports the achievement of FAO’s mandate and the UN System's goals. 

Prof Morgera’s contribution discussed specifically the interlinkages between biodiversity and human rights for FAO’s normative work (international guidance and identification of global trends in national legislation; as well as advice to national law reform processes) in various sectors of natural resource governance (agriculture, fisheries, forestry, pastoralism, freshwater, etc). The presentation also explored how the interlinkages between biodiversity and the human rights of indigenous peoples, rural women and everyone’s health can be better integrated in FAO’s work on small-scale fisheries, the interactions of the right to food and right to water, climate change adaptation, and responsible agri-business. 

Prof Knox and Prof Morgera will now write a legal study for FAO to capture the key contents of the virtual training sessions.

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