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Conference | The Right to a Healthy Environment: Looking Ahead
June 6, 2023 @ 9:30 am – 12:00 pm UTC-8
A Program in Observance of World Environment Day
A Pre-Parliament Event of the August 2023 Convening of The Parliament of the World’s Religions
The Right to a Healthy Environment was approved overwhelmingly as a basic human right by the UN General Assembly in July 2023, the first recognition of a new basic human right since The Right to Water and Sanitation in 2010. This was a historic step forward for human rights and protection of the environment, and faith-based organizations played a significant role in the campaign for this recognition. The Right to a Healthy Environment is included in the constitutions of over 100 countries but is far from realization. What role can the world’s religious communities play going forward to fully manifest the right to a healthy environment – in the urgent “triple crisis” of the climate emergency, pollution and loss of biodiversity? The recognition of a new basic human right is especially notable as this year we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Speakers include Daniel Magraw (President Emeritus, Center for International Environmental Law, and Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies), the Rev. Melanie Mullen (Director of Reconciliation, Justice and Creation Care, The Episcopal Church), Geoffrey Roth (Lakota; Member, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues), David Hales (Chair of Climate Action and Trustee, Parliament of the World’s Religions) and The Ven. Doyeon Park (Co-Chair, Committee of Religious NGOs at the UN; President, Buddhist Council of New York; Representative of Won Buddhism to the United Nations).
Co-sponsored by the Center for Earth Ethics, the Committee of Religious NGOs at the UN, The Episcopal Church, NGO Committee on Human Rights, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
