ADB Convenes Global Environmental Leaders at Stockholm+50 Symposium

Thomas Clark, General Counsel of the Asian Development Bank addressed global environmental leaders on the need to strengthen the environmental rule of law to accelerate action in addressing the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution during the Symposium on Judges and the Environment at the Stockholm+50 Conference. He noted that to make clear progress, we need transformative changes to meet 21st-century challenges, involving our whole economies including in the law. In particular, Mr. Clark highlighted the need to invest in judiciaries who are essential development partners being called to interpret and apply the law to respond to unprecedented challenges. Judiciaries need knowledge, technology, and new approaches to jurisprudence. 

Other keynote speakers included UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen; Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity Elizabeth Mrema, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, Director-General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bruno Oberle; Director of the Columbia University Center for Sustainable Development Professor Jeffrey Sachs, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment David Boyd, President of the International Association of Judges José Igreja Matos,  Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Professor Christina Voigt, and President of the International Council of Environmental Law Professor Nicholas Robinson. 

The 2-day symposium was organized by the ADB Office of the General Counsel's Law and Policy Reform Program, in conjunction with development partners. They also organized the Stockholm+50 Official Side Event: Judges, the Environmental Rule of Law, and a Healthy Planet since the 1972 Stockholm Declaration.

View the video recording of Day 1 and Day 2 and photo gallery of the Symposium of Judges. Also view the video recording and browse the photo gallery of the side event.