ADB Presents at Oslo International Environmental Law Conference
ADB General Counsel Thomas Clark, the Law and Policy Reform Program colleagues, and leading Asian judges and academics were invited to the Oslo International Environmental Law Conference held 3-6 October 2022 to showcase significant innovations in jurisprudence and environmental law education in the Asia-Pacific region.
The year 2022 marked several significant anniversaries in environmental lawmaking—50 years since the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, the first global declaration focused on the environment; 50 years since the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); 40 years since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); and 30 years since the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the adoption of the Rio Conventions: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), and United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
More than 400 academics, researchers, policy makers, legal practitioners, members of the judiciary, and other relevant stakeholders joined the conference to discuss transformative legal tools to address global environmental challenges, governance approaches to accompany this transformation, challenges related to the delay in the achievement of international commitments, and the part of the judiciary in enhancing the role of environmental law to overcome these hurdles.
ADB sponsored two panels at the conference which provided a platform for leaders from developing member countries (DMCs) and around the world to develop a vision for transformative change in response to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Speaking at the session titled ADB Developing Environmental Law Champions Legal Education, Mr. Clark emphasized that strengthening the capacity of environmental law educators is an urgent priority as “training lawyers, legal educators, and future policymakers is critical to enabling developing countries in the Asia-Pacific to strengthen their national implementation frameworks and, therefore, achieve sustainable development.”
For more information about the conference, click here.