ADB Convenes Global Environmental Leaders at Stockholm+50 Conference

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, nature, and pollution at 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, General Counsel 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 and they need knowledge, technology and new approaches to jurisprudence. Other keynote speakers included Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director; Elizabeth Mrema, Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary; Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator; Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director-General; Jeffrey Sachs, Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University Director; David Boyd, UN Rapporteur for Human Rights and the Environment; José Igreja Matos, International Association of Judges President; Christina Voigt, Professor, Oslo University School of Law and Chair, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law; and Nicholas Robinson, Professor, Pace Law School and President, International Council of Environmental Law. The 2-day symposium and an official side event were organized by ADB Office of the General Counsel's Law and Policy Reform Program, in conjunction with development partners.

View the video recording and browse the photo gallery of the side event.