Highlights - Dialogue Climate Change & Access to Justice

On June 17th, 2021 the KPSRL, IDLO, Radboud University's CICAM and the Clingendael Insititute's CRU hosted an online seminar: Exploring the Intersections of Climate Change, Access to Justice and Rule of Law. Download the link to the publication below to learn more about the highlights of this event.

Background

Climate change is an obstacle to achieving the 2030 Agenda, recognized as having adverse effects on the most excluded constituencies, including women and youth, in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs recognizes the cross-cutting nature of the climate crisis by integrating it across policy and programming, notably including the intersection between climate change, access to justice, and rule of law reflected in the Access to Justice Strategy.

This is an area of emerging and promising research and practice, but the range of evidence-based interventions at the climate-justice nexus remains limited. This event aims to build on recent relevant analysis, and the broader relevant literature on intersections such as climate-conflict, to explore how the effects of climate change intersect with perceived injustices that might lead to conflict, related to access to resources like land and water or spaces for safe settlement, and how efforts to expand access to justice and rule of law might mitigate those effects. It will seek to illuminate what policymakers and practitioners in the justice sector can do to respond to the multi-dimensional threat of climate change, including broader opportunities to promote legal empowerment, trust-building and inclusive governance through access to justice and rule of law.