Open seminar | Human rights and the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity

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Speakers:

Nicole Schabus (LLM, MBA) will present about the involvement of Indigenous Peoples in international environmental and human rights negotiations and how the rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples are protected under the respective frameworks.

Nicole is a law professor at Thompson Rivers University, in Secwepemc’ulecw the territory of the Secwepemc People, in the Interior of what is now known as British Columbia, Canada. She has worked with Indigenous Peoples in the Interior and across Canada and the Americas, including by supporting them with making international submissions to international human rights bodies. She has been following international environmental negotiations for more than 20 years, as a writer for Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

Georgina Catacora-Vargas (Ph.D., MSc.) will address the relationship between biodiversity and human rights realization, illustrating how biodiversity loss, and conversely, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, contribute to the promotion, protection, and fulfillment of rights, particularly for those in vulnerable situations.

Georgina holds a Ph.D. in Agroecology and has over ten years of experience in biodiversity, genetic resources, and biosafety of modern biotechnology policy making. Her scholar research is transdisciplinary and focuses on socioeconomic and socioecological systems related to food and agriculture, with a gender and human rights-based approach. Inspired by her work in peasant rights, she is currently a professor at an Academic Peasant Unit of the Bolivian Catholic University. Georgina is also the president of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA).

Elsa Tsioumani (PhD, LL.M/DEA) will facilitate the open seminar providing introductory remarks.
Elsa is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the School of International Studies in the University of Trento in Italy. She is an international environmental lawyer with an extensive publication record on biodiversity governance, human rights, and emerging technologies. She has been following intergovernmental negotiations on the environment for more than 20 years, as a writer for Earth Negotiations Bulletin, and collaborates with the project at TIESS.

Program

4.20- 4.30

Registration

4.30- 4.40

Welcome – Introductory remarks

Elsa Tsioumani, Facilitator – Transdisciplinary Institute for Environmental and Social Studies – TIESS

4.40- 5.00

Protection of Indigenous Peoples rights and knowledge in international environmental and human rights negotiations.

Nicole Schabus

5.00- 5.20

Biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. Protection, promotion, and fulfillment of rights, particularly for those in vulnerable situations.

Georgina Catacora-Vargas

5.20- 5.40

Discussion

5.40- 6.00

Closing remarks

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Seminar
The seminar will be held in English. A report including key messages as well as all project’s deliverables will be translated in Greek in the project’s website.

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Project

The Transdisciplinary Institute for Environmental and Social Studies (TIESS), in collaboration with a group of academic researchers, was successful to its application for a Jean Monnet grant to analyze and study environmental rights under the title “Human rights and the environment in the EU: Towards an inclusive debate”. The three-year project addresses various aspects of the concept of environmental rights, and aims to add to the ongoing discussion, following the recognition of the “right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right that is important for the enjoyment of human rights” (UN Human Rights Council Resolution 48/13).
The project is divided in five thematic areas, which will be addressed in separate seminars. Following the introductory seminar under the theme “The fundamental right to a healthy and clean environment”, this second seminar will try to link the human rights framework with the biodiversity framework in order to ensure that biodiversity considerations will become more central in future development planning.

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