Published August 5, 2024 By Patrick Boyle, Corporate Accountability Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, and Charles Slidders, Senior Attorney, Financial Strategies at the Center for International Environmental Law. The US Supreme Court recently issued decisions in four cases that could profoundly weaken the administrative state, foreshadowing widespread dysfunction for federal agencies and the … Read More.
Published February 2, 2024 By Sébastien Duyck, Senior Attorney & Human Rights & Climate Campaign Manager, and Lani Furbank, Communications Campaign Specialist. On the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a diverse, people-powered, global coalition made history at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The Global Coalition of Civil Society, Indigenous … Read More.
Decades of research demonstrate that pesticides can cause negative effects on environmental and human health. This has led some States to ban or deny the approval of certain active substances used in pesticides in order to protect people and the planet. However, there is currently no binding international agreement that broadly regulates pesticides. As of … Read More.
Since 2017, state parties, regional groups, and multiple stakeholders have introduced formal propositions and issued declarations concerning a new global instrument to address the plastics crisis, demonstrating that movement towards such an instrument is picking up. But new global instruments do not happen overnight — before negotiations can begin, a mandate must be established and … Read More.
“Planet hotter than my boyfriend,” “I’ve seen smarter cabinets at IKEA,” “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your coals” — these are just some of the many protest signs carried by a mobilization of tens of thousands of students worldwide demanding action to prevent climate change. With strikes in Australia, Belgium, Canada, … Read More.
In October, the Special Rapporteur on Right to Food Ms. Hilal Elver will present her report to the Human Rights Council, just a couple of months before the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or CoP21, whose aim is to reach a legally binding agreement to combat climate change. Her … Read More.
As we near the 800th birthday of the Magna Carta—and CIEL’s 25th—how does Magna Carta influence the realm of international environmental law today? CIEL welcomed President Emeritus and Distinguished Scholar Dan Magraw as the second speaker in its 25th Anniversary Discussion Series Defending the Planet in the 21st Century. Currently a professorial lecturer and fellow … Read More.
In June 2013, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) around the world gathered at Vienna for the 20th anniversary of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and its Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. The CSOs held a two-day conference to precede the Vienna+20 Advancing the Protection of Human Rights Conference on June 25th organized by … Read More.
My very first COP experience, the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention in Cartagena, Colombia, was hailed by delegates, observers, and the UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner as the most successful Basel COP in the history of the Basel Convention. I was fortunate to have joined CIEL’s delegation that participated in such … Read More.
In a recently filed amicus brief, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) departed from long standing US case law and policy that allows for the patenting of isolated genes, arguing that isolated genes are part of nature and thus not patent eligible. Both biotechnology and medical industry trade associations argue that these patents continue to … Read More.