Recognising the intersection between human rights and environment in legal education

Damilola Olawuyi (University of Oxford) will present a paper at the UKCLE event on Environmental justice in legal education on 29 March 2010. He will examine the need for law faculties to develop courses and seminars that expose students to the intersection between human rights and environment under national and international law. He will offer ideas on what this content should be.

Ever since the 1972 Stockholm Declaration proclaimed that man’s natural and man made environment are essential to his well being and to the enjoyment of his basic human rights – especially the right to life itself – there has been a consensus amongst scholars that:

• there exists a link between the environment and human rights
• a clean environment is a sine qua non for the enjoyment of other human rights
• without a clean environment, man may not live to enjoy the other recognised forms of rights such as the right to life and the right to education

Despite this consensus however, most law schools are yet to reflect the synergies between both divergent and convergent areas of law in teaching and research. A law student interested in human rights law will most likely not be in an environmental law class and vice versa. How then can the aspirations of scholars and NGOs interested in the official recognition of a right to a clean environment in national and international instruments come to pass when future lawyers and legal scholars are not even aware of such intersections?

This presentation will show the need for the creation of human rights and environment seminars and courses in law schools in the UK and all around the world. The presentation will show why this course will be important and how it differs from traditional courses like environmental law, international law and human rights law. A draft curriculum on the content and nature of a course like this will be proposed.

About Damilola
Damilola Olawayi is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. He is currently researching the recognition of the intersection between environment and human rights under international law. He has taught and practised law in Nigeria and is widely published in the area of international environmental law. He has recently been an instructor on the Environmental Law programme of the United Nations Institute for Research and Training (UNITAR).

Last Modified: 4 June 2010