Negotiating Institutional Transformation: International and Comparative Approaches to Justice in Environmental Protection

The 2020 Global Environmental Justice Conference at the Yale School of the Environment, supported by The Graciela Chichilnisky Environmental Fund in Honor of Natasha Chichilnisky-Heal, will focus on the difficulty of integrating justice as a priority in domestic and international institutions. These concerns have emerged as a focal point in both domestic and international environmental movements. We see this most graphically in the clashes on the street, but it also has impacted national policies and the inclusion of the non-human as stakeholders in the debate.

The title of this year’s conference is Negotiating Institutional Transformation: International and Comparative Approaches to Justice in Environmental Protection. The conference will feature leaders from the global south as well as experts from a variety of disciplines. The conference panelists will include jurists, legal scholars, diplomats, economists, and activists. Though the meeting will be virtual, we will have many opportunities to engage the speakers and network including an award-winning documentary film screening. Topics will range from making existing institutions work better to creating policy space for activists and nature itself.

Program Highlights

day one
14 nov
opening session

Global Environmental Justice Conference Introduction from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

Panels

Must Diplomats Choose Between Promoting Justice and Their National Interests? Reflections of a multilateral negotiator.

Jennifer Haverkamp
Graham Family Director; Graham Sustainability Institute, University of Michigan; Professor from Practice, Michigan Law School, University of Michigan

Must Diplomats Choose Between Promoting Justice and Their National Interests? from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

Role of Justice in UN Institutions

Daniel Bodansky
Regents’ Professor, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

Role of Justice in UN Institutions from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

day one
14 nov
Career chat 

Global Environmental Justice Conference Career Chat from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

Documentary Screening and post-screening conversation

Mossville: When Great Trees Fall — Post-screening conversation from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

Day Two
15 Nov
Panels

Environmental Defenders: The role of NGO’s in Human Rights Conflicts

Justice Antonio Herman Benjamin
Justice at the National High Court of Brazil (STJ)

Alfred Brownell
Executive Director, Green Advocates; Tom & Andi Bernstein Visiting Human Rights Fellow; Yale Law School

Environmental Defenders: The role of NGO’s in human rights conflicts from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

Rights and Responsibilities in Relation to the Natural World; Reframing conceptions of justice

Catherine Iorns
Professor of Law, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

David Cordero-Heredia
Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Centre of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE)

Rights and Responsibilities in Relation to the Natural World from Yale School of the Environment on Vimeo.

People and Partners

Yale Center for Environmental Justice
Yale School of the Environment
Kroon Hall
195 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Email: ycej@yale.edu