On Friday, 16 April 2016, the Faculty of Law of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, was host to a Judicial Workshop on Environmental Rights to provide practical and theoretical grounding in the implementation of environmental rights and serve as the springboard for the development of training materials that will be available for judges at all levels, globally. North-West University (Potchefstroom, South Africa) and Delaware Law School’s Global Environmental and Natural Resources Law Institute, Widener University (Wilmington, United States) convened the workshop which was sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).  

The international community is increasingly accepting the inextricable link between human rights and the environment, ranging from climate change to constitutionalism – focusing globally, experientially and interdisciplinary on inter alia sustainability, climate change, environmental citizen suits, energy, international law, toxic torts (chemical exposure injury or disease claims) and constitutional law.

The next output of the Workshop is a set of judicial training materials on Environmental Law produced by Delaware Law School’s Global Environmental and Natural Resources Law Institute in conjunction with UNEP. The materials for the workshop are available on the Delaware Law School’s webpage.

For the purposes of engaging with and training judges on environmental rights cases, the workshop hosted judges from South Africa, Ghana, the US and Australia, environmental law academics from the Delaware Law School, Widener University in the USA, the University of Cape Town and North-West University, Potchefstroom.  Representatives of UNEP from Kenya and South Africa were also in attendance, as well as Prof John Knox, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment.  [Click to access a comprehensive list of workshop participants].

Melanie Murcott, a senior lecturer in the Department of Public Law of the University of Pretoria, facilitated the session on Remedies and Enforcement of Environmental Rights.