A presentation by Aoife Nolan, Professor of International Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. This event is part of the Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium under the cluster "Human Rights in the Climate Crisis" hosted by the Centre for Fundamental Rights.
Recent years have seen an explosion in efforts to use the courts to advance both living children and future generations’ (FG) environmental protection (EP)-related constitutional rights. High-profile constitutional cases have been brought in jurisdictions including Colombia, Germany, Canada, Pakistan, the United States, Austria, Sweden and the Philippines. Thus far, however, there has been no in-depth and comprehensive analysis of how the courts should take the position of children and FG into account in identifying and applying constitutional constraints on democratic decision-making on EP. Responding to this ever-more prominent theme in child and youth-centred and driven environmental advocacy and litigation, the article focuses on how the position of these groups ‘outside democracy’ has and should shape the role of the courts when deciding whether to impose constitutional constraints on democratic decision-making in the environmental protection context.
Aoife Nolan, LL.B (Dublin), PhD (EUI) is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre. She is an internationally recognised expert in human rights law, with a particular focus on economic and social rights and children's rights. Aoife Co-leads Doughty Street Chambers' Children's Rights Group and is a member of the Doughty Street International Steering Group. She is Professor of International Human Rights Law at the School of the Law, University of Nottingham, where she is also Director of the Human Rights Law Centre's Economic and Social Rights Unit. Aoife is President of the Council of Europe's European Committee of Social Rights, the leading European monitoring mechanism on economic and social rights, having joined the Committee in 2017 and served as Vice-President in 2021-2.
Prior registration is required. Registered attendees will receive the dial-in details as well as a draft paper, on which the presentation is based, via e-mail prior to the event.
