11:00am – 12:30pm (presentation and discussion)
12:30pm - 1:00pm (luncheon)

Environmental factors have always had an impact on the flow of migration across and within international borders. Effects of climate change such as natural disasters and conflicts triggered by a decrease in resources such as water or land displace a growing number of people around the world. Most of these people will remain within the borders of their own country and are entitled to have their fundamental human rights, including the right to life, security, food, health, education, and adequate shelter respected, protected, and fulfilled.

Panelists at this event will provide attendees with an overview of the potential human rights impact of climate change; information about international, regional, and domestic human rights instruments for the protection and assistance of the displaced; and analysis of the gaps in these instruments. The lecture will also mark the release by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement of a new publication on the incorporation of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into domestic law and policy.

Presenter:
ASIL member Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, co-director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, and professor of constitutional and international law at Bern University, Switzerland.

Discussant:
ASIL Vice President Dinah Shelton, Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at George Washington University Law School and member, Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

Moderator:
ASIL member Andrew Solomon, Deputy Director and Foreign Policy Fellow, Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, Brookings Institution

To listen to audio of this event, please click here.