WN@TL: “Climate Change, Environmental Justice and Human Rights”

Speaker: Sumudu Atapattu, Law School

Bio: Sumudu Anopama Atapattu is the Director of Research Centers and Senior Lecturer at UW Law School. She teaches in the area of International Environmental law and climate change and human rights . She holds an LL.M. (Public International Law) and a Ph.D. (International Environmental Law) from the University of Cambridge, U.K., and is an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Her books include: “Human Rights Approaches to Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities” (2015, Routledge, U.K); “International Environmental Law and the Global South” (2015, Cambridge University Press) (co-editor); and “Emerging Principles of International Environmental Law” (2006, Transnational Publishers, New York). She is affiliated with UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Global Health Institute, the Center for South Asia, and the 4W Initiative and was a visiting professor at Doshisha University Law School, Japan, in summer 2014 and Giessen University, Germany in summer 2016. She is also the Executive Director of the Human Rights Program at UW-Madison.

Description: From severe weather events to sea level rise, climate change is causing massive disruption around the world. While no nation or community will be spared these adverse consequences, not all nations and communities will experience these adverse consequences equally. Historically marginalized communities, poor people and poor countries will experience these consequences disproportionately, even when their contribution to climate change is relatively small, raising justice concerns. In the meantime, greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, raising doubts about meeting the global commitment of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In light of the need to take unprecedented, drastic and urgent action, Indigenous leaders recently called upon President Biden to declare a climate emergency.

Explore More: https://gnhre.org/profiles/a-f/atapattu-sumudu/