The Rule of Law and the Rights of Nature in Postconflict Colombia

DUCIGS/Rethinking Diplomacy Program, in collaboration with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) hosted the second webinar in the series “Environmental Peacebuilding in Colombia.”

Three legal scholars spoke about “The Rule of Law and the Rights of Nature in Post-conflict Colombia.”

GLORIA AMPARO RODRIGUEZ. Professor of Law, Director of the Public Environmental Law Research Group at Universidad del Rosario, a senior fellow at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law, and adjunct judge of the Constitutional Court of Colombia. Professor Rodríguez won the 2019 Award “Building Peace and Environment in Practice,” by the Environmental Peace Association for her legal and academic work in favor of nature and ethnic groups in Colombia. Her talk is titled: Territorial Rights in Peace Building. A perspective from Colombian Jurisprudence. | LOS DERECHOS TERRITORIALES EN LA CONSTRUCCION DE PAZ VISTOS DESDE LA JURISPRUDENCIA COLOMBIANA

IVAN VARGAS RONCANCIO, is a lawyer with Master’s degrees in Bioscience and Law (National University of Colombia, 2012), and Latin American Studies (Duke University, 2016). Vargas is a Ph.D. candidate in Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University. He has worked for the Center for Public Policy Research (University of California - Davis, 2011-2013), and the Everyday Peace Indicators Project (George Mason University, 2017-2018). Iván's research follows indigenous practitioners, scientists, legal scholars, across territories, labs, and courts of justice in an effort to contribute to a larger paradigm shift: from reductionist environmental law and governance models to ecological, systems-based and other-than-human jurisprudence in post-conflict Colombia. His talk is titled: The Forest goes to a Court of Law: Rights of Nature, Indigenous Legal Traditions and Comparison, Colombian Amazon / El Bosque va a la corte: Derechos de la Naturaleza, tradiciones legales indígenas comparativas en la amazonía colombiana. (In press in Kirsten Anker & Geoffrey Garver Edited Volume: From Environmental to Ecological Law (Routledge, 2021)

JONAS EBBESSON. Professor of Environmental Law, former Dean of the Faculty of Law (2012-17), and Director of Stockholm Environmental Law and Policy Centre, at Stockholm University. Chair of the Compliance Committee of the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), and a member of the Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. His talk is titled: “Access to justice: Learning from the Aarhus Convention experience when implementing the Escazú Agreement” | Acceso a la justicia: Aprendiendo de la experiencia de la Convención de Aarhus al implementar el Acuerdo de Escazú

Event moderated by MIGUEL ROJAS SOTELO (Duke Center for International and Global Studies.)

Presented by: Duke University Center for International and Global Studies, the Environmental Peace Building Association, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) – Colombia, The Environmental Law Institute, and the International Masters in Environmental Policy at Duke Kunshan University