Copenhagen ASEM 2013

COPENHAGEN

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), first held in 1996 to encourage informal high-level discussions between European and East Asian countries, and its supporting structure, the Asia-Europe Foundation, strengthen ties between Asia and Europe, including through organizing informal seminars on topics such as human rights. Government and civil society experts from each country attend to share experience and explore ways forward. The resulting reports are presented to all the governments of the two regions. I was invited to participate in the 13th Informal ASEM Seminar on Human Rights, on the topic "Human Rights and the Environment" in Copenhagen on 21-23 October 2013, co-hosted by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Institute of Human Rights. The seminar was held in historic Moltkes Palace, opened by the Minister of the Environment and closed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. After opening keynotes by John Knox, UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and the Environment and other leading experts, the 140 participants were divided into working groups on the interaction between sustainable development, environment and human rights; access to information, participatory rights and access to justice; actors, institutions and governance; and climate change and human rights implications. I was in the latter group, and since this is a topic on which the International Environment Forum has made substantive contributions at the Social Forum of the Human Rights Council, as well as Rio+20, we had a lot to contribute to the discussions and final conclusions. See also the report on the IEF web site.

The morning of our departure, the organizers arranged a tour through the canals of downtown Copenhagen, so while I had been in the city for the climate change conference in 2009, it was the first time I had been able to see much of the city since my first visit in 1960.

The seminar on Human Rights and the Environment