2022 Oslo International Environmental Law Conference

The year 2022 marks several important anniversaries in environmental law making: 50 years of Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment and the establishment of UNEP in 1972, 40 years of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and 30th anniversaries of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Rio Conventions: UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD. These anniversaries provide an opportune moment for reflection on the power of law in bringing about the transformative changes needed to address environmental crises of climate change, nature destruction and pollution.This Conference will inquire about the ability of law, both on the international, regional as well as national level, to facilitate the necessary systemic changes across all sectors and levels. It invites critical presentations on the adequacy, effectiveness, legitimacy and fairness of current legislation or litigation considering the challenges posed by climate change, nature decline and pollution. A core question to be addressed is: “Can the challenges be solved by using the legal tools available?” It will inquire into the possibilities and emerging legal tools, but also limits and shortcomings, of legal responses to those challenges. The conference seeks to bring together innovative academic legal thinking and practice on how legal tools can be improved, advanced, amended or changed. What is needed of the law to act as a catalyst for transformative change? The focus of the conference is a diligent analysis of environmental law. However, also other areas of law, such as human rights law, trade and investment law, commercial law, criminal law, civil law, outer space and others play an important role in transforming society to address critical environmental challenges.