The right to future: Rights-based climate action program

The right to future: Rights-based climate action program 2019-2020, established jointly by Raoul Wallenberg Institute Turkey and Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University and supported by Research Worldwide Istanbul, was launched yesterday via a mini-conference bearing the same time. Following the opening speeches, RWI Senior Researcher Matthew Scott delivered a keynote speech titled “A human rights-based approach to disasters and displacement in a changing climate” which was followed by the presentation of a research paper supported by RWI, “Climate change as a human rights issue,” by Dr. Seda Yurtcanlı. Following these two presentations, a very lively panel discussion and a question and answer session took place. The three renowned panelists (Hilal Elver, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Johanna Alkan Olsson, Center for Environmental and Climate Research, Lund University; and Ömer Madra, Climate change activist, Open Radio) each explained their take on the rights-based climate and answered specific questions around their expertise.

The right to future programs was established to initiate a rights-based discussion on climate action and to enrich the discourse of human and environmental rights in climate action. The program aims to support academic works about rights-based climate action, to publish articles, to organize events such as conferences and workshops in order to support the capacity development of academia and civil society on this issue, and to develop a rights-based perspective on climate policies through joint projects and cooperation with local authorities and public institutions.

In addition to the conference and the publication of the RWI supported report called “Climate change as a human rights issue” by Dr. Seda Yurtcanlı, two texts have been translated into Turkish as part of the program: “Bringing Human Rights to Bear on Climate Change” published in Climate Law 9 (2019) 165-179 by Prof. John Knox, Former Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and OHCHR’s Key Messages on Human Rights and Climate Change. We believe that both texts will be used frequently in related undergraduate and graduate level university courses in Turkey.

Please visit gelecekhakki.org to follow the activities of the program.