Conference theme

According to the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s framework to evaluate the impact of human activities on the Earth’s system, the quantitative assessment across the nine planetary boundaries found in 2023 that six of these nine boundaries have been breached, primarily due to human activities. This work and other scientific studies, such as by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reveals the existential crisis faced by humanity and the need to tackle urgently multiple planetary crises.  

The negative impacts of transgressing the planetary boundaries are threatening the enjoyment of all human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, housing and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. However, the impacts are not limited to humans or their human rights – the entire ecosystem is undergoing serious changes and often there are irreversible impacts on the environment and biodiversity. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution is real, as the threat to the Earth’s climate system is existential. Therefore, the world needs a swift and transformative ‘course correction’. Such a change is feasible, provided that the international community takes collective and decisive actions. Reversing the ozone depletion through the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is a case in point. 

It is important, however, that such a course correction addresses the root causes of the current crisis and is grounded in the idea of justice for the planet – it should cover the rights of future generations, all species and nature. To be fair and just, the course correction should be based on respect for human rights – including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment – and guided by certain core principles such as sustainable development, common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, intergenerational equity, polluter pays, the precautionary principle and ecological integrity. Moreover, it would have to address the history of colonial exploitation and respond to differentiated or disproportionate impacts experienced by individuals, groups and countries.  

Three climate change advisory opinions issued by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) offer significant opportunities for course correction. For example, the ITLOS concluded that anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere constitute pollution of the marine environment under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and must be reduced to the maximum extent possible. The IACtHR recognised the existence of the human right to a healthy climate as part of the right to a healthy environment and accepted nature as a subject of this right. The ICJ concluded that states have a binding obligation to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic GHG emissions, both under treaties concerning biodiversity, climate change, the environment, human rights and the law of the sea, as well as under customary international law. A breach of this obligation will constitute an internationally wrongful act entailing reparations. All three courts have stressed that the standard of due diligence for states is stringent and that they regulate private actors (including fossil fuel companies) within their territory or jurisdiction.  

At the same time, the required course correction will not be easy. There are political, economic, institutional and legal barriers to bringing structural changes to luxurious lifestyles, unsustainable food systems, obsession with gross domestic product (GDP) targets, the tendency to prioritise profits over people, exploitation of biodiversity, commodification of nature, extractive business models, plastic- and fossil fuel-based economies, unfair international financial architecture, neo-colonial debt traps, excessive protection of intellectual property rights, and unsustainable trade and investment regimes. The adverse impacts of such changes, often disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable communities, may also not be distributed fairly within and between countries. Nor is developing countries’ access to finance and green technologies guaranteed. Moreover, international cooperation, multilateralism and accountability mechanisms are in tatters. In other words, while just transitions towards a zero-carbon economy and development in harmony with nature are feasible, we must find ways to surmount the political, economic, institutional and legal barriers in ways that promote a human rights economy.  

Against this backdrop, Macquarie University’s Environmental Law Research Centre (ELRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Regional Office for the Pacific are co-organising an international conference in Sydney on 18-19 March 2026 to discuss opportunities for, and barriers to, course correction required to secure justice for the planet, advance human rights and leave no one behind. This ‘in-person’ conference will give particular attention to Indigenous knowledge, intersectionality, legal pluralism and the Global South perspectives in articulating solutions. It will explore the role of diverse actors – such as states, intergovernmental organisations, multilateral development banks, corporations, universities, civil society organisations, environmental human rights defenders, Indigenous Peoples, women and youth – in securing planetary justice from an intersectional lens. The conference will bring together scholars, practitioners, policymakers, government officials, business representatives, trade unions and civil society organisations to co-create solutions for a just future.