Realizing Environmental Protection through Indigenous Laws: Lessons for International Environmental Law from the Canadian Experience

Session 2 - Environmental protection and human rights: what alliance(s)?

Chair: Makane Moïse Mbengue, Professor at the University of Geneva and Affiliate Professor at Sciences Po Paris.

Abstract

International environmental law has long recognized the importance of ensuring that Indigenous peoples play an active role in environmental management. The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework explicitly acknowledges Indigenous peoples as custodians and partners in biodiversity conservation as well as restoration and sustainable use, and that the rights, values and knowledge of Indigenous peoples must be respected. In settler colonial states such as Canada, respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples is essential and intertwined with environment law. While Canada initially voted against the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the federal government has since endorsed it and is actively seeking to implement UNDRIP as a response to the 2015 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC Calls to Action point to the need to educate lawyers about UNDRIP, Aboriginal law (s35 of the 1982 Constitution Act and judicial decisions) and Indigenous law (law emanating from the legal orders of individual Indigenous nations). Respect for Indigenous law in Canada informs the establishment of terrestrial and marine Indigenous protected and conserved areas, and the assessment of cumulative effects in resource development. It also has profound implications for international environmental law.

Sara Seck

Associate Professor Sara L. Seck is the Yogis & Keddy Chair in Human Rights Law at the Schulich School of Law and Marine & Environmental Law Institute, Dalhousie University in Canada. An active member of the International Law Association (ILA), she participated in the drafting of the white paper on International Law in the Anthropocene (2022). Recent research contributions include as co-editor of the Research Handbook on Climate Change Law and Loss & Damage (2021), co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development (2021) and, from Volume 36, co-editor of the Ocean Yearbook.