Side-event at the 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Protecting Environmental Lawyers
Advancing Climate Justice
22 September 2025
14:00 – 15:00 CEST
Download the flyer.
Introduction
Environmental lawyers are essential to upholding the rule of law and defending the rights of communities impacted by environmental harm. By providing legal representation, bringing litigation, and ensuring accountability for climate-related abuses, they play a key role in advancing climate justice and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet across regions, these lawyers increasingly face serious threats: criminalisation, surveillance, restrictions to clients and information, harassment, and physical attacks. Such threats not only undermine their independence and security but also restrict access to environmental justice and hampers efforts to ensure an equitable and sustainable future for all. The urgency of this issue is highlighted in our report “Access to Environmental Justice Under Threat”.
This event aims to raise awareness of the indispensable work of environmental lawyers and the growing risks they face, while fostering dialogue on concrete responses. It will bring together States, UN mandates, and civil society actors to explore how to strengthen protections for environmental lawyers, reinforce legal and institutional safeguards, and support inclusive, rights-based approaches to enhance environmental justice, in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and amid global rule of law backsliding.
Programme
The program will begin with a screening of a segment of ‘Guarding Gaia’, a L4L-commissioned documentary and opening keynotes by UN Special Rapporteurs: Mr. Michel Forst (on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention) and Astrid Puentes Riaño (on the Human Right to a Healthy Environment).
Afterwards, a panel discussion will proceed, featuring the following speakers:
- Catalina Radulescu, environmental lawyers from Romania
- Maureen Harris, Senior Advisor at International Rivers and colleague of imprisoned environmental lawyer Dang Dinh Bach
- Sandra Epal Ratjen, International Commission of Jurists
- Xenia Rivkin, Geneva Bar Association
Concluding remarks will be provided by Francesca Restifo, International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and the event will be moderated by Tara Fiechter, Lawyers for Lawyers Programme Officer.
Conveners and co-sponsors
The event will be convened by Lawyers for Lawyers and International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute and is co-sponsored by the International Service for Human Rights, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), International Commission of Jurists, Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, Ordre des avocats de Genève, and Franciscans International.
