Youth Forum Right to a Healthy Environment (2023)

On Tuesday 8 November 2023, the Centre for Law and Social Justice in collaboration with Australian Lawyers for Human Rights and the Human Rights for New South Wales Alliance, hosted a Youth Forum on the Right to a Healthy Environment. The event brought together 55 high school students from 12 schools across the Hunter region of NSW to discuss the right to a healthy environment in the context of human rights. Students ranged from 13 to 17 years of age. The Forum was co-convened with Annika Reynolds, Climate Policy Advisor at Ember and Isabel Moss, Disability Justice Liaison Officer at Canberra Community Law. Together students deliberated over the following two questions:

1.  What does the right to a healthy environment require?
2. What obstacles are preventing young people from having full access to their right to a healthy environment?

Students engaged in a collaborative writing session to draft the 'School Students' Statement on the Right to a Healthy Environment.' Sharon Claydon MP,  Federal member for Newcastle and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives attended the forum and engaged with students who raised climate based concerns.

Other resources

- Fact Sheet: The Right to a Healthy Environment & Political Participation
- Caring for Country, Loren Collyer
- Perspectives on the Human Rights to a Healthy Environment, Annika Reynolds and Isabel Moss
- NBN News report on the Youth Forum, 8 November 2023
- 2NURFM interview on the Youth Forum, 8 November 2023
- Newcastle Herald article 'Young have say on climate crisis,' 9 November 2023

Get involved

If you are committed to protecting the right to a healthy environment for all young people please share this Statement.