Hub becomes official partner of the Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative
The Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative (CERI) is conducted under the auspices of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, in collaboration with core partners.
The One Ocean Hub has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative (CERI) to collaborate on children’s rights to a healthy environment, including a safe climate and a healthy ocean.
CERI is an international multi-stakeholder platform to ensure that children’s rights are placed at the centre of environmental decision-making and action. The platform has been established under the auspices of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, and comprising other Hub partners such as UN Environment Programme UNEP and WWF, as well as UNICEF, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Save the Children and others.
The MOU building upon the Hub’s contributions to CERI North-American consultation on children’s right to a healthy environment, to underscore the importance of a healthy ocean for children’s health and their contributions to the fight against climate change (see Hub’s policy brief). It also benefits from the Hub’s contributions to COP26 on children’s rights. According to the MOU, the CERI and One Ocean Hub are now collaborating on an e-learning course for 13-15 year old audience on children’s rights to a healthy environment. The Hub has also included systematic reference to children’s rights in the UNEP course on SDG 14 that the Hub has been preparing to support a coherent implementation of international environmental law, the law of the sea and human rights (see Hub’s updated paper on SDG 14 and children’s rights).
Throughout 2022, the Hub and CERI will collaborate in preparing inputs into the development of the UN General Comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, led by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. To that end, the Hub wishes to invite all relevant partners and stakeholders to contribute to the global questionnaire, that is open until15 February 2022, on the future content of General Comment No. 26 – official UN guidance on how children’s rights are impacted by the environmental crisis and what governments must do to uphold these rights. Here is the link to participate: https://l4cqlef9g5g.typeform.com/to/FcEQvkR7. In February, a child-friendly questionnaire will also be launched. If you are interested in collaborating the Hub on children’s rights and the ocean, please contact Senia Febrica.