Right to Development at 40: from colonialism to conflicts and climate change
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS University of London
- Room
- Senate House Alumni Lecture Theatre (SALT)
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
The right to development, a human right rooted in the struggle for decolonisation, remains a distant dream for billions of people all over the world, especially in the Global South.
As we prepare to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, this talk will focus on ongoing challenges to the realisation of this right posed by three Cs: colonialism, conflicts and climate change.
Professor Deva will argue that the right to development is not merely a victim of these three Cs. Rather, it also offers transformative tools to overcome challenges of neo-colonialism, conflicts and climate change. Deva will rely on four illustrative tools – participation, disarmament, intergenerational equity and international cooperation – to achieve a course correction that the world urgently needs.
About the speaker
Surya Deva
Professor Surya Deva is the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development and a Professor at Macquarie Law School, where he directs the Environmental Law Research Centre. An internationally recognised scholar in business and human rights, he served on the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (2016–22) and was a founding Editor-in-Chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal. He is an elected Vice President of the International Association of Constitutional Law (2022–26). Two of his UN reports were cited by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its advisory opinion on climate emergency and human rights.
