GEOS 5501: Human Rights and the Environment

Ms Jo Gillespie

Credit Points: 6
Session: February (weeks 8-13)
Classes: Two 2 hour sessions per week and 4-hours per week personal study
Assessment: 3000 word essay 70%, Seminar paper 30%

This core unit of study addresses the nexus between human rights and the environment. The unit has a geographical focus on Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Human rights and environmental concerns intersect in diverse and complex ways. Rights to a healthy environment and rights to resources forge a common cause between human rights advocates and environmental activists. Projects such as dams and mines have on-site and wider environmental impacts that displace marginal groups and impact on their rights to livelihood. On the other hand, creation of protected areas and other forms of environmental protection that alienate indigenous and other groups from their customary land and livelihoods create an uneasy relationship between human rights and environmental movements. Public and private access to urban space is also bound up with rights around race, sexuality and class. There are also human rights issues associated with climate change, the fate of South Pacific islands and environmental refugees. The unit of study deals with the human rights – environment nexus around such themes through a series of lectures, seminars and case study based assignment work.