IBA (INTERNATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION) PRESIDENT RATIFIES CLIMATE CRISIS STATEMENT
The IBA President, Horacio Bernardes Neto, ratified the IBA Climate Crisis Statement, highlighting that ‘the legal profession must be prepared to play a leading role in maintaining and strengthening the rule of law, and supporting responsible enlightened governance in an era marked by climate crisis’.
The Statement reaffirms the IBA’s commitment to assist the global legal community to promote and protect human rights and to support achievement of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular Sustainable Development Goals 1, 7, 15 and 16. Further, it highlights the IBA’s commitment to contribute to global stability and peace through the promotion and protection of the rule of law, and to tackling the challenges brought about by the climate crisis.
The Statement was drafted in the context of consensus within the scientific community that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to humanity and life on the planet. The failure to respond effectively will be disastrous for the earth’s current inhabitants and future generations and is already affecting the planet’s capacity to support a prosperous society and economy.
The Statement has five resolutions, including urging lawyers to take a climate-conscious approach to problems encountered in daily legal practice, and encouraging engagement with current and future policymaking efforts to address the climate crisis. Mr Bernardes Neto, a senior partner at Motta Fernandes Advogados in São Paulo, commented that these five resolutions ‘recognise the role that lawyers can and must play in combatting the climate emergency’. Further, he highlighted that a global response to the climate emergency will give rise to increased disputes, with lawyers representing the legal interests and rights of all sides. Parties to those disputes will include states, corporations, communities, civil society organisations and individuals who are most vulnerable to the impacts of this particular crisis.