On May 21, 2015, five years after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, John Knox and Manish Bapna wrote an op-ed for Thomson Reuters about the increased need for public access to environmental information, public participation in environmental decision-making, and enforcement of environmental laws. Access, participation, and justice, Knox and Bapna say, create the basis for environmental democracy and help ensure the protection of human rights. They describe the World Resources Institute’s recently released Environmental Democracy Index, which evaluates 70 countries’ environmental laws based on standards set by the UN Environmental Programme.
Reuters Op-Ed on Environmental Democracy

About John Knox
John Knox is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment. He is also the Henry C. Lauerman Professor of International Law at the Wake Forest University School of Law.
Subscribe
Related Posts:
- U.N. Expert: Biodiversity Is Essential To Human Rights
- “Protecting those who work to defend the environment is a human rights issue”
- Mongabay: “Climate negotiators focus on carbon credits, underplay human rights”
- “In the Crosshairs of Development”
- Paris climate deal must ensure respect for human rights
- Presentation to Human Rights Council February 17, 2016
- Joint statement on Rio Doce disaster November 25, 2015
- Putting Rio Principle 10 into action October 29, 2015
- October 2015 Newsletter October 27, 2015
- UN experts applaud ECLAC negotiation October 23, 2015
- Knox Statement to Human Rights Council March 6, 2018
- Newsletter no. 26 February 1, 2018
- Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment January 24, 2018
- Report on children’s rights and the environment January 24, 2018
- Statement on Evictions of Sengwer in western Kenya January 15, 2018
Comments are closed.