RWI sessions at COP28:
Exploring Slow-Onset Disaster & Mobility Risks from Human Rights Perspective
But, what is COP?
COP stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’, and is the supreme decision-making body of the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted in 1992. All states that are Parties to this Convention attend the COP. At the summit, they will review the implementation of the Convention and any other legal instruments that the COP adopts, including the Paris Agreement from 2015. They will also take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the Convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements.
‘The Parties’ refers to the 197 states that have signed the UNFCCC adopted in 1992. For almost three decades, world governments have gathered every year at the COP, with the exception of 2020 when COP was postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19, to forge a global response to the climate emergency.
During COP 21 in 2015, the binding international treaty ‘The Paris Agreement’ was adopted by almost all countries in the world. By signing the agreement, states committed to submit their national plans on how to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This is widely known as the ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs).
COP28 comes at a decisive moment for international climate action. Temperature records are being repeatedly broken and climate impacts felt in unprecedented wildfires, floods, storms and droughts worldwide. The UN’s global stocktake synthesis report shows much more must be done to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. COP28 presents a critical opportunity to put the world on a more sustainable path. Additionally, this years COP will mark the conclusion of the first global stocktake (GST), the main mechanism through which progress under the Paris Agreement is assessed. It is clear the world is not on track to meeting the agreement’s goals. The hope is that governments at COP28 will come up with a roadmap to accelerate climate action. Other critical tasks facing negotiators in Dubai include agreeing on a framework for the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation (GGA).
Meet us at COP28 in UAE
Windi Arini
Windi is currently the Country Director (a.i.) in Indonesia. She manages activities on localizing human rights in the context of SDGs in Asia Pacific and RWIs engagement with young people in the region. Her multidimensional role also allows her to oversee the national programmes in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights.
She graduated from Atma Jaya Catholic University (Faculty of Law) in 2010 and dedicated the following years working at a law firm targeting capacity building for the Indonesian military. As a committed and passionate young professional, she taught foundational knowledge on international humanitarian law to the Indonesian military.
After obtaining her master’s degree in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Oslo, she spent almost 4 years as a human rights officer at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. She worked on various thematic areas including children and women’s rights, business human rights, as well as the rights of persons with disabilities. She provided technical support and managed projects for the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (ASEAN-IPR).
When Windi is not in the office, she enjoys reading, traveling, and is very fond of spicy food.
Claudia Ituarte-Lima
Dr. Claudia Ituarte-Lima is Leader of the Human Rights and the Environment thematic area and senior researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
Dr. Claudia Ituarte-Lima an international public lawyer and scholar with over two decades of experience at the intersection of human rights, biodiversity, and climate change law and policy. Holding an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from University College London, she works as Thematic Lead and Senior Researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden and serves as Director of the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment.
Her work bridges legal analysis with sustainability science to address critical environmental and human rights governance challenges. Using participatory approaches, she ensures her research is both impactful for the communities she engages with and innovative in advancing knowledge on environmental justice and social-ecological dynamics. She has authored over 25 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, alongside more than 35 technical reports and policy briefs. Her publications consolidate international human rights and gender equality standards within biodiversity, climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and environmental human rights defenders contexts. Additionally, she has conducted empirical research at subnational levels, providing valuable localized insights. Her research has been published in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Chinese.
Together with partner organizations, she has designed and facilitated capacity-bridging initiatives with professionals across three continents: blended learning courses with judges, National Human Rights Institutions, public prosecutors and bar associations in Asia; in Latin America and the Caribbean, facilitating UNEP’s Fifth Montevideo Environmental Law Programme Conference in Panama; in Africa, delivering workshops for UNEP and UNDP staff in Kenya. She has also contributed significantly to integrating human rights into the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) decisions. Her proposals on human rights safeguards in biodiversity financing mechanisms were adopted by the CBD’s 193 Parties. Furthermore, she has served as an expert in policy support tools for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Committed to disseminating research insights broadly, her op-eds and articles have been featured in prominent platforms like The Conversation, the World Economic Forum, The Diplomat, and Inter Press Service News Agency. Living and working across Sweden, Mexico, Kenya, Japan, Canada, and the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon has enriched her understanding of diverse cultural and environmental contexts with unique skills to catalyze research and action with international scope while being contextually relevant.
For further updates on her research, please refer to her Research profile:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claudia-Ituarte-Lima
https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/claudia-ituarte-lima
Matthew Scott
Matthew Scott is senior researcher and leader of the Human Rights and the Environment thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He is also associate professor and adjunct senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Lund University. His work focuses on integrating social science perspectives with international legal standards to promote context-sensitive, human rights-based law, policy and practice relating to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This work is guided by the Framework for Integrating Rights and Equality (FIRE), which he has pioneered through a series of collaborations with academic and development partners in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe. His primary area of expertise concerns human mobility in the context of disasters and climate change, on which he has published widely. Current research and programming interests concern urban climate-related human mobility, building resilience to pandemic risk, and rights-based climate adaptation using the FIRE framework.
He holds a PhD in Public International Law from Lund University and a MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS. He practiced immigration and asylum law in London before entering academia. He is a member of the advisory committee of the Platform on Disaster Displacement and the editorial board of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law, and a founding member of the Nordic Network on Climate Related Displacement and Mobility and the Asia-Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement.
At Lund University he convenes the introduction to human rights law course and the short course on human rights law, the environment and climate change on the LLM in international human rights law programme. He also lectures on the MSc programme in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
For further updates on his research, please refer to his Research profile:
https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/matthew-scott
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