Human Rights Workshop: John Knox, "Climate Change and UN Human Rights Bodies"

John H. Knox is the Henry C. Lauerman Professor of International Law at Wake Forest University, in North Carolina. He received his law degree from Stanford Law School with honors in 1987, and worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of State and at a private law firm before joining academia in 1998. Between 1999 and 2005, he chaired a national advisory committee to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and from 2008 to 2012, he was Special Counsel to the Center for International Environmental Law. From 2012 to 2018, he served as the first UN Independent Expert, then the first Special Rapporteur, on the human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. In 2018, in his final report to the UN Human Rights Council, he presented Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment and called on the United Nations to recognize the human right to a healthy environment. He is on the board of the Universal Rights Group and of Shift, and on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law. His publications include The Human Right to a Healthy Environment (Cambridge University Press, 2018).  

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