Academic Year 2011-2012

MARY ROBINSON SPEAKS ON CLIMATE JUSTICE

Voorhees Chapel, Douglass Campus

Mary Robinson is President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice.  She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama.

 

A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010.

Mary Robinson serves as Honorary Presidentof Oxfam International and Chair of Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. Mary is the Chancellor of the University of Dublin since 1998.

Her public address was on ‘Climate Justice.'

Climate justice encompasses issues at the cross section of human rights, climate change and development. As defined by the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ), climate justice links human rights and development to achieve a human-centered approach, safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly. Climate justice insists that all the peoples of the world (and not just the rich and powerful) have a right to development. A developmental approach to climate justice recognizes this fact while also demanding that it should be made both possible and attractive for such development to occur in a sustainable way.

In support of this broader mission, two objectives of the Foundation speak particularly directly to the concerns of Rutgers University and Douglass College, namely:

  • the promotion of a strong human rights dimension to university learning and education on climate change, and
  • the advancement of gender equality and women as leaders in international policy and as agents of change within their communities.

Learn more about Mary Robinson's work

Principles of climate justice  and Mary Robinson Foundation mission and vision

Interview with Making It magazine

This event is co-sponsored by:

Center for Women's Global Leadership

Douglass Residential College

Centers for Global Advancement and International Affairs

Department of Geography

Institute for Women’s Leadership

Institute for Research on Women

Women and Gender Studies