Subscribe
Home Submit a post

Submit a post

The “Pathway to the 2022 Declaration” blog invites legal and policy experts to submit short contributions in the form of articles, opinion editorials, policy proposals, etc., that could prove useful for diplomats negotiating the 2022 Declaration. This is not an academic blog but an action-oriented blog. Submitted articles are meant to contain proposals upon which diplomats could act.

Diplomatic Context

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 73/333 of 30 August 2019 mandated the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) “to prepare, at its fifth session, in February 2021, a political declaration for a United Nations high-level meeting, subject to voluntary funding, in the context of the commemoration of the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm from 5 to 16 June 1972, with a view to strengthening the implementation of international environmental law and international environmental governance”.

The 2022 Declaration comes at a critical juncture for the global environment and its community of life. In spite of the legal, political, and governmental progresses that have been accomplished since the 1972 Stockholm Conference, the ecological state of the Earth system is still worsening. The 2020 Emissions Gap Report of the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that the world is heading for a temperature rise in excess of 3°C this century compared to pre-industrial levels – far beyond the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing a 1.5°C target. The situation of biodiversity loss is even more serious, with the sixth massive species extinction unfolding before our very eyes. These two ‘planetary boundaries’ are, in turn, vectors which influence all others and pose a genuine existential threat to humanity.

In November 2019, UNEA nominated two co-facilitators, Ado Lõhmus and Saqlain Syedah, to initiate informal consultations to prepare the 2022 Declaration. While States and regional groups will ultimately decide of the Declaration’s wording, the consultations process offers a window of opportunity for legal and policy experts to contribute to its elaboration.

 

Guidelines for submission

Content

  • Actionable content: the content of the contributions is expected to be concrete, precise, and directly related to the preparation of the 2022 Declaration. Contributions should include actionable proposals pertaining to the Declaration, for example as to its content or its legal nature. Pathway to the 2022 Declaration is an action-oriented blog, not an academic one.
  • Intelligible style: publications are expected to be intelligible by diplomats, with a self-contained writing style that is sufficiently comprehensible by jurists and non-jurists alike.
  • Key Proposals: in addition to the text of the article itself, submissions should be complemented by a short text summarizing the contribution’s key proposals in two or three bullet points.
  • Language: the language of publication is English.

Format

  • Length: the length of a contribution should be between 1000 and 2000 words, inclusive of any references.
  • Footnotes: footnotes may be used on the Blog. However, it is preferable that all references be included through hyperlinks. No distinction is made between endnotes and footnotes.
  • Headings: if the contribution has subdivisions, they should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, …), 1.2, etc. The introduction is not included in section numbering. Headings should be in bold.
  • Citations: citations and references should be put in parentheses immediately after the propositions or quotations that they support.
  • Hyperlinks: insert embedded hyperlinks to relevant supporting material and legal texts, including statutes, treaties, and cases. In Word, hyperlinks can be easily embedded by selecting text, right-clicking, and choosing the link option in the contextual menu.

Submission

  • Author profile: if this is your first time contributing to Pathway to the 2022 Declaration, we will create your author profile. Please submit a short biography ranging from 100 to 200 words, including if applicable a hyperlink to your professional web page and details of any LinkedIn or Twitter profile you may have. Please also attach a color photo of yourself to your email. You may additionally send any other photographs that are relevant to the content of your post as well as a recent picture.
  • Key words: a short list of key words must also be included to ensure proper referencing of the article.
  • Revisions: contributors can expect to be asked to revise their contributions and publication is never guaranteed.

Back