Key Dates: Submissions open March 7 Submissions close April 6 NGALI GARIMA MALLA JUGUN  (we look after this Country) Through a new editorial partnership, Right Now and Groundswell are platforming stories that explore the intersection of climate change and human rights, pertaining to First Nations justice. ‘NGALI GARIMA MALLA JUGUN’ is a series of pieces rolled out from May to August 2023 led by First Nations Editor Phoebe McIlwraith. SEEKING SUBMISSIONS  For previously unpublished non-fiction, personal essays, experimental non-fiction, opinion pieces and interviews [maximum 1000 word ..read more

With its palm-studded beaches and beautiful bay, river and canal, the City of Port Phillip in Melbourne is a dream destination for those with their hearts set on a room with a water view. Out-of-towners, too, cherish the area for its iconic piers and Luna Park, the Espy and Palais, and the towering Ngargee Tree, a meeting place for the Bunurong people, the Traditional Owners of the lands. But planning experts believe many residents and property owners are under informed about how climate change will increase their risk of flooding in coming decades. They say Port Phillip residents – living in ..read more

Law has emerged as one the key battlegrounds of the Climate Crisis. As the world heats up, so too have many courtrooms around the world as activists try to hold governments and companies to account for their greenhouse gas emissions (and regulatory omissions). And in these battles, human rights have come to the fore as a key weapon of choice employed by many litigants. Several cases have captured the global legal imagination. In Urgenda v. The Netherlands, a Dutch NGO successfully argued that rights to life, privacy and the home protected under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) re ..read more

In a historical resolution on 28 July 2022, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) formally recognised the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. This declaration followed United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution 48/13 of 8 October 2021 that earlier recognized the right to a healthy environment as a “human right that is important for the enjoyment of human rights.” Australia was one of the 160 states that voted in favour of the UNGA declaration. However there’s much work to be done to implement and realise a right to a healthy environment in thi ..read more

To many observers who increasingly despair at the limp efforts by governments and corporations to address the climate emergency, environmental law can seem like one of the most viable strategies to meaningfully and swiftly address the crisis. Environmental law, given that it’s concerned with the protection of environmental ‘public goods’ or ‘commons’, such as the atmosphere, biological diversity and water systems, as well as social or collective human values dependent on those commons, can be one of our best strategies to promote the right to a safe and healthy environment – but is it up to th ..read more

The Right to a Healthy Environment* may be implied in the Australian Constitution. I argue this position based on existing precedent regarding constitutional implications: the High Court recognises that rights may be implied in the Constitution if ‘necessary’ to protect the Constitution itself: Lange (1997). My argument is that a Right to a Healthy Environment is so ‘necessary’ because the Australian constitutional system requires a healthy environment to function. The implied right to a healthy environment For an example of the Court’s approach to establishing implied constitutional rights, c ..read more

Don’t look away. That’s the challenge for journalists reporting on human rights and climate change. How to sustain attention, inspire people to care enough to vote and advocate for change.  Now try doing that as a student journalist and getting your story published in mainstream media.  This was the opportunity Right Now set for a lucky bunch of postgraduate students at the Centre for Advancing Journalism (University of Melbourne). The pay off? Scale. Impact. Investigations. New journalists launching careers with skills, contacts and credibility in climate and human rights reporting ..read more

As the climate crisis intensifies, so too does the language we use about the impacts of harmful human behaviour on the environment. But as Bundjalung and Worimi Saltwater woman Phoebe McIlwraith points out, human beings have a positive role to play in place, and that instead of focusing on our capacity to harm, we should recognise our interconnectedness with earth’s ecosystems and value our capacity to care, as First Nations peoples have done since time immemorial. Phoebe McIlwraith lives on Awabakal and Worimi Country There’s a USB that permanently remains in the radio of nunyar mahmeh’s (my ..read more

In August 2019, 20-year-old Ruqia Haidari contacted detectives from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to report that she was being threatened and coerced by members of her family to enter into a forced marriage. Despite the AFP’s numerous attempts to offer Ms Haidari assistance to leave her situation, she was deterred by the risk of increased violence that could have resulted from outside intervention.  The forced marriage went ahead in November 2019 and within a few months of leaving her loved ones in Victoria to live with her new husband in Perth, she had been murdered. The husband sh ..read more

Glen Yates is 46 years old with two children, his youngest still in primary school. He doesn’t smoke and is of average weight, but recently he’s been diagnosed with a suite of health problems, including asthma.  “I had some issues with my heart, which then led to finding a blood clot in one of my lungs,” he says. Glen’s house in the Melbourne suburb of Yarraville is located 20 metres off Somerville Road, one of the main residential freight routes that has earned this section of the inner western suburbs the label “truck corridor”. Chronic illnesses such as Glen’s are consistent with those ..read more