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A workshop on “human rights and nuclear disasters” hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and led by lawyers and doctors from France, Japan, Canada, Belarus and Switzerland will be held on Friday, 28 February at the Ecumenical Centre, Grand Saconnex, Geneva.
The workshop is being organized by the WCC, International Centre of Environmental Comparative Law (CIDCE) and the Biederthal group, a network of lawyers and doctors working on issues related to nuclear disasters.
Panellists will share research findings and legal analyses of the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters. Topics will include international disaster law, the human right to health, a United Nations special rapporteur’s report on Fukushima and the experience of Chernobyl children. There will also be medical and legal analyses of a Japanese law on support for nuclear disaster victims and of accident management by nuclear regulatory bodies in Japan and France. The WCC will offer a brief report from the International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons held 13-14 February in Nayarit, Mexico.
“Human rights and public health are essential for a human-centred response to nuclear disasters,” said Jonathan Frerichs of the WCC. “Civilian and military uses of nuclear energy pose both grave and uncontrollable risks to the public.”
“The workshop will offer in-depth, inter-disciplinary scrutiny of those risks, which are on the rise globally,” added Frerichs. “As a worldwide association of churches, the WCC is pleased to facilitate – here in international Geneva – such a timely discussion of the common good.”
To register for the workshop contact:
Stephanie Bartkowiak, CIDCE, + 33 (0)5 55 34 97 25 or email: stephanie.bartkowiak[at]cidce.org
