Roadmap for the legal sector to improve life below water and life on land: Launch of Legal Guides to SDG 14 & SDG 15
On World Animal Day, A4ID considers the state of the precious natural habitats needed for the wellbeing and survival of animals, humans, and other living organisms. With a strong belief that lawyers play a critical role in improving marine life and life on land, A4ID is pleased to launch its legal guides on SDGs 14 and 15, providing a roadmap for lawyers to take action.
The Earth is currently facing a triple planetary crisis, threatened by climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Despite past efforts to address this triple threat, the natural environment remains vulnerable to harm from human activities through the destruction of natural habitats, exploitation of organisms, pollution, and introduction of invasive species. The impact of these activities is being exacerbated by the irreversible effects of climate change, which threatens entire species and whole ecosystems (see for example, the plight of the Great Barrier Reef).
Such ecological consequences can have devastating flow on effects for communities, whose lives and livelihoods are at stake. In fact, environmental degradation can seriously challenge our ability to make progress on all other SDGs, as mutually reinforcing environmental risks compound existing socio-political and economic problems in countries.
SDG 14 & SDG 15
In the face of these multifaceted threats, SDG 14 and SDG 15 set us on a path to conserve and sustainably use natural resources, protect habitats and species, and restore degraded areas on land and below water.
However, progress to date has been modest. Life on land continues to face new challenges, with increasing land degradation, deforestation, and species extinction risks. Below water, ocean acidification, eutrophication, and plastic pollution continue to threaten marine ecosystems.
As with all SDGs, collective action is required to achieve SDGs 14 and 15, including from a range of cross-sector partners from international, regional, and local spheres. This is even more so where the health of the natural world is so acutely intertwined with the socio-economic livelihoods of individuals and organisations worldwide.
Lawyers are an essential piece of the puzzle
Lawyers are instrumental in safeguarding the planet’s biodiversity and preventing the loss of habitats. Lawyers create the legal infrastructure needed to protect the natural environment. They are advocates for the non-human and human beneficiaries of SDGs 14 and 15.
At the international level, lawyers develop critical frameworks to set higher standards for environmental conservation, such as the recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the new High Seas Treaty on marine biodiversity, and the recently proposed legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. At the regional level, lawyers facilitate transboundary governance approaches to protecting the natural environment for cross-border issues such as the illegal wildlife trade. Domestically, Lawyers develop and apply legislation with the goal of environmental protection, holding governments and corporations to account for actions that hinder the achievement of SDGs 14 and 15.
A4ID’s SDG Legal Initiative
Reflecting A4ID’s ethos that lawyers are powerful agents of change, A4ID works with the legal sector across the world towards its SDG Legal Initiative. The Initiative is a collective call to action to lawyers to work towards achieving the SDG Agenda. As part of the Initiative, A4ID has developed the world’s first Legal Guide to the SDGs which is a unique resource, providing a foundational analysis of the role that law can and should play in the achievement of the SDGs.
A4ID CEO Yasmin Batliwala MBE urges lawyers to utilise the SDG Legal Guides: “The guides supply lawyers with a blueprint to action. Providing practical examples and functional advice, the guides are a toolbox for anyone in the legal community looking to foster change and play their part in achieving the Sustainable Development Agenda.”
As part of this Initiative, A4ID has released legal guides for SDG 14: Life Below Water and SDG 15: Life on Land, providing further insights on the SDG, and offering a roadmap for lawyers on how to tackle the triple planetary crisis of today.
