Professor John Knox
Professor John Knox of Wake Forest University School of Law in North Carolina is an internationally recognized expert on human rights and international environmental law. As Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, he prepared numerous authoritative reports for the UN Human Rights Council on the application of human rights to environmental issues.
Mediator between human rights and environmental protection
"John Knox has made it clear that human rights cannot be properly exercised if the environment is not adequately protected and that environmental protection without respect for human rights is doomed to failure. He has not confined his message to the proverbial academic ivory tower, but has always been active within various national and international policy circles."
Professor Luc Lavrysen, Faculty of Law and Criminology, is the promotor of this honorary doctorate.
Laudatio for Professor John Knox from the "Park van Ooit" near the mural by Ghent street artist Cee Pil. Cee Pil often seeks the contrast between nature and culture in his work. He disturbs tranquil, beautiful images of fauna and flora with surrealistic, almost digital-looking effects. These are intended to make viewers think about how people, animals and plants live together.
Is environmental protection a human right? The efforts of honorary doctor John H. Knox
More frequent environmental disasters due to global warming, plant and animal species that disappear, ecosystems that are disrupted. These are environmental problems, but increasingly they threaten human rights, such as the right to health or even the right to life. It raises the question: is the right to a healthy environment actually a human right?
Horonary doctor John Knox:
"We urgently need international efforts to protect the environment in order to protect human rights."
Read the interview
