Geneva, the 11/3/2002

RE : NGO side envents to the UN Seminar on Human Rights and the Environment

Dear Friends,

We have the pleasure to invite you to the two NGO events we are organising around the UN Seminar on Human Rights and the Environment.

As you know the Seminar is the first joint event of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights and the United Nations Environment Programme. It follows a decision of the UN Commission on Human Rights and will feed into the preparatory process of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The Seminar, on the 16 January 2002, will be prepared by a Meeting of Experts, the 14 and 15 January. This meeting is a closed session. Some of the experts are coming from NGOs. Still, we have voiced our regret that it is not a more open meeting. Therefore, our first event is an evening reception on

Tuesday 15 January at 6.30 PM,

at the Institut Universitaire d’étude du développement (IUED, 22 rue Rotschild),

just in front of the Palais Wilson

where we will be able to meet the experts and hear the results of their work and be prepared for the discussion during the Seminar.

The Seminar on the 16 January, in room XXI of the Palais des Nations, will be chaired by Mrs M. Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Mr. K Töpfer, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme. It is open to all, governments, international organisations, NGOs.

After this day, we would like to make among NGOs an evaluation of the process and plan for future actions of campaings, in view of the next sessions of the Commission on Human Rights and of the Governing Council of UNEP and of the Word Summit on Sustainable Development in Johanesburg in August 2002.

Therefore we invite you to an NGO meeting on

Thursday 17 January from 9.30 to 12.30 AM

At the Maison de Quartier des Pâquis : 50 rue de Berne

(just two blocs away from the Palais Wilson)

If needed some discussion can be continued in the afternoon.

Thank-you for announcing or confirming your participation. It helps the oragnisation.

We look forward to seeing you at the UN Seminar and at our two NGO events and to keep the contacts with you on this important issue of Human Rights and the Environment.

Yves Lador

Earthjustice Permanent Representative to

the United Nations in Geneva