This seminar marked the launch of Climate Change and Mass Atrocities: Towards a Blueprint for Future Research by Dr Ben Parr, the 2024 Mary Wing-Ming Lee Human Rights Senior Research Fellow. Dr Parr specializes in climate change and defense and is author of Climate Change Action and the Responsibility to Protect: A Common Cause (Routledge, 2023). He previously served as Assistant to the Hon Gareth Evans AC KC and has researched climate-conflict and climate-atrocity linkages. He currently works with the Australian federal government.
Mr Ilan Kiloe, Acting Director General of the Secretariat of the Melanesian Spearhead Group and former Head of Political and Security & Legal Affairs for MSG Secretariat in Port Vila, Vanuatu, was our second speaker. Mr Kiloe presented the MSG and Vanuatu joint submission at the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Climate Change proceedings in December 2024. His insights provided valuable illumination on Pacific perspectives regarding climate change.
Our third speaker and UQ expert Professor Matt McDonald, Professor of International Relations at UQ's School of Political Science and International Studies, specializes in critical security studies and environmental change and is currently leading an ARC-funded project examining national responses to climate security implications.
