Pardee School Dean Talks to Asian Attorneys General
Prof. Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was one of the keynote speakers at a conference of Attorneys General from Asia on January 19, 2015. The conference was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to mark the 130th anniversary of the office of the Attorney General in Sri Lanka and was attended by Attorneys General from 15 Asian countries. The theme for the conference was the ‘Role of the Attorney General in a Changing Asia.’
The conference was hosted by the Attorney General of Sri Lanka to mark the 130th anniversary of the creation of the office of the Attorney General of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The conference was opened by the newly elected President of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, and also by Ranil Wickramasinghe, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
Dean Adil Najam of the Pardee School was invited to give a keynote address to the conference. His address was tited ‘A Justice Prespective on Climate, Development and Security.’ The premise of the presentation was that we have already entered the age of climate adaptation. Adaptation is the cost that the failure to mitigate on time by the affluent of the world has imposed on the already marginalized.
Prof. Najam argued that we need to confront the fact that in the age of adaptation the way we look at security, at development, and indeed at the climate change problematique itself changes substantively. He pointed out that the very meaning of sustainability and sustainable development in the age of adaptation needs to be re-examined. Dean Najam pointed out that the evolving trends at the conjunction of climate change, sustainable development and human security will create new challenges for all aspects of law and policy. Jurists should therefore be paying attention to them.