QUNO  organized a side event on "Building peace through environmental access rights: preventing conflict around water, land and food" (download the briefing paper below) on Tuesday, July 1, at the Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention.

QUNO attended the 17th Working Group of the Parties of the Aarhus Convention as part of our work on Natural Resources, Conflict and Cooperation. This is a UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention linking environmental rights and human rights, focusing on the interactions between the public and public authorities.

Following an international selection process, we are pleased to announce that Lindsey Fielder Cook has been appointed as the new QUNO Representative on Climate Change. Lindsey has a background in peacebuilding and climate change, and has worked on humanitarian and donor coordination efforts with the United Nations in the West Bank and Gaza, the Former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and on communications for the United Nations Volunteers in Bonn. Lindsey will take forward this work from the newly established QUNO meeting space in Bonn.

QUNO - together with the UN Global Compact, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and the Constructive Engagement Group - held a side event on Business, Human Rights and Conflict at the 2013 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. Diane Hendrick of QUNO moderated the discussion. During this event, Lynn Finnegan from QUNO spoke about the impact that business activities can have on local communities’ access to natural resources such as water, land and food. QUNO also outlined good practices for effective company-community engagement.​

QUNO publishes a new report, ‘Building peace around water, land and food: Policy and practice for preventing conflict’.

QUNO held - together with CARE International, Catholic Relief Service, CGIAR Challenge Programme on Water and Food; Howard G. Buffett Foundation; International Institute for Environment and Development and International Union for Conservation of Nature - a seminar on “Water Management and Peacebuilding: Connecting the Local to International Policy” at the Stockholm World Water Week in September. The seminar shared examples of policy and practice that bring water, land and food management together with peacebuilding and rights-based approaches.

QUNO attended the thirty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 38) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 38), and the second part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-2) under the UNFCCC.

QUNO made a statement to the Independent Expert on human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment at the Human Rights Council 22nd session. QUNO drew particular attention to the valuable role that peacebuilding approaches can play in fulfilling procedural rights relating to natural resource management .