Caroline Mair Toby

Founder and director of Institute for Small Islands, with over 15 years specialising in climate change, postcolonial relations, transitional justice, intersectional rights, public international environmental and human rights law. The Institute for Small Islands is a research institute focused on environment, human rights, sustainability and cultural heritage. Caroline is an advocate for the rights of those most vulnerable at the frontlines of climate change. She has advised small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs) at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) and negotiation sessions since 2011, and was most recently a delegate with London-based Legal Response International at the UNFCCC COP26 this November, advising SIDS, LDCs and indigenous peoples. Caroline is in direct contact with Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities across the Caribbean basin, and is part of the legal and research team advising the Merikin Heritage Foundation, a Maroon traditional group in Trinidad petitioning for indigenous recognition at the United Nations and establishing a historical monument in Florida. She is advising the Garifuna People in Belize on the protection of their cultural and environmental heritage, as well as an Indigenous women’s group in Ecuador in combating the rapid deforestation of their traditional homelands in the Amazon. IFSI is an independent policy institute, which rests on four pillars: the environment (with a particular focus on climate change), human rights, sustainable development and culture. The objectives of the Institute are the study of small islands across the world from an interdisciplinary angle; the rigorous and independent analysis of challenges and opportunities facing small islands; and the facilitation of information exchange regarding small islands from the academic and professional milieu to the mainstream.