Flavia Cabaço

Flavia Cabaço is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in legal research, policy advising, and collaboration within the UN system, focusing on human rights, environmental protection, and international law. After graduating from the Lisbon School of Law (Portugal), she completed a Master’s degree in International and European Law at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), specializing in human rights and environmental law. In that same institution, she served as a teaching assistant for a course on nature philosophy in the international legal order. Deepening her focus on environmental law, Flavia earned an LLM in International Law and Governance with a concentration on climate and environmental issues at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Flavia’s career has spanned both legal research and policy advising roles for several years at esteemed institutions such as the Centre de Compétences Dusan Sidjanski en études européennes, the Centre d’études juridiques européennes (Jean Monnet Chair), and the CIDS Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement. Transitioning into international organizations for the last few years, first in Geneva and then in New York, she has collaborated extensively within the UN system, including roles with the OHCHR, the International Law Commission, and the UNFPA. Her work has encompassed critical issues such as the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, environmental protection in armed conflicts, international law and sea-level rise, and the gendered impacts of climate change on human rights. Flavia has also contributed to the drafting of international and regional environmental treaties.

Outside her professional commitments, Flavia provides pro bono support as a legal interpreter for immigration cases focusing on political asylum seekers mostly from West Africa. She is an active volunteer at LIDERA – a década do clima, a Portuguese environmental association, and serves as a coordinator at the Green Rights Coalition.