On 13 October 2025, Nina Lakhani, climate justice reporter the Guardian, published this interview with Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders, who presented her final annual thematic report during an interactive dialogue at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee. The Special Rapporteur’s report focused on the contributions of human rights defenders addressing climate change and working to realise a just transition from fossil fuels, and the risks they face in carrying out this work.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders since 2020, has documented hundreds of cases where states have sought to smear and silence climate defenders engaged in peaceful protest, non-violent civil disobedience and litigation.
“Attacks against climate defenders have surged over the course of the mandate, and we now see outright repression against people who are organizing for climate action. It’s some of the states that have claimed to be the strongest supporters of human rights defenders including the UK, Germany, France and the US, that are most often repressing climate activists and where the right to protest is being denigrated and delegitimized.
“These big countries spew out the rhetoric about 1.5C, but they don’t mean it. They are playing the game to suit themselves. It’s business as usual,” Lawlor said in an interview with the Guardian.
Lawlor will present the penultimate report of her six-year mandate, “Tipping points: Human rights defenders, climate change and a just transition”, to the UN general assembly on 16 October.
It documents state repression including police violence and surveillance, civil litigation deployed to deliberately wear down and silence climate defenders known as Slapp (strategic lawsuits against public participation), as well as bogus criminal charges ranging from sedition, criminal defamation, terrorism and conspiracy to trespass, to public disorder and to disobedience.
One trend documented by Lawlor is the conflation of non-violent climate action with terrorism. In 2022, the French minister of interior at the time, and current minister of justice, accused the national environmental movement Les Soulèvements de la Terre of “ecoterrorism”. The government sought to close down the group, but the country’s highest administrative court eventually overturned the effort.
Lawlor is adamant that climate activists are human rights defenders. They use non-violent protest, disruptive civil disobedience and litigation to stop fossil fuel projects and pressure elected officials to take meaningful action precisely because they are trying to protect the right to food, clean water, health, life and a healthy environment.
But it’s not just fossil fuels. Human rights are now being targeted in the rush for critical minerals and new sources of non-fossil energy. The same repressive playbook is being used by governments and private companies involved in land grabs, pollution and Indigenous rights violations in pursuit of a green transition.
“Governments are repressing human rights defenders and the current trajectory is incompatible with the realization of human rights for all. It’s just a road to destruction … I think states are behaving in a criminal fashion,” Lawlor said.
“No system, no power, no government, no big company seeking profit should trump the rights of billions of people in the world. And that’s what’s happening. It’s the rich, the powerful that are creating such a disaster for humanity.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/climate-defenders-mary-lawlor-human-rights
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