Posts Tagged ‘environmental defenders’

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Global Witness 2023-2024 Annual Report: Violent Erasure of Land and Environmental Defenders

September 18, 2024

According to a new report by Global Witness released on 10 September, more than 2,100 land and environmental defenders were killed globally between 2012 and 2023.

  • An estimated 196 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2023 around the world, according to a new Global Witness report published today
  • The new figures take the total number of defenders killed between 2012 to 2023 to 2,106
  • For the second year running, Colombia had the highest number of killings worldwide – with a record 79 defenders killed last year, followed by Brazil (25), Mexico (18) and Honduras (18)
  • Once again, Latin America had the highest number of recorded killings worldwide, with 166 killings overall – 54 killings across Mexico and Central America and 112 in South America
  • Environmental defenders are also being increasingly subject to range of tactics for silencing those who speak out for the planet across Asia, the UK, EU and US

The new figures bring the total number of defender killings to 2,106 between 2012 and 2023.

Overall, Colombia was found to be the deadliest country in the world, with 79 deaths in total last year – compared to 60 in 2022, and 33 in 2021. This is the most defenders killed in one country in a single year Global Witness has ever recorded. With 461 killings from 2012 to 2023, Colombia has the highest number of reported environmental defender killings globally on record.

See:https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/09/25/global-witness-annual-report-2022-a-land-rights-defender-killed-every-other-day/

Other deadly countries in Latin America include Brazil, with 25 killings last year, and Mexico and Honduras, which both had 18 killings.

Central America has emerged as one of the most dangerous places in the world for defenders. With 18 defenders killed in Honduras, the country had the highest number of killings per capita in 2023. A total of 10 defenders were also killed in Nicaragua last year, while four were killed in Guatemala, and four in Panama.

Worldwide, Indigenous Peoples and Afrodescendents continue to be disproportionately targeted, accounting for 49% of total murders.

Laura Furones, Lead Author and Senior Advisor to the Land and Environmental Defenders Campaign at Global Witness, said:

“As the climate crisis accelerates, those who use their voice to courageously defend our planet are met with violence, intimidation, and murder. Our data shows that the number of killings remains alarmingly high, a situation that is simply unacceptable.

While establishing a direct relationship between the murder of a defender and specific corporate interests remains difficult, Global Witness identified mining as the biggest industry driverby far, with 25 defenders killed after opposing mining operations in 2023. Other industries include fishing (5), logging (5), agribusiness (4), roads and infrastructure (4) and hydropower (2).

In total, 23 of the 25 mining-related killings globally last year happened in Latin America. But more than 40% of all mining-related killings between 2012 and 2023 occurred in Asia – home to significant natural reserves of key critical minerals vital for clean energy technologies.

As well as highlighting the number of killings worldwide, the report unearths wider trends in non-lethal attacks and their harmful impacts on communities globally. It highlights cases of enforced disappearances and abductions, pointed tactics used in both the Philippines and Mexico in particular, as well as the wider use of criminalisation as a tactic to silence activists across the world.

The report also explores the crackdown on environmental activists across the UK, Europe and the US, where laws are increasingly being weaponised against defenders, and harsh sentences are more frequently imposed on those who have played a role in climate protests. The findings form part of a concerning trend of criminalisation cases emerging worldwide.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/09/11/european-governments-are-using-harsh-overly-broad-laws-to-silence-climate-protesters

Despite the escalating climate crisis – and governments pledging to achieve the Paris Agreement target of 1.5C – land and environmental defenders are being increasingly subject to a wide range of attacks to stop their efforts to protect the planet. At least 1,500 defenders have been killed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement on 12 December 2015.

Nonhle Mbuthuma, author of the report’s foreword and Goldman Environmental Prize Winner 2024, said:

“Across every corner of the globe, those who dare to expose the devastating impact of extractive industries — deforestation, pollution, and land grabbing — are met with violence and intimidation. This is especially true for Indigenous Peoples, who are essential in the fight against climate change, yet are disproportionately targeted year after year.

Download Report (PDF | 2.76 MB | Full Report)

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Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and development

August 19, 2024

The General Assembly received the report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor.

In the report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, highlights the contributions made by human rights defenders to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In the report, she demonstrates that, across every one of the 17 Goals, human rights defenders are placing human rights at the core of sustainable development and, in doing so, are assisting States in their responsibility to leave no one behind. The Special Rapporteur highlights that this work is being made more difficult by increasing restrictions on the right to defend rights.

Download Report (PDF | 431.83 KB | English version)

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-defenders-a79123-enarruzh

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Right Livelihood tells UN Human Rights Council: Environmental defenders should be applauded, not attacked

August 5, 2024

Right Livelihood’s advocacy team delivered a statement at the 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva calling for Member States to stop retaliating against environmental defenders. The statement highlighted the struggles of Right Livelihood Laureates from Cambodia, Kenya and Nicaragua, where activists leading the fight against climate change face unlawful arrests, armed attacks and police violence, among other forms of oppression, for their peaceful activities. 

Right Livelihood Laureates from Cambodia, Nicaragua and Kenya who are leading the fight against climate change are being attacked by their governments, a concerning trend Right Livelihood says the Council has a responsibility to reverse.

Addressing the Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of human rights in the context of climate change, Right Livelihood asked, “How can the Council better address reprisals against environmental defenders playing a key role in the fight against climate change?”

The question was critical for Right Livelihood as an organisation that has awarded 96 change-makers for their environmental activism since its inception in 1980, many of whom are persecuted for their work.[see:https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/97238E26-A05A-4A7C-8A98-0D267FDDAD59%5D

Among those Laureates is Mother Nature Cambodia (MNC), a peaceful youth movement raising awareness about environmentally disastrous development projects. Earlier this month, ten MNC members received six to eight-year prison sentences on sham charges for plotting against the government and insulting the king.

Similarly, in Kenya, Laureate Phyllis Omido and her organisation the Center for Justice Governance and Environmental Action have been targeted by the government for organising against business interests that jeopardise the environment. 

In May, Omido and local community leaders came under threat when police brutalised protestors for opposing a nuclear project in a biodiverse area between the Watamu National Marine Park and the Arabuko Sokoke Forest. Police fired 137 live rounds and 70 tear gas canisters.

“Investigations into such crimes are rare, and those speaking out face severe reprisals,” we told the Council.

Wefinished our statement by highlighting the situation in Nicaragua, where Indigenous communities protecting their land are attacked, forcefully displaced and killed by illegal settlers involved in mining and cattle trading.

You can read the full statement here.

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Green human rights defenders of Mother Nature jailed in Cambodia

July 3, 2024

Five Cambodian activists record a podcast.
Five Mother Nature activists, from left to right Ly Chandaravuth, Thun Ratha, Yim Leanghy, Phuon Keoraksmey, and Long Kunthea on June 11, 2024. © 2024 Private

Cambodia has jailed 10 environmental activists who had sounded the alarm on river pollution for plotting against the government – a case critics have decried as politically motivated. Members of the group Mother Nature were charged in 2021 after they documented waste run-off into Phnom Penh’s Tonle Sap river, near the royal palace. [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/d41428d8-4b96-4370-975e-f11b36778f51]

Three of them, including Spanish co-founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who were also convicted of insulting the king, were sentenced to eight years’ jail and fined $2,500 (£1,980). The seven others were handed six-year terms. Prosecutors have never explained how the activists had violated the law against insulting the king or conspiring against the government.

Since its founding in 2013, Mother Nature has campaigned against environmentally destructive projects and raised questions on how natural resources are managed in the South East Asian country. They document their findings in playful and informative videos that they post on Facebook, where they have 457,000 followers.

Environmental groups have long accused Cambodia’s leaders of profiting from the country’s natural resources. The government denies this and says Mother Nature is encouraging social unrest. Gonzalez-Davidson, who was earlier banned from entering Cambodia, called the verdict a “disastrous decision by the Hun family regime”.

Opposition political parties were dismantled, independent media outlets were shut and dozens of activists were jailed under the decades-long rule of former prime minister Hun Sen, who stepped down last year to pave the way for his son, Hun Manet, to assume leadership.

Under Hun Manet, Mother Nature activists have continued to criticise what they describe as an unequal enforcement of laws in favour of companies and the wealthy elite.

Four of the convicted activists attended the hearings and were immediately arrested following the verdict. Representatives of local NGO the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (Licadho) who were present outside the Phnom Penh court said the arrests were violent, with “at least two of [them] dragged by their necks”. Arrest warrants have been issued for the six others, including Gonzalez-Davidson.

Earlier in the day, dozens of Mother Nature supporters marched towards the court where the activists were due to receive the verdict. Dressed in white – the traditional colour of mourning in the country – some of the supporters held up hand-written posters that read “We need freedom” and “We need rights”. Others held white flowers.

The verdict “sends an appalling message to Cambodia’s youth that the government will side with special interests over the environment every chance it gets,” said Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director Bryony Lau.

“It is astounding to criminalise activities of youths who are advocating for clean water in Phnom Penh, protecting mangrove forests in Koh Kong and warning against the privatisation of land in protected areas and characterising it as an attack against the state,” said Licadho’s outreach director Naly Pilorge.

Several of those convicted today had already served jail terms in the past. One of them, Long Kunthea, told BBC in an interview last year that she is willing to take on the risks of her activism to “for positive change”.

Kunthea was previously jailed for more than a year for organising protests to protect the Mekong river from further pollution. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/06/22/continued-harassment-of-mother-nature-defenders-in-cambodia/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1340lze6ppo

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/02/cambodia-environmental-activists-sentenced-6-8-years

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/cambodian-court-jails-environmental-activists-plotting-against-government-2024-07-02/

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Geneva Roadmap 40/11 series on 4 July: How are environmental defenders protected in the regions?

June 27, 2024

This event, organized on the occasion of the 56th session of the Human Rights Council and of the 28th Working Group of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention, as part of the Geneva Roadmap 40/11 series, provides a platform for experience sharing around with different protection mechanisms.

About this Session

Today, some specific instruments, such as the Aarhus Convention, regional processes and mechanisms are playing a growing and rapidly transforming role for environmental defenders in terms of new standards, collaborative efforts and plans. Yet, how effective are these instruments, processes and mechanisms in supporting and protecting environmental defenders in different parts of the world? What are the lessons in terms of the relevance and effectiveness of regional human rights and environmental protection mechanisms? How can ongoing experiences by civil society organizations and defenders help shape new and strengthened regional approaches? There is wide recognition of the different situations across regions as well as relevant lessons from ongoing initiatives.

On the occasion of both the 56th Session of the UN Human Rights Council and of the 28th Working Group of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention, on access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters, this event will aim to gather views from various stakeholders on the question: “How are environmental defenders protected in the regions?”

Geneva Roadmap 40/11 Series

Five years ago, on 21 March 2019, the Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 40/11 – Recognizing the contribution of environmental human rights defenders to the enjoyment of human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development – without a vote.

Following the adoption of the resolution, platforms, coalitions and networks of defenders met in February 2020 to launch the Geneva Roadmap 40/11 to foster the implementation of this Resolution.

Building on previous Geneva Roadmap 40/11 efforts in relation to global human rights mechanisms, this year’s events organized by the University of Geneva, Earthjustice, the International Service for Human Rights, with the support of the Geneva Environment Network, will focus on the protection mechanisms provided at the regional level for environmental defenders.

To attend on-line, register with: https://ungeneva.webex.com/webappng/sites/ungeneva/meeting/register/3e557712421b4e8ead22641b4d3bab74?ticket=4832534b000000078514d3e000931fd016c9cc18835becb6ccd518f1a5e9a6bf63a5563f32a1a932&timestamp=1719521373667&RGID=r18b54211d7fc07219656ed6fdab82df1

https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/events/how-are-environmental-defenders-protected-in-the-regions-geneva-roadmap-40-11/#scroll-nav__3

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Germany Prosecutes Environmental Defenders says HRW

May 30, 2024

Nina Alizadeh Marandi of HRW on 28 May 2024 said that German environmental activists are facing increasingly harsh rhetoric and legal action from authorities as they mobilize to confront the climate crisis.

Last week, on 21 May, Germany’s efforts to curb environmental activism took a disturbing turn when authorities used an offence typically reserved for prosecutorial pursuit of serious organized crime to indict Letzte Generation (Last Generation), a climate activist group known for disruptive protests such as roadblocks and other acts of civil disobedience, as a criminal organization. A conviction under federal law would pave the way for prosecuting anyone who participates in or supports Letzte Generation, including administratively or financially.

This heavy-handed approach reflects a troubling trend in Europe of stifling civil society and climate activism. Such actions chill public participation in protests against state policies or state inaction on a range of urgent issues. [see also:https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/03/04/state-repression-of-environmental-defenders-a-major-threat-to-human-rights/]

The investigation into Letzte Generation as a criminal organization has involved armed police conducting predawn raids, storming private apartments while the activists were still asleep, and granting warrants for police to surveil the group’s communications, including calls made with media.

Last year the group’s website was temporarily seized during a fundraising campaign, with a notice from the police falsely labeling Letzte Generation a criminal organization and stating any donation constitutes illegal support for crime. This move by the police, despite no judicial assessment of the charges having taken place, exposes a deeply worrying bias against the group and raises questions about whether authorities are respecting due process.

International law protects the right to public participation in environmental matters and recognizes peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience as a legitimate form of assembly. Disruptions like traffic blockades, while inconvenient, generally do not constitute violence under international standards, although damage to or destruction of private or public property may.

While civil disobedience often involves breaking national laws, authorities are required to respond proportionately, giving due weight to the right to protest and the importance to the public interest of the issues at stake.

The government’s extreme response to Letzte Generation’s activism appears disproportionate, threatens the very right to protest, and smears climate activists when their cause has never been more urgent. Instead of intimidating environmental defenders, Germany should live up to its commitment to ambitious climate action and investigate the concerns that groups like Letzte Generation raise.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/28/germany-prosecutes-environmental-defenders

But it can also be undone: see: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/29/uk-court-rules-anti-protest-measures-unlawful

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Human rights defenders in Brazil disappointed by Lula and Mary Lawlor agrees with them

April 24, 2024

On 19 April 2024 – Indigenous Peoples Day in Brazil – tribal leaders and activists used the occasion to criticize government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for falling short on promises to safeguard native land rights.

This is revolting for us Indigenous peoples to have had so much faith in the government’s commitments to our rights and the demarcation of our territories,” Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a member of the Munduruku people and a 2023 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, told Amazon Watch in a statement published Friday.

“We hear all of these discussions about environmental and climate protection, but without support for Indigenous peoples on the front lines, suffering serious attacks and threats. Lula cannot speak about fighting climate change without fulfilling his duty to demarcate our lands,” she added.

On the same day United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor said that Brazil needs to prioritise the demarcation and titling of land – the root cause of most attacks against human rights defenders in the country.

“Human rights defenders are under extreme threat in Brazil. The Federal Government knows this but has so far failed to put the structures in place to provide them with better protection and tackle the root causes of the risks they face,” said Mary Lawlor, in a statement following an official visit to the country.

Brazil’s Federal Government recognises human rights defenders and their work, and understands the risks they face, the expert noted. However, when human rights defenders challenge structures of power that impose and reinforce injustice, they are violently attacked and face an extremely high level of risks, she said. “Again and again during my visit I heard from defenders who had survived assassination attempts, who had been shot at, had their houses surrounded, had death threats delivered to their door. I heard from defenders whose work had been criminalised,” Lawlor said.

“The defenders most at risk in Brazil are indigenous and quilombola people and members of other traditional communities. In many cases, perpetrators of the attacks are known. Yet, there is rampant impunity for these crimes,” the expert said.

The UN expert said business and markets play a key role as drivers of conflicts, putting human rights defenders at risk. “The demarcation and titling of indigenous, quilombola and other traditional peoples’ land, as well as the revision of the legality of all existing concessions given to companies must be prioritised,” she said.

Lawlor said that in urban areas, human rights defenders were also being attacked, defamed and heavily criminalised, specifically black women human rights defenders, journalists, popular communicators and lawyers, and social and cultural workers.

“The conflation of human rights defenders with criminals by local authorities – in particular defenders who are part of social movements and supporting the most vulnerable in society – is a clear problem and must end,” the expert said.

A protection programme to address situations of risk for human rights defenders has been in place in Brazil for some time. However, Lawlor said it was currently unfit for purpose and needs radical reform and expansion. Lawlor applauded the Federal Government for re-opening the door to human rights defenders and civil society in the design of policy that affects them and encouraged authorities to not abandon these efforts.

“The Federal Government needs to match the courage of human rights defenders in the country – and it must do so now,” Lawlor said.

On 22 April 2024 Maria Laura Canineu HRW’s Deputy Director, Environment and Human Rights, said she wanted to use this quilombolaas an opportunity to celebrate the work of the courageous people who put themselves at risk fighting for a world in which people and the planet can thrive. “I personally would like to honor Osvalinda Marcelino Alves Pereira. Sadly, she passed away from a long-standing illness just over a week ago.”

https://reliefweb.int/report/brazil/united-nations-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-defenders-mary-lawlor-brasilia-19-april-2024-enpt

Download Report (PDF | 213.1 KB | Statement – English version)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/lula-indigenous-rights

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/22/earth-day-homage-beloved-forest-defender

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UNEP defines environmental defenders

April 23, 2024

The UN defines environmental human rights defenders as “individuals and groups who, in their personal or professional capacity and in a peaceful manner, strive to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment, including water, air, land, flora and fauna”. 

Environmental defenders remain highly vulnerable and under attack across the globe. Worldwide, environmental defenders face growing assaults and murders – in conjunction with increasing intimidation, harassment, stigmatization and criminalization. At least three people a week are killed protecting our environmental rights – while many more are harassed, intimidated, criminalized and forced from their lands.

“For their tireless work in empowering communities and protecting ecosystems, environmental defenders are killed in startling numbers. Murder is not the only way environmental defenders are persecuted; for every 1 killed, there are 20 to 100 others harassed, unlawfully and lawfully arrested, and sued for defamation, amongst other intimidations” – John Knox, former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment.

The United Nations has recognized the threats to environmental defenders and called for their protection. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) builds on this work to support environmental defenders through its Defenders Policy, through which we:

  • Denounce the attacks, torture, intimidation and murders of environmental defenders;
  • Advocate with states and non-state actors, including business, for better protection of environmental rights and the people standing up for these rights;
  • Support the responsible management of natural resources;
  • Request government and companies’ accountability for the different events where environmental defenders have been affected / murdered.

And that problems exist – even in the developed world – is demonstrated again by the 19 April 2024 piece: https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-to-support-environmental-defenders-227742

Forst, in his report, puts it like this: “states must address the root causes of mobilisation” not the mobilisation itself. Indeed, tackling protesters and not oil producers is the democratic equivalent of rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

https://www.unep.org/topics/environmental-law-and-governance/who-are-environmental-defenders

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Inter-American Court on the Escazú Agreement’s protection for environmental defenders

March 8, 2024

On 7 March 2024, the ISHR report that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights examined the Escazú Agreement’s role in safeguarding environmental defenders, a landmark move for climate justice and human rights

The Advisory Opinion, which has already garnered a record number of interventions – over 250, a record in the history of the court – will mark a rare instance in which the Court will analyse a treaty that is not part of the Inter-American System, but of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean: the ‘Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean’, also known as the ‘Escazú Agreement‘. For more on this, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/escazu-agreement/

In order to support the protection of environmental defenders, ISHR filed an intervention on environmental defenders, in collaboration with CIEL, FARN, and other international, regional and national organisations and human rights experts. 

The obligation to effectively protect EHRDs

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has already recognised that States are obliged to protect human rights defenders, arising from the general obligations to protect the rights to life and integrity of the person, among others. However, the Court has yet to expressly establish whether protecting environmental defenders is an obligation that also derives from environmental commitments made by States, as these stakeholders are an indispensable partner in the fight against climate change. 

This is an opportunity for the Court to recognise that, in order to guarantee the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, States must protect environmental defenders, as violating their rights also violates the rights they are defending.

The Court is also called to elaborate upon the specific protection needs of Indigenous, women and youth defenders. These groups face particular forms of attacks which must be addressed with cultural and gender perspectives, taking into account not only the particularities of the attacks they suffer, but also of their needs and desires. 

In the case of Indigenous groups, the existing jurisprudence of the Court on recognising collective rights, along with the language used in article 9 of the Escazú Agreement – which establishes that ‘persons, groups and organisations’ can defend human rights – provides an opportunity to firmly establish the existence of a collective right to defend human rights, as well as the State’s obligation to set up and adapt their protection measures and mechanisms to ensure that collective protection is available when needed.

Environmental defenders and ‘access rights’

While the express mention of environmental defenders in the Escazú Agreement is extremely important, it is not its main focus. The treaty contains several obligations for States to guarantee access to information, to decision-making spaces and to justice in environmental matters. 

These ‘access rights’ are applicable to all persons, but the Inter-American Court must reaffirm and elaborate upon its own jurisprudence related to their applicability for environmental defenders, which states that: ‘defenders cannot properly defend environmental rights if they cannot exercise their own rights of access to information, freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful association, guarantees of non-discrimination and participation in decision-making‘.

This is also an opportunity for the Court to clearly assert that private actors are also under the obligation to respect these rights, which includes conducting meaningful consultations and ensuring the free, prior and informed consent of communities affected by their projects.

The extent of the Advisory Opinion

Latin America is the region with the most and the oldest laws and protection mechanisms regarding human rights defenders, so it was only logical that it would be the first region to adopt the first treaty that expressly protects them.

The Inter-American Court has also been a pioneer in this regard. It was the first regional human rights court to deal with human rights defenders’ cases and order structural reforms to better protect them.

These successes must be celebrated, but there is still work to be done. The coming years will see an increase in three areas, all linked with one another: climate crisis, the amount of environmental defenders, and the risks faced by defenders. 

The Court must seize this opportunity and set an example for countries in the region and beyond on how to properly defend the rights of those that defend our rights.

See the intervention here: Amicus 1 IACrtHR AO on CC and EHRDs

https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/environmental-defenders-and-the-inter-american-court-advisory-opinion-on-climate-change

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State repression of environmental defenders ‘a major threat’ to human rights

March 4, 2024

In a landmark paper, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention warns that the continued State efforts to repress and criminalise environmental protests, including direct action and civil disobedience, are a threat to fundamental freedoms and democracy itself.

The world is currently facing a triple planetary crisis and despite this alarming and unprecedented situation, States are failing to meaningfully address it. In response to this, environmental human right defenders (EHRDs), Indigenous Peoples, peasants movements and civil society from around the world have exercised their right to peacefully protest and participate in demonstrations to pressure their governments into taking concrete actions.

Some of these demonstrations have taken the form of civil disobedience which has been disproportionately repressed by governments and law enforcement officials.

On 28 February 2024 Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, published a position paper highlighting a trend towards the repression and criminalisation of defenders engaging in environmental protests and civil disobedience in Europe, as well as an alarming toughening of stances against them in political discourse and the law enforcement and judicial practices. [The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters – known as the Aarhus Convention – was adopted in 1998. It aims to protect every person’s right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being.] See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/aarhus-convention/]

Forst also points to legislative attempts to ban specific organisations – citing France’s Soulèvements de la Terre, Spain’s Futuro Vegetal, or Letze Generation in Germany and Austria. These moves come alongside new or updated laws – including the UK’s ‘2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act’ and Italy’s 2024 ‘eco vandalism’ law -, which the paper says have virtually prohibited certain kinds of protests. 

The Special Rapporteur flags how politicians demonise environmental movements engaging in civil disobedience, while national or pan-European intelligence services no longer hesitate to label peaceful groups or individuals as potential or genuine terrorist threats.

The paper also recognises that European States have been disproportionately and increasingly used criminal, administrative and civil measures against environmental human rights defenders recurring to civil disobedience. This includes excessive and disproportionate use of force against them and extensive investigation and surveillance measures. 

Other takeaways include the use of social media by State and non-state actors that have contributed to creating negative narratives against EHRDs and the challenges that defenders and activists face to access to justice.

While civil disobedience tactics have been recently used in protests related to climate justice, they have been constantly used to advocate for other legitimate causes including international solidarity, where States have also criminalised such moves.

This paper also comes shortly after the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Right Defenders and it is a good reminder that civil disobedience is and should be recognised as a legitimate form of exercising the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

States must stop criminalising human right defenders exercising these rights and focus on addressing the root causes of their mobilisation.

https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/state-repression-of-civil-disobedience-on-environment-a-major-threat-to-human-rights

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