Posts Tagged ‘sustainability’

CESCR General Comment: States should protect environmental and Indigenous HRDs

October 17, 2025

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) recently published its General Comment on the environmental dimension of sustainable development. In addition to recognising human rights defenders, the Comment clarifies State obligations towards marginalized communities and notes the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels. It also outlines States’ extraterritorial obligations.

ISHR provided two written inputs to the draft of this General Comment earlier this year – a standalone submission regarding the recognition and protection of environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) based on the Declaration+25, a supplement to the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and a joint submission in partnership with the Center for International Environmental Law, Earthjustice, FIAN International, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam.

‘States parties should respect, protect, and promote the work of environmental and indigenous human rights defenders, as well as other civil society actors who support people in marginalized and disadvantaged situations in realizing their Covenant rights.’ States parties should take all necessary measures to ensure that environmental human rights defenders and journalists can carry out their work, without fear of harassment, intimidation or violence, including by protecting them from harm by third parties.’

ISHR welcomes that priorities from the joint NGO submission to the CESCR are reflected in the General Comment, in particular Indigenous Peoples’ right to ‘free, prior and informed consent’ and the need to transition away from fossil fuels (including by reducing ineffective subsidies).

However, we regret that the Comment does not more explicitly acknowledge the critical role of EHRDs in promoting sustainable development or strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) as an obstacle to their engagement. The CESCR has previously noted the risks faced by HRDs and provided guidance on their recognition and protection in the context of land issues in General Comment No. 26 and it should have extended this analysis to EHRDs in the context of sustainable development. The use of SLAPPs to silence HRDs has been acknowledged by other UN bodies, including in the most recent report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Ms. Mary Lawlor, to the Third Committee of the General Assembly.  

 Some additional highlights from the General Comment are set out below. 

  • The Committee found that ‘[t]he full realization of Covenant rights demands a just transition towards a sustainable economy that centres human rights and the well-being of the planet’. 
  • States should supervise commercial activity, establish a legal obligation for businesses in respect of environment and human rights due diligence, and ensure that victims of human rights violations stemming from businesses have redress. 
  • States have obligations to conduct human rights and environmental impact assessments, which are to be undertaken with ‘meaningful public participation’.
  • States have an extraterritorial obligation to ensure that any activities within the State or in areas under its control do not substantially adversely affect the environment in another country. This also extends to preventing businesses in the State from causing such harm in another jurisdiction. Even though the CESCR does not expressly mention it in the Comment, this should also apply to cases of attacks against EHRDs. 
  • The CESCR also clarifies States’ obligations towards marginalized communities, spotlighting the concept of intersectionality. It also explicitly notes that equal exercise of economic, social and cultural rights by women and men is a prerequisite for sustainable development, encouraging States to redistribute the unpaid domestic work undertaken by women and girls.
  • Environment-related obligations have also been set out for States in the context of specific Covenant rights, for example, the right to self-determination , right to freely utilize natural resources , right to work , right to an adequate standard of living, right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, right to education and other economic, social and cultural rights.
  • The General Comment recognises that certain communities are particularly vulnerable to the effects of environmental degradation – it calls on States to identify and protect those at risk. The CESCR focuses particularly on children (specifically calling for child rights defenders to be recognised and protected and for their participation in climate action to be facilitated), Indigenous Peoples, peasants, pastoralists, fishers and others in rural areas, and displaced persons.

‘Environmental degradation, including climate change, intensifies the vulnerabilities of individuals and groups who have historically experienced and/or experience marginalization. These vulnerabilities are shaped by intersecting factors such as socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, age, migratory status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.’

https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/cescr-general-comment-states-should-protect-environmental-and-indigenous-hrds-work-in-the-context-of-sustainable-development

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Only 9% of companies assessed by Forrest 500 committed to not tolerate attacks on defenders

September 15, 2025

On 8 September 2025, a report “Defending forests shouldn’t cost lives: Forest 500 assesses corporate zero tolerance policies,” links world’s top banks to social & environmental harms from mining

… Global Canopy’s annual Forest 500 assessment looks at six human rights criteria closely associated with preventing deforestation. Three indicators are interconnected with deforestation as violations of these rights frequently happen around the point of forest loss. They are: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC); zero tolerance for threats and violence against forest, land and human rights defenders; and customary rights to land, resources and territory.

Among them, zero tolerance is least likely to be addressed by companies: only 9% of the 500 companies assessed have a public commitment in place for at least one forest risk commodity. By comparison, 37% of companies have committed to FPIC, and 24% have commitments to respect the customary rights of IPLCs to land, resources and territory.

… Only 47 Forest 500 companies have commitments for zero tolerance. Companies in the palm oil (18%) and cocoa (14%) supply chains are more likely to have commitments. Commitments are scarce in the beef (10%), soy (11%) and timber (6%) sectors, although these industries are linked to abuses in Latin America. According to BHRRC, 40% of attacks against human rights defenders over the last decade took place in Latin America, with Brazil recording the highest number of killings worldwide.

… Only six of the Forest 500 companies publish evidence of due diligence and progress reporting on eradicating violence and threats f

The report focuses on financing for companies mining critical minerals used in the global energy transition, including lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt. Nearly 70% of these transition mineral mines overlap with Indigenous lands and roughly an equal amount is in regions of high biodiversity.

“Our findings shed light on the central role that financial institutions play in enabling this new wave of destruction as companies rush to expand mining operations as rapidly as possible,” Steph Dowlen, forests and finance campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network, told Mongabay by email. “While this extraction for raw minerals falls under a ‘green’, ‘clean’ or ‘renewable’ banner, it’s still extraction and the mining sector remains high-risk, dominated by companies with egregious track records on rights, the environment and corporate accountability.”

The report assessed environmental, social and governance policy scores of 30 major financial institutions and found an average score of only 22%. Vanguard and CITIC scored the lowest, each with just 3%. The assessment found that many financial institutions lacked policies to prevent financing issues, including pollution, Indigenous rights abuses or deforestation.

Of all institutions assessed, 80% lacked policies on human rights defenders and none had safeguards for Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation. Many institutions (60%) lacked grievance mechanisms, which allow communities that have been negatively impacted by mining activities to seek justice. Also, 60% of institutions had no policies on tax transparency, which is key to preventing companies from shifting profits abroad and ensuring that mining revenues remain in the resource-rich countries.

“Due to the significant overlap with transition minerals and Indigenous Territories, and high-biodiversity areas, there is an immediate need for governments, financial institutions and mining companies to stop and listen,” Dowlen said. “Indigenous Peoples and local communities have been raising the alarm for a long time but continue to face disproportionate harm as well as violence and intimidation for defending their rights and their lands.”

BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the report. None of the other institutions mentioned in this piece responded to Mongabay’s emails.

Report links world’s top banks to social & environmental harms from mining

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/forest-500-report-finds-only-9-of-companies-assessed-have-a-public-commitment-to-not-tolerate-attacks-on-defenders/

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Open Global Rights on creating pathways for environmental defenders in the trickiest places

October 26, 2024

Grassroots environmental defenders are building a variety of strategic, community-based approaches to environmental justice. Global actors can do more to support their work write Rebecca Iwerks & Ye Yinth & Otto Saki on 14 October 2024 in Open Global Rights.

Fighting for land, environmental, and climate justice is risky. Global Witness annually reminds us of the staggering number of people who are killed for defending their land—over 2,100 since 2012. And lethality is only the tip of the iceberg, one of a multitude of violent tactics that people face when they speak up for their community. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2024/09/18/global-witness-2023-2024-annual-report-violent-erasure-of-land-and-environmental-defenders/]

The last few years have seen encouraging steps to respond through global and regional policy. National governments have started to make specific commitments to protect environmental rights defenders, deeming it necessary to address the climate crisis. The Escazu agreement in Latin America has explicit requirements for the state protection of environmental rights defenders. [NOTE: On 16 October 2024 civil society in the Americas has issued an urgent call to accelerate the implementation of the Plan of Action on Human Rights Defenders, of the Escazú Agreement, adopted five months ago].Just this month, the UNFCCC Supervisory Body for Article 6.4 and the UN Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals showed how global bodies can incorporate the protection of environmental rights defenders directly into climate policy. More broadly, hundreds of organizations have pooled their efforts to end retaliation against environmental defenders through the ALLIED network.

What do we do while we wait for momentum to build and for policy to translate into practice? We can draw hope from thoughtful, strategic examples of grassroots legal empowerment. Throughout the world, legal empowerment advocates—people helping individuals and groups know, use, and shape the law with the support of community paralegals—are assisting communities in registering their land, stopping corporate pollution of their water, and negotiating fair land use deals even in the most difficult places. 

Last year, we examined the experiences of environmental defenders who were able to continue their work in repressed environments, using tenets of legal empowerment to find pathways to justice in ways that reduce their risk. Here’s what we saw:

  1. Building community power.…
  2. Changing paths to remedy. …
  3. Building relationships with allies. …..
  4. Knowing, using, and shaping the law to respond to security concerns. …

How do we super-charge support for this subtle, effective protection alternative? 

While grassroots justice advocates are continuing to seek remedies in tricky places, global actors can do more to support them. The primary shift that can support this type of innovative risk response is to provide flexible, unrestricted funding directly to grassroots justice advocates, whether through philanthropy or from pooled private sector funds that facilitate independent legal and technical support. Flexible funding allows the practitioners to shift their plans as pathways become riskier; it also allows them to invest in security equipment that may not clearly fit into a project-driven budget. Openness to different types of reporting can allow grassroots justice advocates to make decisions about what information is safest for them to reveal without concerns about financial security.

Secondly, those who influence global frameworks, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), can do more to incorporate the security of environmental rights defenders into these frameworks. For example, the security of environmental rights defenders is integral to the access to justice encompassed by Sustainable Development Goal 16, and progress on that issue should be included in all SDG 16 reporting. Within the UNFCCC, the language protecting defenders from Article 6.4 Supervisory Body and the Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals should be mirrored throughout climate policy frameworks and resourced during their implementation. 

While the actions against environmental defenders are shocking, there are significant steps the rights community can take now to support grassroots actors moving forward.

https://www.openglobalrights.org/creating-pathways-to-land-and-environmental-justice-in-the-trickiest-places/

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