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Environmental defenders in focus at 56th UN Human Rights Council

Environmental defenders in focus at 56th UN Human Rights Council

Right Livelihood’s Advocacy team highlighted the situations of environmental defenders across the globe during the 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Throughout June and July, we worked alongside Laureates from Cambodia, Nicaragua and Kenya to bring the Council’s awareness to human rights violations ranging from unfair trials to forced displacement and police violence. At a side event with Laureates from Russia and Uganda, we highlighted the responsibility of businesses to uphold human rights and protect the environment.

You can read the Advocacy team’s highlights from the session here. 

Right Livelihood condemns Cambodia’s rigged judicial system, calls for release of jailed Mother Nature Cambodia members

Right Livelihood’s first statement at the 56th session of the Council highlighted the Cambodian government’s repression of environmental defenders. Our statement coincided with the trial of ten members of 2023 Right Livelihood Laureate Mother Nature Cambodia (MNC), who were subsequently sentenced to six to eight years in prison on bogus charges of plotting against the government and insulting the king.

We join the international community in calling for the immediate release of all human rights defenders held in Cambodia, including all MNC members.

 

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

Our second statement to the Council also focused on environmental defenders, spotlighting the situation for change-makers working in Cambodia, Kenya and Nicaragua who face unlawful arrests, armed attacks and police violence, among other forms of oppression, for their peaceful activities.

Speaking to the Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of human rights in the context of climate change, we joined the international community in calling for governments to see environmental defenders as partners, rather than adversaries, in the fight against the climate crisis.

 

Right Livelihood: The UN Human Rights Council must act on EACOP human rights violations

Our final statement at the council centred on the responsibilities of investors in upholding human rights related to business operations, particularly in Uganda, where 2022 Laureate Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) is mobilising communities against French company Total Energies’ East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and Tilenga oil projects.

In support of AFIEGO’s work, we called on the Council, Member States and all relevant actors to place people over profits and ensure human rights are at the core of decision making.

 

Side event: “Holding Corporations to Account: From words to action”

On July 1, we held an event on the sidelines of the Human Rights Council to highlight the responsibility of business operations to respect human and environmental rights. Russian environmentalist Vladimir Slivyak, who received the Right Livelihood Award in 2021, and Diana Nabiruma of the 2022 Ugandan Right Livelihood Laureate organisation Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) participated in the event, among others.

Slivyak highlighted the Russian government’s failure to uphold climate targets it had agreed to, which not only damages the environment for future generations but also helps fuel that war on Ukraine. Nabiruma raised attention to the construction of the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, which has displaced 86,000 people so far and wreaked havoc on Uganda’s wildlife.

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