Stand strong with environmental and human rights defenders

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Environmental and human rights defenders are under attack worldwide, facing violence, political and legal persecution for standing up for the indigenous peoples, animals and the planet. But their actions are essential for the survival of western democracy and for safeguarding the world’s most vulnerable: indigenous peoples, women, children and animals. Peaceful protest against oppressive regimes ensures the safety of future generations. From fighting against pollution to defending biodiversity. Along with fighting against oppression in war zones like Palestine, Lebanon and Ukraine to bringing attention to the urgent environmental crises. Governments have conveniently ignored calls for change for too long. Instead of condemning their protests, the people should support them, and understand the serious root causes and valid reasons for resistance. You can take action every time you shop, join the BDS movement against Israel and #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife.

In 2023 nearly 200 environmental defenders were killed — certainly an undercount. Mostly for mining and predominantly in Latin America. These are the stark realities we need to confront as we face a new mining boom linked to the so-called “green” energy transition.

Written by Emily Barritt, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law, King’s College LondonThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Carrying the burden of the past and future: human rights defenders

The lives of environmental and human rights defenders are difficult. Politicians vilify them, courts constrict them, journalists mock them and public hostility towards them is palpable. So much so that after his visit to the UK in January, Michel Forst, the UN representative for environmental defenders, stated that he found their treatment “extremely worrying”.

Other countries have found themselves subject to Forst’s disapproval too. Many EU member states, as well as the EU itself, has been reprimanded for their poor treatment of human rights defenders.

That’s despite all of them having signed the Aarhus Convention. This ambitious international environmental agreement, which I have spent more than ten years studying and writing a book about, was designed to empower and protect environmental defenders.

Of course, the protestors’ actions are intentionally borderline. Splashing beloved art works with soup, occupying trees and blocking traffic – these stunts have all made headline news. But environmental defenders insist that these desperate and disruptive actions are nothing compared to the risks that political inaction pose to human health and that of our planet.

Here are three reasons not to be mad at the protestors.

Democracies depend on citizen engagement

Healthy democracies welcome and depend on an active and engaged citizens to thrive. This includes peaceful protest and civil disobedience. Limitations on these activities include legislation, strategic litigation against public participation Slapps, mischaracterising protest as “mob rule” or “threats to democracy” and restricting the ability of climate activists to robustly defend themselves in court.

These examples are all worrying signals for the state of our democracy, and our planet. Forst wrote in a recent position paper that “the repression that environmental activists who use peaceful civil disobedience are currently facing in Europe is a major threat to democracy and human rights”.

This comes after his tour of European countries, all signatories to the Aarhus Convention. In addition to protecting environmental defenders, this Convention provides the source of his authority, granted by those same countries in 2021.

A protester puts a photo of a mother and child in Palestine over a Picasso painting entitled ‘Motherhood’

Watch the reel here

In Forst’s paper, he shows how inhospitable, and anti-democratic political processes are for those seeking to protect our shared planet. For example, through hostile political discourse or the arrest and imprisonment of peaceful protesters. The criminalisation of protest spells trouble for our democracies as well as our planet.

#ExtinctionRebellion are outside Downing Street where people are burning their bills to protest #CostOfLivingCrises pic.twitter.com/XqKAKwZ9fE

— XR Writers Rebel (@XrRebel) October 14, 2022

Environmental problems need diverse solutions

Environmental harm can operate in ways that are not always well understood by those in power. Planetary problems need different solutions. So that everyone affected is best represented and have their interests heard.

Nevertheless, protest is not the only way to advocate for change. For example in France and Ireland citizens assemblies lead to collective decision-making. The Aarhus Convention also promotes active public participation in relation to environmental decision-making. But these processes can be slow, circumscribed and intimidating to those not accustomed to administrative and political environments.

Peaceful protest is a voice for marginalised people

Protest allows for the unfiltered expression of diverse views. In particular from voiceless and marginalised people. For example children, refugees, non-nationals, nature and future generations. Youth movements like Fridays for Future help younger people to voice their dissent from environmental apathy.

Suppressing human rights defenders won’t solve the planetary crisis

Punishing protesters won’t solve the problems that they are highlighting. For example, air pollution, filthy rivers, collapsing food chains and the climate crisis. Meanwhile these problems continue unabated. Soon environmental problems will mean more than a delayed bus trip to work.

.@GretaThunberg joins the Palestinian call to Boycott Chevron: Chevron is fueling Israeli genocide and apartheid, as well as environmental devastation.

As Israel bombs hospitals, homes, and schools, Chevron is supplying it with energy and funding its genocidal war chest. Join… pic.twitter.com/7Q7Or1tfrJ

— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) September 24, 2024

A much better way to deal with the irritation of peaceful protests would be to address the greater disruption of the overlapping environmental crises that politicians seem so unwilling to face.

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.

Written by Emily Barritt, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law, King’s College London This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ENDS

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Read more about non-violent civil resistance