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Human rights defenders show remarkable courage in the face of attacks and killings – new report

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At least 401 defenders killed in 26 countries for their peaceful work in 2022

Despite an assault on human rights and the rule of law in many countries, human rights defenders (HRDs) showed remarkable courage and persistence in advocating for more democratic, just and inclusive societies in 2022, Front Line Defenders said today as it launched a new report.

Front Line Defenders’ Global Analysis 2022 gives a panorama of the threats faced by HRDs in all regions of the world.

The report also names 401 HRDs killed in 26 countries in 2022 – based on statistics by the HRD Memorial, a collective initiative of human rights organisations working to collect and verify data on the killings of HRDs each year.

In a grim milestone, for the first time we saw more than 400 targeted killings of human rights defenders in 2022. While Latin America remained the deadliest region in the world for human rights defenders, we also saw a more dangerous landscape for defenders in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” said Olive Moore, Interim Director of Front Line Defenders.

These human rights defenders were deliberately targeted and killed because of their human rights work. Because they choose to speak out and challenge injustice, they paid for it with their lives.

The Global Analysis gives a panorama of the scope and severity of states’ crackdowns on human rights defenders. But it also paints a picture of remarkable resilience – it is a testament to HRDs and their organisations, networks and social movements that, across nearly all countries, they pushed back against worsening economic conditions, deepening authoritarianism and the climate crisis to stand up for collective rights.”

Increase in targeted killings

In 2022, the HRD Memorial investigated and verified the killings of 401 HRDs in 26 countries – compared to 358 HRDs killed in 35 countries in 2021.

Five countries – Colombia, Ukraine, Mexico, Brazil and Honduras – accounted for over 80% of killings, according to HRD Memorial data. Colombia alone accounted for 46% of the total, with at least 186 killings documented and verified by HRD Memorial partner Somos Defensores to date. Defenders working on land, indigenous peoples’ and environmental rights were the most frequently targeted sector, accounting for almost half (48%) of the total killings.

In the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, defenders engaged on humanitarian response and human rights journalists were also specifically targeted, with at least 50 documented killings by Russian military forces.

Wide array of threats

Global Analysis 2022 data is based on more than 1,500 threats and violations reported to Front Line Defenders, and is disaggregated by region, type of threat, sector of human rights work and gender.

The main threats HRDs reported to Front Line Defenders in 2022 included: arrest or detention (19.5%); legal action (14.2%); physical attack (12.8%); death threats (10.9%); and surveillance (9.6%). In Asia and the Americas, death threats were the most frequent violation against defenders; in Africa it was arrest and detention; while in ECA and MENA it was legal action against HRDs.

Women HRDs (WHRDs) were frequently targeted with death threats, which accounted for the third most common violation against them. Physical violence was the most prevalent violation reported by trans and gender variant/gender nonconforming HRDs.

The five most targeted sectors of human rights defence were: environmental, land and indigenous peoples’ rights (11%); freedom of expression (10%); protest movement/ freedom of assembly (9%); women’s rights (7%); and impunity and access to justice (6%).

Women on the front lines of conflicts and crises

WHRDs and their movements played a critical role in countering the onslaught against human rights in 2022.

Throughout the year, in many countries including Afghanistan, the DRC, El Salvador, Iran, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine, WHRDs continued to mobilise against and denounce the most repressive authoritarian regimes and occupying forces.

For this, they paid a heavy and gendered cost, including attacks against them and their families, online smear campaigns and defamation, sexual violence and other violations impacting their mental health and well-being.

Rampant criminalisation of HRDs

Taken as a broader trend, criminalisation of HRDs – in the form of arrest, detention and legal action – was the most prominent form of attack seen in the data, comprising over a third (34%) of all violations. The widespread and arbitrary use of counter-terrorism laws to detain and prosecute HRDs depleted their morale, capacities and resources.

Although it took different forms in different countries, authorities in Belarus, India, Nicaragua, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Zimbabwe, among others, used counter-terrorism and other restrictive laws to subject defenders and their organisations to repeated arrests, office raids, interrogations, threats of closure and actual shutdowns, among other tactics.

Globally, the most commonly cited legal charges against HRDs included: other criminal charges (21.8%); national/state security/sedition (19.0%); terrorism/membership or support of a terrorist organisation (12.8%); defamation/Insulting state/damaging national unity (10.1%); and spreading fake news or rumours/propaganda (9.0%).

Governments and private companies targeted HRDs with a range of digital threats. The most commonly cited were: internet/social media/website blockage (22.9%); online threat of violence/harassment (9.4%); confiscated devices computers/phone (8.7%); physical surveillance (8.3%); and doxxing (8.3%).

Repressive governments around the world have weaponised the law against human rights defenders in a bid to silence them and stymie their work, and defenders have borne the brunt of legal and other persecution as well as a host of digital and physical threats,” said Olive Moore.

But this ongoing harassment has failed to deter human rights defenders from continuing their work; if anything, it has galvanised them to keep countering the repression and standing up for justice. The international community must stand in solidarity with them, and do all they can to protect defenders.”

The Global Analysis notes that the year also saw positive advances in international norms to protect HRDs, including the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders and a proposed EU directive on corporate sustainability due diligence. However, protection of human rights defenders globally still falls far short of what is needed, and requires concerted attention and action by all Governments.

Source: Frontline Defenders

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Business, UN, Govt & Civil Society urge EU to protect sustainability due diligence framework

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As the publishing date for the European Commission’s Omnibus Simplification Package proposal draws closer, a coalition of major business associations representing over 6000 members, including Amfori and the Fair Labor Association, has called on the EU to uphold the integrity of the EU sustainability due diligence framework.

Governments have also joined the conversation, with the Spanish government voicing its strong support for maintaining the core principles of the CSRD and CSDDD.

Their call emphasises the importance of preserving the integrity of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

These powerful business voices have been complemented by statements from the UN Working Group on Business & Human Rights, alongside 75 organisations from the Global South and 25 legal academics, all cautioning the EU against reopening the legal text of the CSDDD.

Additionally, the Global Reporting Initiative has urged the EU to maintain the double materiality principle of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, meanwhile advisory firm Human Level published a briefing exploring the business risks of reopening level 1 of the text.

Concerns stem from fears that reopening negotiations could weaken key human rights and environmental due diligence provisions, undermine corporate accountability and create legal uncertainty for businesses.

The European Commission’s Omnibus proposal is expected to be published on 26 February.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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Kenya: Court halts flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix and British Airways over unlawfully acquiring community land without consent

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“Landmark Court Ruling Delivers Devastating Blow To Flagship Carbon Offset Project”, Friday, 31 January 2025.

A keenly-watched legal ruling in Kenya has delivered a huge blow to a flagship carbon offset project used by Meta, Netflix, British Airways and other multinational corporations, which has long been under fire from Indigenous activists. The ruling, in a case brought by 165 members of affected communities, affirms that two of the biggest conservancies set up by the controversial Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) have been established unconstitutionally and have no basis in law.

The court has also ordered that the heavily-armed NRT rangers – who have been accused of repeated, serious human rights abuses against the area’s Indigenous people – must leave these conservancies. One of the two conservancies involved in the case, known as Biliqo Bulesa, contributes about a fifth of the carbon credits involved in the highly contentious NRT project to sell carbon offsets to Western corporations. The ruling likely applies to around half the other conservancies involved in the carbon project too, as they are in the same legal position, even though they were not part of the lawsuit. This means that the whole project, from which NRT has made many millions of dollars already (the exact amount is not known as the organisation does not publish financial accounts), is now at risk.

The case was first filed in 2021, but judgment has only recently been delivered by the Isiolo Environment and Land Court. The legal issue at the heart of this case was identified in Survival International’s “Blood carbon” report, which also disputed the very basis of NRT’s carbon project: its claim that by controlling the activities of Indigenous pastoralists’ livestock, it increases the area’s vegetation and thus the amount of carbon stored in the soil.

The ruling is also the latest in a series of setbacks to the credibility of Verra, the main body used to verify carbon credit projects. Even though some of the participating conservancies in the NRT’s project lacked a clear legal basis and therefore could not ‘own’ or ‘transfer’ carbon credits to the NRT, the project was still validated and approved by Verra, and went through two verifications in their system. Complaints by Survival International prompted a review of the project in 2023, which also failed to address the problem.

Caroline Pearce, Director of Survival International, said today: “The judgement confirms what the communities have been saying for years – that they were not properly consulted about the creation of the conservancies, which have undermined their land rights. The NRT’s Western donors, like the EU, France and USAID, must now stop funding the organization, as they’ve been funding an operation which is now ruled to have been illegal…

The lawsuit accused NRT of establishing and running conservancies on unregistered community land, “without participation or involvement of the community,” including not obtaining free prior and informed consent before delineating and annexing community lands for private wildlife conservation.

The complaint reads, in part, “(NRT), with the help of the Rangers and the local administration, continue to use intimidation and coercion as well as threats upon the community leaders where the community leaders attempt to oppose any of their plans.” The case was brought by communities from two conservancies, Biliqo Bulesa Conservancy (which is in the NRT’s carbon project area and where 20% of the project’s carbon credits were generated) and Cherab Conservancy, which isn’t.

These two conservancies, the court has ruled, were illegally established. Permanent injunctions have been issued banning NRT and others from entering the area or operating their rangers or other agents there. The government has to get on with registering the community lands under the Community Land Act, and has to cancel the licences for NRT to operate in the respective areas. The NRT’s carbon offset project is reportedly the largest soil carbon capture project in the world.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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NGO WORK

France: CSOs criticise French government’s call for “massive regulatory pause” on EU legislation, incl. CSRD and CSDDD

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“Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive : France advocates for indefinite postponement, to the detriment of social and environemental justice,” 24 January 2025

According to a document made public by Politico and Mediapart, the French government, via the Minister of Economy Eric Lombard, intends to bring to Brussels an agenda of all-out deregulation which, in addition to suspending the application of the text “sine die”, would call into question entire sections of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. This irresponsible position risks precipitating the unravelling of a text necessary in the face of the climate and social crisis, a text that France nevertheless declares to have supported.

[…] The instrumentalization of the simplification of the law to weaken a directive is dangerous and unacceptable for European democracy.

According to the document published this morning in the press, France would request an indefinite postponement of the application of this directive, a significant increase in the application thresholds, or even the removal of the clause that would allow in the future to specifically regulate the activities of financial actors. These numerous modifications would lead to an exclusion of nearly 70% of the companies concerned, even though only 3,400 of the 32 million European companies (i.e. less than 0.1%) were covered under the previous thresholds according to the NGO SOMO.

In reality, as during the negotiation of the text, France is merely echoing the demands made by several employers’ organisations hostile to the duty of vigilance, including AFEP and Business Europe. In doing so, France is actively contributing to undoing the progress achieved by citizens in recent years.

For our organisations, human rights and environmental associations and trade unions, the position expressed by France is irresponsible and incomprehensible. Last week, more than 160 European associations and trade unions repeated their opposition to a questioning of European Sustainable Finance legislations.

We call on the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron and the Bayrou Government to reconsider this position as soon as possible and to reiterate France’s support for the European duty of vigilance, for the other texts of the Green Deal which are vital for people, the climate and biodiversity, and for respecting their implementation timelines.

Source: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

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