On Wednesday 31 January 2024, United States Senator Ben Cardin and Representative James McGovern introduced the Human Rights Defenders Protection Act of 2024, a bill that seeks to protect Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) facing retaliation globally for defending human rights and democracy. Notably, Senator Cardin was also the author of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which established one of …
In the powerful words of the global environmental icon, Professor Wangari Maathai , ‘[t]here comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness so that she stops threatening its life-support system.’ The twin resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council (resolution 48/13 , adopted on 8 October 2021) and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) (resolution 76/300 , adopted on …
The international community eagerly awaits the Escazú Agreement to come into force in early 2021 after having secured 12 ratifications (one more than the minimum required – 11). The Escazú Agreement , which emerged from the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), is the first legally binding instrument in the world to include provisions on environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) …
On 24th September, the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, delivered a high-level speech during the general debate of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly (GA). In it, he claimed that his Government is firmly committed to environmental protection and conservation, as well as to sustainable development more broadly. Yet, in the same speech, he questioned claims about the …
On the 8th and 9th November, 2017, the URG Latin America, with the support of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Professor John Knox and the International Union for Conservation of Nature – National Committee of the Netherlands (IUCN-N), convened a two-days regional consultation on the situation of environmental human rights defenders (EHRD) in Latin America. Around …
