PBI-Canada meets with UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawlor during her visit to Ottawa

Published by Brent Patterson on June 27, 2024June 27, 2024

On June 26, PBI-Canada coordinator Brent Patterson took part in a civil society meeting with Mary Lawlor, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and Michael Phoenix, Head of Research and Campaigns.

We raised our concerns related to Frontera Energy, TC Energy and Enbridge and the criminalization of frontline environmental defenders; noted the recent court ruling on the transnational corporation Chiquita Brands and paramilitary violence in Colombia; highlighted our position on mandatory due diligence legislation and the Binding Treaty; and raised the ongoing concern about RCMP C-IRG violence against those resisting extractive megaprojects on Indigenous territories in Canada.

We follow Lawlor’s posts on social media with interest, including these:

We have also often posted on our website about Lawlor’s interventions, including these articles:

– UN special experts call for an arms embargo, continue to press for a ceasefire in Gaza to avoid a genocide in the making (November 20, 2023)

– Giniw Collective meets with UN Special Rapporteur Lawlor, discuss Canadian company funding police in Minnesota (August 17, 2021)

– New report by UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor: Final warning: death threats and killings of human rights defenders (January 29, 2021)

– “Governments are not doing enough to protect human rights defenders”: Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur (October 22, 2020)

We look forward to continued follow-up with the UN Special Rapporteur’s office.