Agnès Callamard: COP16 should discuss legal protections for environmental rights defenders and land protectors

Published by Brent Patterson on October 17, 2024October 17, 2024

Photo: Agnès Callamard

In advance of the COP16 Biodiversity conference that will take place this coming October 21 to November 1 in Cali, Colombia, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, has commented:

“Environmental rights defenders and land protectors often risk their lives to protect our planet and its biodiversity. Delegations should keep this harsh reality in mind when they meet in Colombia, which has long been the deadliest country in the world for environmental activists. The monitoring framework should include parameters to capture initiatives and legal protections for land defenders, as well as their impact and consequences, including in terms of impunity.”

Target 22 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework pledges to “ensure the full protection of environmental human rights defenders”

The Washington, DC-based organization Global Witness has highlighted: “Target 22 aims to ensure the full protection of environmental human rights defenders while guaranteeing access to justice and information. The Colombian Government has a historic opportunity to make CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity] COP16 a turning point for both biodiversity and those who protect it – and to live up to its promises to place defenders’ voices at the centre of the agenda. On top of this, CBD COP16 could provide defenders with recourse to justice through heightened recognition, security, legislative protection and corporate accountability for the industries behind reprisals.”

We note with the concern that Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy: Halting and Reversing Biodiversity Loss in Canada submitted in advance of COP16 only makes sparse reference environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs):

“In Canada, many EHRDs are Indigenous Peoples and advocate for everyone’s right to a safe, healthy, and sustainable environment. Although GAC [Global Affairs Canada] has released best practices in their report, Voices at Risk, to aid discussions with EHRDs, governments, communities, and businesses, understanding their firsthand experiences to inform biodiversity decisions is important.”

Three Indigenous water protectors — Sleydo’ Molly Wickham (Wet’suwet’en Cas Yikh house), Shaylynn Sampson (Gitxsan), and Corey Jocko (Kanien’kehá:ka Mohawk) — are engaged in an abuse of process application alleging the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) used excessive force during their arrest and custody in November 2021 for peacefully opposing the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia.

Two rounds of court hearings have already taken place, with two more rounds — November 4-8 and December 9-13 — taking place not long after the discussions on Target 22 at COP16 in Colombia.

WEBINAR, October 24

Join us on Thursday October 24 at 12 pm (Colombia) / 1 pm (Ottawa) / 7 pm (Geneva) for a webinar that will link the protection needs of environmental defenders and the upcoming United Nations COP16 Biodiversity, COP29 Climate and Binding Treaty talks.

In its assessment of COP28 in December 2023, Global Witness noted: “Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, we documented the killings of at least 1,390 land and environmental defenders. And yet, there is not a single reference to land and environmental defenders in the final text.”

This one-hour webinar with simultaneous translation will feature Cali, Colombia-based Berenice Celeita of the Association for Social Research and Action (Nomadesc), Washington, DC-based Javier Garate of Global Witness, and Geneva-based Yannick Wild of Peace Brigades International-Switzerland.

To register, please click here.

Further reading: PBI-Canada to host webinar on COP16, COP29, the Binding Treaty and the language needed to protect environmental defenders.