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Peace Brigades International at 61st session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International was present at the 61st session of the Human Rights Council (February 23 – March 31, 2026) took place in Geneva, Switzerland. PBI made formal interventions, co-organized side events, and supported defenders speaking directly to the international community.

The formal interventions by PBI included:

-Mexico: PBI highlighted the need to strengthen the Protection Mechanism in Mexico.

-Guatemala: PBI raised the historic ruling protecting community journalist Norma Sancir and called for dialogue mechanisms to resolve land conflicts affecting Indigenous communities.

Video: March 3, 2026 (starts at 1:59:08). PBI presentation by Yannick Wild.

-Colombia: PBI called for full implementation of the Law on Women Searchers and stronger state presence in rural areas most affected by armed conflict.

Video: March 4, 2026 (starts at 2:20:06). PBI presentation by Yannick Wild.

-Honduras: PBI called for full corporate accountability, compliance with the reparation plan for Berta Cáceres’ murder, and stronger protection for communities facing extractive industry pressure.

Video: March 2, 2026 (starts at 57:44). PBI presentation by Meritxell Bonet.

-Nicaragua: PBI called on the international community to recognize transnational repression as a distinct and urgent dimension of the crisis.

Video: March 16, 2026 (starts at 44:36). PBI presentation by Lulio Marenco.

PBI also co-organized side events on territorial violence in Colombia, housing rights in Guatemala, and arbitrary detention in Nicaragua. We supported Sandra Calel of the Verapaz Union of Peasant Organizations (UVOC) and exiled Nicaraguan defender Salvador Marenco to speak at the international level.

With thanks to PBI-Switzerland and PBI-UK for content and photos.

PBI-Canada, PBI-Mexico and Espacio OSC urgently call for the strengthening of the Protection Mechanism

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Journalist Carlos Castro.

Peace Brigades International-Canada, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project, and the Civil Society Organization Space for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (Espacio OSC) continue to collaborate in the call for a strengthening of the Protection Mechanism for human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico, notably in the lead-up to the Canada-Mexico Dialogue on Human Rights and Multilateral Affairs expected to take place in mid-May in Ottawa.

The Protection Mechanism operates at both a federal and a regional level, with twenty-four states having regional representations, and eight with a specific budget for the regional implementation of the Mechanism.

Several branches of the Mexican government cooperate through this Mechanism to implement the measures, including the Ministry of the Interior, the Attorney General’s Office, the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Human Rights Commission.

Carlos Castro

Carlos Castro, 25, was shot dead January 8, 2026. Castro led the news website Código Norte Veracruz and was a correspondent for the local newspaper, Noreste. The CPJ has documented: “The Veracruz State Commission for Attention to and Protection of Journalists (CEAPP) confirmed … Castro was assigned protective measures after an altercation with a municipal police officer in April 2024. The measures expired after Castro left Veracruz in October 2024. Upon Castro’s return to Poza Rica in late 2025 the protective measures had not been re-activated after the journalist ended contact with the agency, according to Ramírez Baqueiro [with the CEAPP].”

Nine journalists killed in Mexico in 2025

The murder of Castro is part of a pattern of violence against journalists in Mexico.

On December 9, 2025, Reporters Without Borders noted: “In Mexico, organised crime groups are responsible for the alarming spike in journalist murders seen in 2025. This year has been the deadliest of the past three years — at least — and Mexico is the second most dangerous country in the world for journalists, with nine killed.”

They further comment: “Although a year has passed since Claudia Sheinbaum became president — and despite the commitments she made to RSF — 2025 was the deadliest of the past three years for news professionals in Mexico, and the country is the second most dangerous in the world for journalists, with nine killed this year.”

Reporters Without Borders has also documented that 28 journalists are missing in Mexico.

Since 2000, at least 141 journalists and other media workers have been killed, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) research; at least 61 of those killings were found to be directly related to their work.

The need to strengthen the Protection Mechanism

In March 2024, Amnesty International and the CPJ noted: “Eight journalists have been killed while enrolled in Mexico’s Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in the last seven years, a figure that highlights the urgent need to strengthen and reform the institution.”

In December 2025, the CPJ joined Espacio OSC, a coalition of Mexican civil society organizations accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project, in a joint statement expressing concern about the implementation of basic protection measures for journalists by the Mexican Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.

The Protection Mechanism provides protection to over 2,000 individuals, including approximately 500 journalists.

The CPJ also noted at the end of last year: “In recent weeks, CPJ and Espacio OSC have documented failures in the implementation of basic protection measures for at least 10 journalists, most of whom have received death threats.”

The risk continues

The context of risk for journalists continues.

On February 25, 2026, Reporters Without Borders further documented “eight cases of journalists who were assaulted, threatened or robbed of their equipment by members of criminal organisations on 22 February 2026 while covering the violent unrest that followed the federal operation that killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho.”

Unifor

Unifor represents more than 10,000 media workers, including journalists in the broadcast and print news industry.

Unifor highlights: “The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.”

PBI-Canada is grateful for the support of the Unifor Social Justice Fund that enables accompaniment and advocacy to strengthen the Protection Mechanism, including for journalists and independent union activists in Mexico, as well as workers at risk in Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala.

We continue to follow this.

Further reading: PBI-Canada highlights the need to strengthen the Protection Mechanism in Mexico at APG-organized call with Global Affairs Canada (March 27, 2026).

PBI-Mexico meets with the Oaxaca State Commission for the Search for Missing Persons to exchange experiences and perspectives

By
Brent Patterson
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The Oaxaca State Commission for the Search for Missing Persons has posted on social media:

“With the aim of establishing coordination mechanisms for search operations, Michel Julián López, head of the Oaxaca State Commission for the Search for Missing Persons, accompanied by her team, held a meeting today with staff from Peace Brigades International (PBI), an international organisation dedicated to supporting human rights defenders.

The aim of this dialogue was to exchange experiences and perspectives on the work carried out by both organisations in the search for and location of missing persons, highlighting the joint participation of victims as well as the application of human rights-based, differentiated, specialised and gender-sensitive approaches.

These meetings strengthen inter-institutional collaboration and enable the development of joint actions for the search for missing persons and the protection of those working to defend human rights in Oaxaca.

#Search Oaxaca”

The dangers to searchers

In October 2024, Amnesty International noted: “Disappearance drives families, loved ones, and communities to search for their loved ones. Relatives searching for disappeared and missing people faced serious risks, including enforced disappearance, killing, repression and threats. In the report Searching Without Fear: International Standards for protecting women searchers in the Americas, Amnesty International draws on international human rights law to make the case that searching for forcibly disappeared persons is a right. Given that most searchers in the Americas are women, the report also details states’ international obligations to protect against the unique risks, threats, and attacks that, as women, they face.”

More than 130,000 people disappeared in Mexico

Last month, The Guardian reported: “More than 130,000 people are considered missing or disappeared in Mexico, an ongoing crisis that has devastated tens of thousands of families across the country. While disappearances began to surge in the early 2000s as the Mexican government sought to take on the country’s cartels, a new report by the public policy analysis firm México Evalúa found that, in the last 10 years, disappearances have increased more than 200%.”

An estimated 3,629 missing in Oaxaca

Corriente Alterna UNAM, the Journalistic Research Unit of the Coordination of Cultural Dissemination of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has noted: “According to the National Registry of Disappeared and Missing People, 3,629 people have been reported disappeared or missing in the state of Oaxaca since 1964, with 90% of cases occurring during the last 10 years under the governments of Gabino Cué Monteagudo (2010-2016) and Alejandro Murat Hinojosa (2016-2022).”

Sandra Domínguez

The Associated Press has reported: “Sandra Estefana Domínguez Martínez and her husband were last seen October 4, 2024, in the town of María Lombardo de Caso, in eastern Oaxaca on the border with Veracruz. The prominent feminist activist and defender of the Mixe Indigenous peoples, native to Oaxaca’s eastern highlands, is herself of Mixe descent.”

That article adds: “Joaquín Galvan, a Oaxacan activist and close friend of Domínguez … believes that Domínguez’s work and persistent complaints against state officials are related to her disappearance. …Galvan encouraged Domínguez to request protection under a federal protection program for human rights defenders and journalists known as ‘the mechanism’. He is enrolled, but he said Domínguez was not at the time of her disappearance.”

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Canada concerned by reports that the RCMP and CSIS have surveilled Indigenous rights defenders from the 1970s to the present

By
Brent Patterson
-

CBC News reports: “Prime Minister Mark Carney says there should be a public apology for a spying operation targeting hundreds of Indigenous people that had the support of the federal government. ‘Yes, there should be an apology,’ Carney said during a news conference in Halifax on Thursday [March 26]. ‘It’s a reprehensible practice. Never should’ve happened.’”

The article adds: “CBC Indigenous obtained nearly 6,000 newly declassified documents that show the Mounties [the Royal Canadian Mounted Police/RCMP] infiltrated legitimate political Indigenous organizations engaged in legal and democratic advocacy, and sought to disrupt their activities in an operation called the ‘Native extremism program’. The files corroborate for the first time that the Liberal government in the mid ’70s approved RCMP wiretaps to monitor the telephones of the National Indian Brotherhood, known today as the AFN [Assembly of First Nations], in Ottawa.”

The article also notes: “RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme issued a written statement of regret a day after the CBC Indigenous investigation broke, and pledged to meet with Indigenous leaders and elders.”

The Commissioner writes: “The RCMP acknowledges the recent reporting concerning surveillance activities involving Indigenous groups during the 1960s and 1970s. …The RCMP today is not the same organization it was decades ago, but I acknowledge that more must be done.”

We note that the Chiefs of Ontario is now demanding “federal action on widespread spying on First Nations by police and security forces in Canada.”

1995

Last year, CBC News also reported that declassified internal documents indicate that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) — formed in 1984 to take on the security intelligence work of the RCMP — conducted a secret investigation into “Native extremism” in 1995 and appear to have falsely claimed that Indigenous land defenders in Ipperwash, Ontario were armed just days prior to an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer fatally shooting land defender Dudley George on September 6, 1995, during a re-occupation of the Ipperwash Provincial Park.

2010

The Narwhal has also previously reported: “Recent revelations that the RCMP spied on Indigenous environmental rights activist Clayton Thomas-Muller should not be dismissed as routine monitoring. They reveal a long-term, national energy strategy that is coming increasingly into conflict with Indigenous rights and assertions of Indigenous jurisdiction over lands and resources. A ‘Critical Infrastructure Suspicious Incident’ report was triggered by Thomas-Muller’s trip in 2010 to the Unist’ot’en camp of Wet’suwet’en land defenders, where a protect camp was being built on the coordinates of a proposed Pacific Trails pipeline.”

2014-15

APTN News has reported that Miles Howe of Queen’s University told APTN News in a phone interview that checklists developed by RCMP Director of Research and Analysis Dr. Eli Sopow as part of the National Intelligence Coordination Centre’s 2014-2015 Project SITKA reveal “it’s not criminality the RCMP are focused on, it’s the ability of that group to create and craft a counter narrative to the one that suggests whatever the police do is across the board legitimate.”

That article adds: “His collaboration with [Jeffrey] Monaghan, an assistant professor of criminology [Carleton University in Ottawa], builds on a body of work developed by Monaghan and Andrew Crosby, a coordinator with the Ontario Public Interest Group at Carleton University. Monaghan and Crosby used access to information laws to uncover thousands of pages of documents from the RCMP, CSIS and government agencies [that paints] a picture of how government departments, police, intelligence agencies and private sector interests work together to compile intelligence on activists—including Indigenous land defenders…”

2021 and 2022

CBC News has reported: “An RCMP national security unit monitored First Nations-led anti-pipeline activism for ‘potential threats’ to the energy, transportation and banking sectors between 2021 and 2022, internal police documents show. Records obtained by CBC Indigenous reveal Ottawa-based federal policing groups tracked and analyzed protests against TC Energy and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), citing concerns about ‘anarchist groups’ or ‘fringe environmentalists’ sabotaging infrastructure or targeting executives in solidarity with Wet’suwe’ten hereditary chiefs.”

2022 and 2023

And Amnesty International has documented: “RCMP and CRU [Critical Response Unit, the rebranded Community-Industry Response Group] officers, and Forsythe Security employees, follow members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation travelling through their territory along the Morice FSR, as well as in nearby cities. They also photograph and record members of the Nation. Amnesty International observed these tactics during its visits to Wet’suwet’en territory in July 2022 and May-June 2023. Members of the organization’s research team were also followed, photographed and filmed by the RCMP and Forsythe Security on multiple occasions.”

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Colombia notes concern over death threats made against human rights defender from the Justice and Peace Commission

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has posted on social media:

“There is deep concern over death threats made against a human rights defender from the @Justiciaypazcol [Justice and Peace] Commission, who is accompanied by PBI, following a meeting with other defenders from MOVICE [Movement of Victims of State Crimes].  There is an urgent need for effective measures to safeguard the lives and safety of those under threat, to ensure compliance with the precautionary measures issued by the @CIDH [Inter-American Commission on Human Rights], and to investigate both the perpetrators and those behind the threats.”

This follows the Justice and Peace Commission posting on social media:

“#UrgentAlert A human rights defender from our Justice and Peace Commission has received a direct death threat, in a situation that indicates he is being targeted and faces an extreme risk to his life.

This incident confirms the ongoing attacks against those who defend human rights on the Caribbean Coast and the lack of effective protection measures by the State.

We demand immediate action to guarantee the lives and safety of our defenders.

#HumanRights #HumanRightsDefenders #JusticeAndPeace #colombia”

We continue to follow this.

The People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water denounces the murder of Sandra Rosa Camacho in Morelos

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo from Educa Oaxaca.

The People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water-Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala has posted on social media: Sandra’s murder is a femicide, but also a political murder, an attack on the right to organize of peoples, a way of intimidating and sending a message to anyone who wants to organize for the good of their people.”

Educa Oaxaca has also posted: “Sandra had requested security from the governor of the state, Margarita González Saravia, in August 2025, since she felt that her life was in danger due to the collection of rent from organized crime.”

On March 27, La Jornada reported: “Sandra Rosa Camacho Flores, a social activist from the municipality of Temoac, was murdered by armed individuals yesterday afternoon at her home located in the capital of that demarcation in eastern Morelos, and about 79 kilometers from Cuernavaca.”

La Jornada also reported: “The People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala demanded justice for the femicide and political murder of social activist Sandra Rosa Camacho.”

“[She was] murdered in her home on the afternoon of Thursday, March 26, for demanding security and denouncing the caciquismo of a criminal cell that has controlled the municipality of Temoac for at least three three-year terms.”

“Members of the movement pointed out that the crime was committed with the same modus operandi as the murder of Samir Flores Soberanes, and complained to the governor, Margarita González, who, despite the fact that Sandra told her that she feared for her life, did not protect her.”

The article also noted: “The activists and opponents of the Morelos Integral Project (PIM), in addition to demanding clarification and justice for Sandra’s political murder from both the state government and the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), also asked the governor: ‘How many more lives are the people of eastern Morelos going to continue to put on the line because of the impunity that continues in your government?’”

Peace Brigades International has accompanied the People’s Front of Land, Water and Air of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala since early 2020.

We continue to follow this.

Further reading: PBI-Canada with PBI-Mexico as it accompanies the People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water at activities over four-day period (February 24, 2026).

PBI-Guatemala accompanies REDSAG member José Miguel as legal proceedings continue against El Pilar sugar refinery

By
Brent Patterson
-

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project has posted on social media:

“On Monday [March 23], #PBI accompanied José Miguel, a member of @_redsag [the Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty], to the Multi-judge Court of First Instance for Criminal Matters, Drug-related Offences and Environmental Crimes in Retalhuleu, to attend the hearing against Ingenio El Pilar, which stands accused of pollution and diverting the river in Pajales Sis. The hearing began with the lawyer for Ingenio El Pilar, but the complainant, José Miguel, and his lawyer were barred from the courtroom.

WaterIsLife”

PBI-Guatemala has previously noted:

PBI has accompanied members of the REDSAG Political Council since September 2025, especially José Miguel Sánchez López from the Pajales Sis community in San Andrés Villa Seca, Retalhuleu, and sisters Carmelina and Estela Chocooj from the Soledad Sayaxut community in Cobán, Alta Verapaz.

The Pajales Sis community is located between the El Pilar and Tululá sugar refineries. José Miguel Sánchez López, a member of the Pajales Sis Community Development Council (COCODE), has been speaking out for years about the consequences of both sugar refineries’ poor practices, which have affected community members’ lives. As a result, he has been targeted for criminalization by the sugar refineries.

Legal proceedings

The community currently has two legal proceedings underway: a civil case against the El Pilar sugar refinery for the deterioration of the gabions, which now pose a serious flood risk; and a criminal case for the river’s contamination with agrochemicals from El Pilar. As a result of the latter case, community members, particularly José Miguel Sánchez, have been subjected to threats and defamation.

PBI-Canada visit

On May 2-4, 2023, PBI-Canada visited the South Coast of Guatemala to learn more about the impacts of sugar production on communities and their access to water.

At that time, PBI-Canada saw diminished and polluted rivers attributed to sugar production and visited numerous communities that shared stories about how the water required for sugar mills had dried wells and gardens.

Photo: The entrance to the El Pilar sugar mill. Photo by PBI-Canada.

Photo: PBI-Canada hears testimony in the community of Pajales Sis about the impacts of the El Pilar sugar mill, May 2, 2023.

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Justice and Peace and the Amazon Pearl Reserve Zone on International Women’s Day

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 27, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted on social media:

“On 8 March, we accompanied @justiciapazcolombia [the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission] and @perlaamazonica_zrcpa [the Amazon Pearl Peasant Reserve Zone] to mark International Women’s Day. The women of “My Name is Amazon Pearl Woman” (MEMPA) gathered for a meeting in which they discussed, from the perspective of the women and young people of the La Perla Amazónica Peasant Reserve, their fundamental role in this shared home.

During the event, a collective moment was set aside to honour and reflect on the history of MEMPA, with its important, difficult and also beautiful moments. They also reflected on new productive proposals with a view to transformation for the coming year. It was a day for sharing, playing, eating and laughing.

At PBI, we celebrate the women and young people of the ZRCPA and MEMPA, as well as their work in peacebuilding, the protection of life, biodiversity, and the ongoing defence of their human rights.

#8M #Peacebuilding #ProtectionOfLife”

The ZRCPA is located near Puerto Asis in the department of Putumayo, which is situated in south-west Colombia near the border with Ecuador.

The Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission has been accompanied by Peace Brigades International since 1994.

PBI-Canada highlights the need to strengthen the Protection Mechanism in Mexico at APG-organized call with Global Affairs Canada

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: Mixteca land defender Irma Galindo Barrios went missing on October 27, 2021, in Oaxaca, Mexico while waiting for a meeting with the Protection Mechanism. Despite multiple attacks against Irma, the Protection Mechanism risk analysis had stated her situation was “ordinary”, meaning that “she can wait” and that “her life is not in danger”. (Photo: Family lawyer/Common Dreams).

Along with Canadian civil society members of the Americas Policy Group (APG), Peace Brigades International-Canada participated in a call with the Mexico and Trilateral Affairs Division of Global Affairs Canada.

While our colleagues raised a series of key issues with Global Affairs Canada, PBI-Canada focused on the call to strengthen the Protection Mechanism for human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico.

The Protection Mechanism

We highlighted that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights defenders and journalists.

The Civil Society Space of Organizations for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (Espacio OSC), which is accompanied by PBI-Mexico, has documented that 205 human rights defenders and journalists have been killed in Mexico between 2016 and 2025. During this period, there were also 28 attempted murders and 62 disappearances of defenders and journalists.

The Protection Mechanism provides protection measures to about 2,500 defenders and journalists. This can include bodyguards, armoured vehicles and safe houses, but more often assistance hotlines, cameras and physical security measures such as fencing for homes and offices.

The Protection Mechanism is understaffed (just eight analysts), has excessive wait times, has seen its annual budget of about CAD $45 million cut, and needs to strengthen gender, community and intersectional approaches.

Irma Galindo Barrios was forcibly disappeared while waiting for an interview to apply to be admitted into the Protection Mechanism. Several have also been killed once in the Mechanism (including journalist Kristian Zavala in March 2025, and Indigenous Rarámuri leader Julián Carrillo in October 2018). It is also possible given the level of Canadian investment that there are defenders and journalists in the Mechanism in the context of community resistance to Canadian extractivist megaprojects.

Photo: Kristian Zavala. Photo from Article 19/X.

Photo: Remembering Julián Carrillo on Parliament Hill on October 24, 2023, the fifth anniversary of his death.

UPR in January 2024

In January 2024, during the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Mexico, Canada called on Mexico to: “Strengthen, from an intersectional and gender perspective, the federal Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, specifically in the areas of prevention, protection, investigation, and reparation.”

Canada-Mexico Dialogue in May 2025

We note that in the Canada-Mexico Dialogue that took place on May 8, 2025, in Mexico City, the Protection Mechanism was discussed under the theme of “Freedom of Expression and the Right to Security”.

The report indicates: “Discussions addressed concerns related to attacks on freedom of expression, the influence of social media in spreading hate and discrimination, and the risks faced by journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico and globally. Topics also included the increase of digital threats, the importance of cybersecurity, the issue of disappearances in Mexico, Mexico’s human rights protection mechanisms and the possibility of a database to monitor disappearances. Both countries agreed to share experiences regarding data protection and databases.”

Our efforts so far

In September 2025, just after Canadian prime minister Mark Carney visited Mexico, PBI-Mexico accompanied two human rights defenders from the Espacio OSC to Ottawa to highlight and discuss this recommendation. They met with Global Affairs Canada officials on September 25, 2025.

On February 12, 2026, PBI-Canada and PBI-Mexico collaborated with Espacio OSC to host a 90-minute webinar that featured two of the defenders who had visited Ottawa to help amplify the call to strengthen the Protection Mechanism.

Then on February 27, 2026, PBI-Canada and PBI-Mexico conveyed the same message in a meeting with two officials at the Embassy of Canada in Mexico City just after the Team Canada Trade Mission to Mexico.

Now, March 27, 2026, we have had this meeting with representatives from the Mexico and Trilateral Affairs Division of Global Affairs Canada, as well as the Human Rights and Freedoms Division, and the Embassy of Canada in Mexico.

The upcoming Canada-Mexico Dialogue in May 2026

We look forward to providing further input for the upcoming Canada-Mexico Dialogue on Human Rights and Multilateral Affairs expected to take place in late-May in Ottawa. The thematic issues that could be discussed include gender equality; freedom of expression, media freedom and rights in the digital space; economic rights; addressing global challenges in multilateral settings; and cooperation in regional and international bodies on shared priorities.

We are now planning a second webinar in advance of the Canada-Mexico Dialogue on Human Rights and Multilateral Affairs.

We continue to follow this.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anand says CORE ombudsperson is “important”, they are trying to fill the position

By
Brent Patterson
-

On September 29, 2025, PBI-Canada and PBI-Mexico accompanied two representatives from Espacio OSC at a meeting in Ottawa with Terrence Cowl, the Deputy Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE).

The non-governmental organization Above Ground along with the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability have highlighted concerns about the CORE position having been left vacant for the past ten months.

This week The Globe and Mail reported: “The United Nations Committee on Human Rights, which includes representatives from the United States, France and Spain, criticized [on Monday March 23] Ottawa for failing to fill the post of a watchdog whose job was to investigate human rights abuses by Canadian companies operating abroad.”

The newspaper noted: “’The Committee recommended that Canada urgently appoint a new Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise and ensure the office’s independence and adequate resources,’ the panel said in its report.”

It adds: “The panel [also] called on Canada to ‘strengthen mechanisms to ensure that business enterprises under its jurisdiction respect human rights standards, including when operating abroad.’”

The Globe and Mail now reports: “Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says [on Wednesday March 25] a federal watchdog that polices Canadian corporate conduct abroad remains ‘important’ and said Ottawa is trying to find a new top executive to lead the office that has lacked a permanent head for nearly two years.”

Strengthening CORE

On November 14, 2024, Mary Lawlor, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, posted comments she made earlier in the month “calling for the significant strengthening of the CORE.”

Lawlor highlighted: “I have long-standing concerns, however, as to the adequacy of the CORE, in its current form, to provide any adequate form of redress for human rights defenders and the communities they represent when their rights have been violated or been put at risk by Canadian companies operating abroad. This has been reflected in conversations I have had with human rights defenders since taking up my mandate, who, where aware of the CORE, have repeatedly told me they have no confidence in its effectiveness.”

Among her four recommendations, Lawlor calls on the Government of Canada to: “Provide the CORE with legally enforceable powers to compel evidence and testimony from companies, in line with international standards and best practice on ombudspersons’ offices, to enable effective investigations of all cases and overcome the barriers presented when companies refuse to meaningfully engage with the CORE.”

We continue to follow this.

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