As COP26 begins, 19 organizations, including Peace Brigades International and Amnesty International in the United Kingdom, have sent an Open Letter to Alok Sharma on the situation of environmental human rights defenders.
Sharma is a cabinet minister in Boris Johnson’s government who is serving as President for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
In their Open Letter to Sharma, they call on governments to:
– Strengthen protection arrangements for environmental human rights defenders, through measures such as protection grants, amnesties and funding for rapid response emergency mechanisms.
– Establish and facilitate access to effective judicial and non-judicial grievance mechanisms to address business-related human rights and environmental abuses committed by UK companies domestically and extraterritorially.
– Ensure UK business enterprises, including financial institutions, to apply and publish human rights due diligence measures to identify, prevent, and mitigate against potential and actual human rights abuse, including the criminalisation of defenders.
The press release and full list of demands can be read here.
Signatories to the letter to Alok Sharma also include ABColombia, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, International Service for Human Rights, and London Mining Network.
PBI webinar, November 6
Peace Brigades International is convening a webinar on Saturday, November 6 (at 5 pm in the UK) on COP26 and the situation of environmental human rights defenders.
It will feature Juana Ramona Zuñiga (Honduras), Nelly Madegwa (Kenya), Amaru Ruiz (Nicaragua), Danilo Rueda (Colombia), Sandra Calel (Guatemala) and Valeria Villalobos (Mexico). It will also include a special introduction by United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David R. Boyd.
To register for this webinar, please click here.
As of this morning, 156 people have registered for this webinar. We hope that you will be able to join us to hear these frontline voices.
Our colleague and friend Susi Bascon, the Director of PBI-UK, will also be present at the COP26 Coalition’s People’s Summit for Climate Justice in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday, November 9. For more on that, please see In Defense of Our Lands: Latin American activists fighting for their lives, land, and human rights.
Please, consider donating to PBI-USA. You can make a safe donation here.
Make a Difference, help protect human rights defenders!
Support our 40th Year Anniversary Campaign by making a donation
2021 is Peace Brigades International’s 40th Year Anniversary!
Whether human rights defenders fight for social equality, justice, or environmental and indigenous rights, we must protect their vision of the future. For 40 years, PBI has provided protection so defenders can continue their work. With your support, we can ensure that PBI-USA can continue to make space for peace.
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Make checks payable:
Peace Brigades International-USA
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