Newsletter #16: December 2023

PALAIS DES NATIONS • 1211 GENEVA 10, SWITZERLAND

www.ohchr.org • TEL: +41 22 917 9159 • FAX: +41 22 917 9006 • E-MAIL: srenvironment@ohchr.org

Meeting with some of the extraordinary participants in the Climate Youth Negotiators Programme at COP28 in Dubai, December 2023.

Where did all of the time go?! It was a hectic fall with trips to New York for the Sustainable Development Goals Summit and the Climate Action Summit in September, a country mission to Botswana and a trip to the General Assembly in October, the Business and Human Rights Forum in Geneva in November and carrying on from there to the climate conference in Dubai (COP28) in December.

Momentum on advancing the right to a healthy environment continues, with inclusion in the Bonn Declaration for a Planet Free of Harm from Chemicals and Waste, as well as amazing court decisions in Costa Rica using the right to protect hammerhead sharks, Panama to overturn a law authorizing a massive open pit mine, and Montana challenging fossil fuel development./p>

I felt a curious mixture of sadness and relief when the Human Rights Council recently published a notice seeking applicants to replace me as the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment in May 2024. My successor will be appointed at the end of the 55th session in early April. After two white male academics from North America, it is time for the Council to appoint a woman, ideally from the Global South. The unexpected resignation of my colleague Ian Fry, the Special Rapporteur on human rights and climate change, creates a second opening. Big thanks to Ian for his substantial contributions and sense of humour—he will be missed!

Country Visits

We spent two weeks in Botswana in October on an official country visit. We met Indigenous Peoples, environmental human rights defenders, civil society, local government officials, ministers, and civil servants—in the capital city of Gaborone, and Ghanzi, Habu and Kuke in the northern part of the country. The climate crisis is having brutal impacts on individuals and communities already living in precarious, vulnerable and marginalized situations. For example, in two small Indigenous communities in the Kalahari Desert, we witnessed extreme heat, water scarcity and food insecurity, as well as human-wildlife conflict (dramatically illustrated in Habu by the bloody body of a large goat killed by a lion just hours before our arrival). Botswana has the potential to become a solar superpower, meeting its own needs and exporting clean green electricity to neighbouring States including South Africa. Wealthy States should step up and provide grants or interest-free financing to facilitate Botswana’s transition from coal to renewables. The comprehensive report will be presented to the Human Rights Council in March 2024 (along with the report on our May visit to Chile).

Learning about human rights and environmental challenges related to water, sanitation, wildlife, food and the climate crisis in Habu, Botswana.

Upcoming Reports

Our final report to the Human Rights Council (to be presented at the 55th session in March 2024) will explore the inter-related subjects of businesses, planetary boundaries and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The report concludes that systemic and transformative changes are needed to tackle the planetary climate and environmental crises, requiring new societal goals, new business purposes, models, and laws, strengthening laws to regulate business behaviour in many fields, from advertising to environment to political influence, and the development of a human rights-based economy built upon the concepts of sufficiency and good lives in harmony with nature.

We are also in the process of preparing a report about the hybrid expert meeting we hosted in November on the topic of businesses and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, also to be presented to the Human Rights Council in March 2024.

Recent reports

Our report to the General Assembly in mid-October about the adverse impacts of Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanisms on climate and environmental action, as well as human rights, caused quite a stir. Cases seeking roughly one trillion dollars in damages have been filed, with climate and environmental cases making up most of the largest awards against governments (approximately $100 billion to date). Obviously, this money would be better spent on actions to address the planetary crisis and fulfill human rights instead of compensating the fossil fuel and mining corporations that have been major contributors to the planetary crisis. Many States are genuinely concerned about this problem and appear open to trying to address it. We are participating in ongoing follow-up conversations./p>

In anticipation of COP 28 we produced a strong statement about the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels and published a new Policy Brief called Mobilizing Trillions for the Global South: The Imperative of Rights-based Approaches to Climate Finance. /p>

Participated in a terrific panel with the prime ministers of Iceland (left) and Estonia (right) discussing the economic, security, and human rights implications of the climate crisis

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 2023

Friends of the Court

Marcos Orellana (Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights), Surya Deva (Special Rapporteur on the right to development) and I recently filed an amicus brief with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as the Court is developing an advisory opinion process related to the climate emergency and human rights. We are grateful for the assistance of the Vance Centre for International Justice, led by Susan Kath and Sam Bookman, and a talented team of lawyers from Milbank, led by Viren Mascarenhas. We hope to participate in one of the Court’s proposed oral hearings in early 2024. Given the leadership of the Inter-American Court on issues related to human rights and the environment generally, this represents an exciting opportunity to clarify the obligations of States to take effective, equitable and urgent climate action. We also plan to participate in the advisory opinion process of the International Court of Justice on climate change and State obligations.

We are anxiously waiting for court decisions in critically important cases related to human rights and the environment in court rooms around the world. Marcos and I filed amicus curiae briefs in three climate cases before the European Court of Human Rights, two of which have been forwarded to the Grand Chamber in recognition of their importance. The first is the Swiss senior women’s case, in which the argument is that the rights of older women are being harmed by increasingly frequent and severe heat waves while Switzerland has filed to take sufficient measures to reduce emissions. The second is the case brought by six Portuguese youths suffering the dramatic impacts of the climate crisis, arguing that 32 European nations are not acting with adequate urgency to safeguard their rights. The third case at the European Court, which is on hold pending the Grand Chamber decisions, involves continued offshore oil development in Norway, an activity that is impossible to reconcile with the right to a healthy environment in the face of a global climate emergency./p>

Another important pending decision is in the case of the Community of La Oroya v Peru, where I filed an amicus brief with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The Court’s decision is expected to delineate State obligations related to the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the context of extreme air pollution and exposure to toxic substances in an impoverished community./p>

Other Events

I attended the SDG Summit and Climate Action Summits in New York in September, and returned to the Big Apple in October to present my report on the catastrophic investor-State dispute settlement process. While in New York, I spoke at a high-level side event kindly organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), with co-sponsorship of the Core Group on the Mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment. The event was about next steps to ensure that the human right to a healthy environment is implemented with tangible benefits for people around the world, especially those who are furthest behind today. Opening remarks were provided by ambassadors from Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco and Slovenia, along with Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, OHCHR and Ligia Noronha, Assistant Secretary-General and Head of Office, UNEP. The panel discussing next steps consisted of the special rapporteurs on water, toxics, climate change and environment. Other events included meeting with a class at New York University for a course taught by Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito and Melina De Bona, an evening event on “The Role of Human Rights in International Climate Change Litigation” hosted by Milbank and the Vance Center for International Justice, a strategy session hosted by Oxfam on tackling global challenges related to unsustainability and inequality, and a discussion about investor-State dispute settlement at Colombia University that included the screening of a new film by Malcom Rogge called “The Tribunal”, about a community in Ecuador rocked by a mine, violence, and an ISDS case.

In December, we traveled to Dubai to participate in the controversial climate conference (COP28). We participated in multiple side events, press conferences, and meetings. Highlights included an event with the Prime Ministers of Estonia and Iceland, an event on next steps for the right to a healthy environment with the President of Slovenia and a marvelous youth climate activist, a thought-provoking meeting with a group of persons with disabilities to explore intersections between climate, environment and disability rights, a side event on health with ministers from Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, several meetings with environmental human rights defenders, an EU sponsored discussion about just transitions, the always fascinating Climate Law and Governance Day, meeting with the ombudsperson from Colombia, and an inspiring dinner hosted by the Climate Youth Negotiators Programme./p>

Informal meeting with Hon Philda Nani Kereng, Minister of Environment of Botswana and youth climate negotiators in front of the Pavilion of Botswana at COP 28.

We appreciate the opportunity to participate in online events, and thank all of the organizers for their tremendous efforts to inform the public and policy-makers about the human rights implications of today’s global environmental crisis. Among the other events we spoke at virtually (or through a pre-recorded video) in the second half of the year were:

In Conversation about Children’s Rights and Climate Change with the Climate Youth Negotiators Programme, 24 August;
Climate Emergency and Human Rights in the Inter-American System, Webinar organized by World Youth for Climate Justice, 30 August;
High-level Dialogue on Human Health and the Environment, 2nd virtual Berlin Forum on Chemicals and Sustainability – Just Transition Towards a Pollution-free Planet, 4 September;
Environment, Climate Change and Women and Children’s Rights: Challenges, Perspectives and the Role of Indigenous Peoples, Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement—6 September;
Panelist, UN Declaration on the Right to a Clean Environment as a Human Right and the Legal Implications for the Thai Legal System to Support this Environmental Right - From the Vantage Point of the Right to Breathe Clean Air, Law Faculty, Chulalongkorn University and the Thailand Clean Air Network, International Clean Air Day, 7 September;
Video, Honouring Environmental Human Rights Defenders in the Philippines, 13 September;
Video, side event, “The global water crisis: Opportunities presented by the rights to water and sanitation and the right to a healthy environment,” Human Rights Council, Geneva, 15 September;
Video, International Trends in Advancing Environmental Justice and Rule of Law, International Judicial Conference, Kyrgyz Republic, 15-16 September;
Opening video, Launch of the Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment 26 on Child Rights and Environment with a focus on climate change, 18 September;
Video, The relationship between the right to a healthy environment and the rights of nature, UN Environment Programme, Nairobi, 25 September;
Video, Hearing on the topic of the Legally Binding Instrument on Transnational Companies, Other Companies and Human rights.Centro Siembra and FIAN Colombia, Bogota, 5 October;
Closing observations, HR 75 Regional Dialogue for Europe and Central Asia: The Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment, Brussels, 20 October;
Right to food and to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment, European Parliament 20 October;
Video, Three steps forward on gender equality and climate crisis in Europe;
Video, World Health Organization Lead Poisoning Prevention Week video, 22 October;
Two videos (#1 on human rights obligations related to air quality; #2 on implementation of air quality and human right obligations), Philippines Better Air Quality Conference, 15-16 November;
Speaker, Breakfast meeting about ongoing International Courts’ Advisory Proceedings, Corporate Accountability and Human Rights, Geneva, 27 November;
Video, Carbon offsets and human rights, Geneva, 27 November;
Interactive discussion, Environmental injustice—the human rights angle, OHCHR Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent, Geneva, 28 November;
Video, Ocean Defenders webinar, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 29 November
Video on the human right to a healthy environment in the context of oceans and climate change, COP 28, One Ocean Hub, 9 December; and
Video, World Health Organization webinar on Environmental inequalities and human rights, 11 December.

Press Releases

We also publicly addressed the following issues in recent months through press releases, often issued in collaboration with colleagues:

Communications

We continue to invite communications related to violations of human rights related to environmental damage, degradation, hazards, or the fundamental rights of environmental human rights defenders. We do our best to confirm the facts, identify the relevant principles and obligations of international human rights law, and ask States, and in some cases businesses, to respond to the allegations. Often a group of special procedure mandate-holders will coordinate a joint communication. In some cases, pressure from the UN can result in positive changes, protecting both human rights and the environment. Additional details about submitting information are available on the mandate’s website

Human rights experts press conference in Dubai at COP28, December 2023

Conclusion

It has been an exhilarating and exhausting year, full of ups and downs. We wish everyone a relaxed and rejuvenating holiday season and look forward to my final months as the Special Rapporteur!/span>

As always, we welcome your ideas, suggestions, and feedback on the mandate.

You can reach my wonderful colleagues Viktoria Aberg, Frederique Bourque, (and me) through the official UN email address: hrc-sr-environment@un.org We are fortunate to have been joined by Sakshi Rai who led the organization of the full day experts’ seminar on businesses and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. I would like to acknowledge the generous ‘behind the scenes’ support of Federica Donati, Cristina Palazzo and the recently retired Francesca Foppiano, all of whom support many mandate-holders through their roles with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

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