WUNRN
Website of the UN Special Rapporteur
on Human Rights Defenders:
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS INCREASINGLY
AT RISK OF VIOLENCE OR THREATS OVER LARGE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS - WOMEN
Direct Link: Report of Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to 68th session of General Assembly
7. In her vision, the Special Rapporteur indicated that she would pay particular attention to groups of human rights defenders at particular risk of having their rights violated. In this connection, she has prepared a report on the challenges faced by women defenders and defenders working on women’s rights and gender issues (A/HRC/16/44) and a report on the risks faced by defenders working on land and environmental issues, journalists and media workers, and youth and student defenders (A/HRC/19/55).
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http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/media.aspx?IsMediaPage=true
NEW YORK / GENEVA (29 October
2013) – Human rights defenders working on behalf of communities affected by
large-scale development projects are increasingly being branded
‘anti-government’, ‘against development’ or even ‘enemies of the State’, a UN
independent expert has warned.
Human rights defenders trying to
help communities affected by projects such as the construction of hydroelectric
power stations, dams, and roads or the operations of various extractive
industries were being “harassed, stigmatized and criminalized for doing their
work,” the Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders Margaret Sekaggya said
on Monday in a report* to the UN General Assembly.
They also faced threats,
including deaths threats, and physical attacks. “But rather than being against
development, defenders plan an important role in advancing it,” she
highlighted.
In her report, Ms. Sekaggya calls for a rights-based
approach to large-scale development projects, which would include the
principles of equality and non-discrimination, participation, protection,
transparency and accountability, including access to appropriate remedy.
“It is essential that communities and those defending their
rights are able to participate actively, freely and meaningfully in assessment
and analysis, project design and planning, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of development projects,” said Ms. Sekaggya. Such participation can
contribute significantly to defusing tensions, she added.
“It is crucial that relevant information about large-scale
development projects is available and accessible,” the expert said. A lack of
transparency could not only increase the vulnerability of defenders and the
affected communities, but also seriously undermine the credibility and
legitimacy of both State and private involvement in such projects.
Ms. Sekaggya also stressed that, “States have an obligation
to provide protection to those claiming their legitimate right to participate
in decision-making processes and voicing their opposition to large-scale
development projects.”
“It is essential that those who wish to report human rights
concerns and violations can safely do so,” the Special Rapporteur said,
highlighting that private enterprises and donors, as well as States, can
contribute to ensuring accountability.
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UN Special Rapporteur on Human
Rights Defenders -WSR Report to the UN 2011 - FOCUS ON WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS
DEFENDERS
Introduction:"In Chapter III,
the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders focuses on
women human rights defenders and those working on women's rights or gender
issues, the risks and violations that they face and the perpetrators
involved........The Special Rapporteur further provides an overveiw of the
gender-sensitivity of the protection mechanisms in place as well as on the
strategies that these defenders use to keep themselves safe."
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Extractive Industries & Women’s Rights - Balance and Sustainability, Transformation for Survivability: Extractivism, Post-Extractivism (and beyond)?
Direct Link to Full 7-Page Article:
Extractive Industries and Women’s rights . Balance, Sustainability, and
Transformation for Survivability: Envisaging a Post-Extractivist future
Noelene Nabulivou - DAWN
Executive Committee Member, Fiji
"We reject models
based on extractivism, and current production and consumption patterns that do
not contemplate an integral vision of development …"
Young women advocates
working on the intersections between gender, economic and ecological justice1
Introduction
In the SDG and Post-2015
Development Agenda negotiations most States, UN agencies and civil society have
already affirmed universal human rights, equality and sustainability as core
principles to guide discussions. However, it is not possible to realize such
crucial principles without addressing the multiple converging crises of food,
fuel, finance and climate change, all of which have been caused by
anthropocentric development models rooted in unsustainable production and
consumption. These crises have been triggered by runaway neoliberal
globalization, which has brought with it a highly militarized and financialized
political economy, and an ongoing dependence on fossil fuels which is being
held tightly in place by closed and politicized oil regimes.
A new, alternative and
genuinely transformative approach will clearly necessitate a strong and
principled position on extractivism, which is itself centred on maximising
production and consumption at all costs. But what might that position entail?
And why is it a gender equality, human rights and sustainable development
issue?
Firstly, it is critical to
recognise that terrains of control, violence and extractivism are many, and
interlinked. These terrains are extending as industrialised countries and
transnational corporations are looking beyond tapping the last drops of oil,
gas, water and minerals from existing sources; they are also prospecting for
new resources in the oceans and the polar regions in particular,2 threatening food supplies,
biodiversity,3
and ultimately the
global ecological balance as never before. Private sector interests are also
using new and untested geo-engineering technologies to explore our land and
oceanic depths for oil, gas, rare earth and minerals despite strong opposition
from many local communities and civil society groups and networks.4 5
Private sector interests
including transnational corporations (TNCs) are also uncomfortably prominent in
recent multilateral negotiations offering considerable resources but
engendering few transformative results for local communities. Slick
corporatised development packages assist states to tick boxes on gender
equality, sustainable development and human rights, but not so readily
acknowledged by these corporatised development agencies and state backers is
the extent to which such consultancy driven public relations exercises are also
the latest public face of a corporatised elite that is intent on changing the
very nature of overseas development aid (ODA) and development.
These transnational companies and their lobby groups are increasingly synchronising their lobbying efforts, co-opting trade, aid and development agendas on a scale never seen before. They are often, for example, behind pushes for weak voluntary agreements in place of enforceable multilateral treaties. With the complicity of some states, they have also set their sights on watering down long-agreed Agenda 21 development principles including 'common but differentiated responsibilities', 'technology transfer', 'the precautionary principle', and more recently 'prior and informed consent'. They also show a remarkable capacity to reinvent themselves time and again in various facets of development tracks.......