UN Special Rapporteur: State repression of environmental protest and civil disobedience is a major threat to human rights and democracy

The world is currently facing a triple environmental crisis of pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. Environmental defenders are stepping up to pressure decision-makers into taking concrete actions to meaningfully address this unprecedented situation. Doing so, they exercise their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and increasingly use forms of peaceful protest or civil disobedience that may cause disruption in public spaces. Many of their actions have been disproportionately repressed or criminalised, as highlighted in the position paper by the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, Michel Forst, published  on 28 February 2024. 

The position paper emphasises that civil disobedience is recognised as a form of exercising the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly under international human rights law (articles 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). It points out that the UN Human Rights Committee specifically recalled in its General Comment No. 37 on the right of peaceful assembly, that “collective civil disobedience or direct action campaigns can be covered by article 21 provided that they are non-violent.” 

However, the Special Rapporteur flags that countries increasingly respond to peaceful environmental protest by repressing, rather than enabling and protecting those seeking to speak up for the environment. He outlines many examples of such repression in the following areas: the media and political discourse, legislation and policy, law enforcement (policing and prosecution), and the courts.

Five calls to action

The position paper calls on States, media outlets and the human rights community to ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental defenders. It calls specifically on States to:

1. address the root causes of environmental mobilisation;
2. take immediate action to counter narratives that portray environmental defenders and their movements as criminals;
3. not use the increase of environmental civil disobedience as a pretext to restrict the civic space and the exercise of fundamental freedoms;
4. comply with their international obligations related to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association in their response to environmental protest and civil disobedience and immediately cease the use of measures designed for counterterrorism and organised crime against environmental defenders; and
5. ensure that the courts’ approach to disruptive protest, including any sentences imposed, does not contribute to the restriction of the civic space.

ECNL contributed to the work of the Special Rapporteur by providing expertise and materials for the analysis of the legal standards protecting environmental protests and civil disobedience introduction and feedback to a draft version of the full report.