Introduction Human rights defenders have been on the agenda of the United Nations (UN) for several decades. After more than 13 years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998 . This was a historic achievement. It was the first UN instrument to particularly recognise the importance and legitimacy of the work of human rights defenders, as well as their …
On the 8th and 9th November, 2017, the URG Latin America, with the support of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Professor John Knox and the International Union for Conservation of Nature – National Committee of the Netherlands (IUCN-N), convened a two-days regional consultation on the situation of environmental human rights defenders (EHRD) in Latin America. Around …
Earlier in November, Norway introduced a draft resolution on the protection of human rights defenders at the UN General Assembly. This important draft text was tabled at a time of shrinking civil society space in many parts of the world and against a backdrop of an increasingly threatening climate for human rights defenders. Unfortunately the draft resolution has become subject …
