For more than a decade, Azerbaijani authorities have been restricting space for civil society. NGOs have been arbitrarily shut down and civil society activists and journalists arrested or forced into exile. Since the announcement of Azerbaijan as the host state of COP29 last year, the clampdown on critical voices has intensified, resulting in arrests and Weiterlesen
Recommendations to parties to the UNFCCC
This document provides recommendations for parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to the Paris Agreement which would help put human rights front and centre of all climate action and decision making at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024. It updates an earlier version published in May 2024. Weiterlesen
Climate change and health – what’s the connection?
Climate change is increasingly driving violations of the right to life and the right to health. In fact, climate change has been called “the greatest global health threat facing the world in the 21st century”. Weiterlesen
Recharge for Rights: Ranking the Human Rights Due Diligence Reporting of Leading Electric Vehicle Makers
In order to combat climate change, many governments are now incentivising the market in electric vehicles (EV). Their batteries require cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and other minerals. However, the rush to increase the supply of these minerals has led to the rapid expansion of mines causing human rights abuses and environmental harm around the world. Weiterlesen
COP29: States must press Azerbaijani authorities to end assault on civil society
In the leadup to next month’s COP29 climate summit in Baku, states must exert pressure on the Azerbaijani authorities to reverse their clampdown on civil society, release those detained solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, and ensure participants including activists and journalists can engage freely and fully in the event, Amnesty International said today. Weiterlesen
World Habitat Day: Decisive action is needed to address climate change impacts on the right to housing
With this year’s World Habitat Day theme focusing on youth and urban futures, it is impossible to ignore one key factor – the climate crisis – and what it means for fulfilling the right to housing in both rural and urban contexts, including for young people, today and in the future. Weiterlesen
Americas: Record wildfires in South America Require an Unprecedented Response
In response to record fires across South America, with several millions of hectares burning across the Amazon basin and the entire continent, Amnesty International today published an Open Letter addressed to the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru calling for governments to ramp up action to extinguish wildfires, strengthen efforts to abandon fossil fuels, protect territories of Indigenous Peoples, and provide guarantees to environmental human rights defenders. Weiterlesen
Colombia: Threats against an amazon defender
On 10 September Jani Silva, a defender of land, territory and the environment and the president of ADISPA, an organization managing a peasant reserve zone in the Colombian Amazon (department of Putumayo), received a phone call threatening to “blow you up, car and all”. Jani and ADISPA have protection measures in place, provided by the government’s National Protection Unit (UNP). Weiterlesen
Honduras: Water defender killed
On Saturday, 14th September, environmental defender and coordinator of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets (CMDBCPT) Juan López was murdered as he was leaving his work as a community and religious leader in the parish of San Isidro Labrador in the municipality of Tocoa, department of Colón, northern Honduras. Weiterlesen
We must act globally to safeguard the future of humanity
By Agnès Callamard, Secretary General at Amnesty International Multiple wars, extreme inequality, a looming climate collapse, and new technologies capable of transforming our very existence have brought humanity to a crossroads. We have no time left for complacency or defeatism—only a shared responsibility to salvage the world that we owe to future generations. Weiterlesen