Working Group 13: Supporting Environmental Defenders to Advance Environmental and Social Justice

Coordinators:

The working group “Supporting Environmental Defenders to Advance Environmental and Social Justice” invites contributions from Environmental Human Rights Defenders (EHRDs), academics, human rights experts (including OHCHR staff, Special Rapporteurs, and related professionals), and practitioners (international NGOs, government institutions, donor agencies, and other relevant organisations).

This working group will explore the security challenges faced by EHRDs and generate practical, solution-oriented strategies to strengthen their protection and recognition at local, national, and international levels.

Format and planned activities

This working group will consist of three hybrid sessions (combining onsite and online participation), with two kinds of contributions:

  • EHRDs and NGOs presenting data, testimonies, or analytical insights into repression and shrinking civic space (including physical attacks and criminalisation)
  • Evidence-based, practical, and actionable recommendations or strategies to protect EHRDs and expand their space to carry out their work (including research papers, case studies, and policy briefs)

Please direct inquiries regarding this Working Group to both coordinators: denis.ruysschaert@graduateinstitute.ch and yannick.wild@peacebrigades.ch.

This dialogue aims to bridge policy and practice, ensuring that solutions are grounded in defenders’ actual needs and experiences.

Accepted presentations

Session 1: Setting the frame: International Environmental Human Rights Defenders(EHRD)

  • International tools to protect Environment Human Rights Defender (Special Rapporteur on EHRDs under the Aarhus Convention, or representative/assistant, Laetitia Battisti, Cassandra Oboussier). Online.
  • States positions on EHRDs in International norms (Priyanka Mahat, Benitez Columba, Emiliana Rickenmann, Anna Gorni, Denis Ruysschaert, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva). Onsite.

Session 2: Academic work on Environment Human Rights defenders

  • Gold, Power and Silence: The Danger of Speaking Out Against Artisanal Mining in Ghana (Emmanuel Kofi Dzage, University of Turku). Onsite.
  • The role and potential of the civil society in human rights violations in the context of militarized nature resource management in Lake Victoria, Uganda (Katja Vuorensyrjä, University of Eastern Finland; Dr. Zula Namubiru, Makerere University, Uganda ). Onsite.

Session 3: Towards solutions: Environment rights activism, SBI work, Implementation of Aarhus conventions 

  • Testimony: an EHRD criminalised for their work (speaker TBA). Online.
  • Protective accompaniment: the Peace Brigades International approach (Yannick Wild, Peace Brigades International). Online.
Registration is now open from 12 January to 15 February 2026.