Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
Topic: Human Rights Defenders Working on Climate Change and a Just Transition
Submitted by: Dean Bordode
Date: April 2025
Country Focus: Canada (with global context)
1. Positive Trends
In Canada, public awareness of the climate emergency has grown substantially, with Indigenous-led movements, youth-led protests (such as Fridays for Future), and climate justice groups playing central roles in demanding action. Some provincial and federal courts have started to recognize environmental rights more firmly, with British Columbia and Quebec passing legislation affirming Indigenous stewardship over lands and waters.
Faith-based communities, including interfaith alliances and Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders, have also supported Indigenous land defenders, often invoking shared moral imperatives about stewardship of the Earth. These spiritual alliances lend legitimacy to climate justice movements and help broaden public support.
Support is also emerging in digital spaces through climate-focused journalism, social media activism, and legal advocacy by organizations such as Ecojustice, West Coast Environmental Law, and the David Suzuki Foundation.
2. Successes
Several legal and activist victories stand out:
• Wet’suwet’en resistance to the Coastal GasLink pipeline sparked nationwide solidarity actions and reaffirmed the importance of Indigenous consent under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
• In Quebec, Innu and Atikamekw Nations successfully halted logging and extractive projects on their territories through community mobilization and legal strategies.
• Youth climate lawsuits, such as La Rose et al. v. Her Majesty the Queen, have helped frame climate inaction as a violation of Charter rights.
• Municipalities across Canada have declared climate emergencies, setting net-zero goals and divesting from fossil fuels.
These are signs that grassroots advocacy is influencing public policy and climate governance.
3. Risks and Retaliation
Despite progress, climate defenders continue to face significant threats:
• Indigenous land defenders, especially women, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse activists, are disproportionately targeted by surveillance, harassment, and criminalization. The RCMP’s use of militarized force against Wet’suwet’en land defenders is one example. Gender-based violence has also been reported during such enforcement actions.
• Digital threats are increasing, with environmental activists targeted through doxxing, smear campaigns, and surveillance by state and corporate actors.
• SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) remain a powerful silencing tool, as seen in the case of journalist Justin Brake, who faced charges while reporting on an Indigenous-led occupation.
• Journalist Justin Brake, who was subjected to aggressive civil and criminal proceedings for covering the Muskrat Falls occupation — a form of legal intimidation with effects similar to SLAPPs…
• A negative trend in media discourse sometimes labels activists as “radical” or “extremist,” further stigmatizing peaceful protest.
Globally, we must acknowledge that defenders in the Global South—particularly in Brazil, the Philippines, and Honduras—face even graver risks, including extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and complete impunity for corporate and state violence. Solidarity across borders is essential.
4. Recommendations
To strengthen protection and recognition of climate defenders, we recommend:
• Legal recognition of environmental human rights defenders as a protected class, in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
• Implementation of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) as a binding legal standard, especially in Indigenous territories.
• Stronger laws against SLAPPs, along with robust protections for public protest and whistleblowing.
• Development of independent oversight bodies to investigate abuses against defenders, especially in cases involving police, extractive industries, or transnational corporations.
• Increased funding and institutional support for grassroots, Indigenous-led, women-led, and 2SLGBTQ+ organizations working on environmental protection.
• Regulation of digital surveillance technologies used to monitor or harass environmental advocates.
• Global solidarity and action to end impunity for violence against defenders worldwide.
Finally, we call for formal recognition of the spiritual and cosmological knowledge systems—especially those of Indigenous peoples—that guide respectful relationships with land, water, and non-human life. These systems are not merely cultural; they are crucial epistemologies for climate resilience and environmental ethics.
Closing Statement
In protecting defenders of the Earth, we are defending the future of humanity itself. Their voices carry the wisdom, urgency, and courage our world so desperately needs.
Comments