Practical information
The workshop on 14th September is an invited event but if you would like to join, please contact ony.ratsifandrihamanana@nchr.uio.no to see if there is space.
The public event panel on 15th September is in-person, if you wish to join the event, please register using the link below.
The roundtable event is by invitation only.
Register here for Public event
Background
One of the challenges for researching Human Rights Defender (‘HRD’) protection is the fragmented field, both in a temporal (e.g., prioritising preventative or reactive measures) and geographical sense (multiple actors in different locations). Developing normative and policy frameworks for protection remains paramount, but understanding practice remains central. The warnings, or triggers, reflect a ‘continuum of escalating tension’ and therefore early intervention is critical for long-term prevention. How to develop a more unified theoretical and methodological approach through a deeper understanding of trigger factors and find pathways to an enabling environment for HRD is of paramount concern. Many of these conflicts now concern especially environmental issues, as companies and states go ever deeper into territories for resource extraction and energy production. Human rights theory and practice increasingly engage with environmental issues and contested notions of sustainability.
With the most vulnerable HRDs involved in land and environment conflicts, the emergence of ‘Environmental Defenders’ provides focus upon several challenges:
- how labels and categories of ‘defenders’ are constructed, used and perceived;
- how to mediate between individuals and the broader causes they represent; understanding patterns of conflicts;
- the specific roles and relations between UN, regional mechanisms, business, state and civil society and their networks;
- company due diligence;
- Free and Prior Informed Consent and other mechanisms for non-indigenous communities;
- The role of the law as being ‘weaponised’ by and against HRD;
- how ‘defenders’ can play intermediary roles;
- how ‘defenders’ connect to broader discussions of enabling human rights environments and political dynamics in country contexts e.g wider spaces for protest;
- collecting empirical evidence from specific cases in order to identify barriers to access to justice for defenders and incentives for actors to change behaviour concerning ‘defenders’;
- implications for understanding the engagement between human rights and environmental issues;
Looking at Environmental Defenders across sectors will also be useful in understanding the patterns of conflicts pertaining to the specific sector characteristics: whether extractive, agri-business, or renewable energy.
Program
Research and Practitioner Workshop, 14 September 2022, 10:00-16:30
Venue
Room 3111, 3rd floor, Domus Juridica, Kristian Augusts gate 17, 0164 Oslo
Programme
10.05: Introduction: Prof. Bård Anders Andreassen, Director NCHR
10.15-10.45: Overview and Objectives of workshop, Prof. Peris Jones (NCHR)
10.45-11.15: Activist Victimisation report, Busisiwe Kamolane, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of Witswatersrand
11.15-11.45: Business and Human Rights Defenders - key challenges, Christen Dobson, Senior Programme Manager & Researcher (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre)
- Comments: Ed O’Donovan (special adviser to UN Special Rapporteur on HRD)
12.15: Lunch with Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention
13.00- 13.20: Methodological approaches to HRD, Rachel Cox, Global Witness
13.20-40: Methodology in Frontlines work, Hannah Storey, Frontline Defenders
13.40-14.00: Legal strategies and Methods, Snr Lecturer, Martin Jones, University of York
- Comments: Dr. David R. Goyes (IKRS, UiO)
14.30-15.00: Break
15.00-15.30: Conceptualising drivers of HRD vulnerabilities, Prof. Cesar Rodriguez Garavito, New York University (digital)
15.30-16.00: Resource Sovereignties, Prof. John McNeish, International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
- Comments: Prof. Jemima García-Godos (Department of Sociology and Human Geography, UiO)
16.30-16.45: Closing
Public Event, 15 September 2022, 10:00-13:00
Venue: Auditorium 13, Domus Media, Det juridiske fakultet (UIO), Karl Johans gate 47, 0162 Oslo
10:00-12:00: High Level Conversation Panel
Key Note:
- Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, and former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders (2014-2020)
Panelists:
- Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention
- Ingeborg Moa, Director, Norwegian Human rights Fund
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Sigurd Enge, Manager Shipping, Marine and Arctic Issues, Bellona
-
Ed O'Donovan, Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders
Moderator:
- Sandra Petersen, PhD Candidate, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, UiO
12:00-13:00: Lunch/Reception
Roundtable Event, 15 September, 13:30-16:00
Venue: Room 7227, 7th floor, Domus Juridica, Kristian Augusts gate 17, 0164 Oslo
- Led by Sandra Petersen, PhD Candidate, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights