Human Rights Defenders

Citizens of the absolute monarchy of Eswatini face ongoing repression with a recent state crackdown resulting in deaths and arrests of human rights defenders. The international community, including its southern African neighbours, must renew efforts to establish justice and democracy.

In the recently concluded Summit of the Future, the United Nations ambitiously pledged to ensure meaningful and systematic participation of youth in crucial multilateral dialogues. This comes as young human rights defenders face ongoing barriers to engaging and empowering their communities.

Harnessing new technologies, activists confront challenges like algorithmic bias and misinformation. A strong emphasis on an ethical and responsible use to advance human rights must be made. Despite risks, technology can empower activism, promoting collective action, accountability and democracy worldwide.

Among the pressing human rights challenges for Europe as discussed at the FRA Forum 2024 under a valuable cross-generational perspective, it is worth highlighting insights on election impact, civic space promotion and protection, as well as digitalisation and AI impact.

Welcome to our sixth Curated series, which provides a space to reflect on conversations developed in the context of the Fundamental Rights Forum 2024 in relation to various issues concerning some pressing human rights challenges of our time and the significance of preparedness to overcome them.

Understanding human rights law as a discourse of preventative practice, rather than remedy, can support preparedness in the face of large-scale emergencies, like the ecological crisis, but also in the face of ‘everyday’ emergencies faced by human rights defenders.

Those who are protesting against unsustainable uses of the ocean or exclusionary approaches to marine conservation should be recognised and protected as environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs), due to growing awareness of the interdependence between a healthy ocean and human rights.

The interplay between states and corporations is complex because of the increasingly blurred line between their spheres of influence. It is worth exploring the benefits of deliberative governance as a means of transparency in the decision-making process that fosters public participation and effective environmental protection.

SLAPPs are destructive to civil society and public interest. Training and awareness-raising activities appear to be the best strategy at our disposal to effectively tackle abusive lawsuits and respond to the shrinking space for civil society in Europe.

Whistleblowing, particularly on issues that relate to human rights, is an important means of keeping governments accountable. Some whistleblowers could also be viewed as carrying out the function of a human rights defender. This designation can help improve their protection under the ECHR.