Defending the defenders: lessons from the Escazu Agreement, the Aarhus Convention and the Framework Principles on Human Rights, and opportunities for ASEAN

摘要

Environmental and human rights defenders (EHRDs) play a key role in protecting natural and cultural resources. This role is increasingly under threat. EHRDs and the legal representatives of EHRDs are facing greater danger. A recent forum organised by the Asian Research Institute for Environmental Law, the Asia-Pacific Network of Environment Defenders with EarthRights International, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and LAWASIA highlighted the issues facing EHRDs across Southeast Asia. In June 2020, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights reported numerous human rights violations in the Philippines including "killings and arbitrary detention, persistent impunity and the vilification of dissent".1 According to the Global Witness report for 2019, more than a fifth of the 212 recorded deaths of environmental defenders occurred in the Philippines, with killings also reported in Indonesia and Cambodia.2 At least a total of 55 lawyers, prosecutors and judges are said to have been killed extrajudicially in the Philippines since 2016.