To Save Our Planet, We Must Protect Its Defenders

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Opinion

A campaign to urge the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to adopt the standards of the Escazú Agreement in its upcoming Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency was launched at the Third Conference of the Parties of the Escazú Agreement held in Santiago, Chile, in April 2024. Credit: Lily Plazas

WASHINGTON DC, May 2 2025 (IPS) – The most powerful court in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, is preparing to clarify the obligations of States in relation to climate change. In its upcoming Advisory Opinion, the Court must articulate ambitious standards for respecting and protecting the human rights of environmental defenders in the context of the climate crisis.

Environmental defenders — advocates protecting environmental rights, resources, and marginalized communities — play a critical role in helping us navigate the climate crisis: they preserve ecosystem health, and mobilize and organize when the environment is under threat. Their work is vital.

Across the globe, we are witnessing the impacts of a warming planet: devastating wildfires, lethal flash floods, droughts that fuel hunger, and increasingly intense hurricanes. This strain on land and resources translates into greater pressure on those who defend the environment.

It is thus essential to strengthen the rights and work of environmental defenders, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that is amongst the most vulnerable to the effects of the climate emergency and the most dangerous in the world for environmental activism.

During public hearings in May 2024, a petition supported by over a 1,000 individuals and human rights organizations was delivered to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights urging the Court to incorporate the Escazú standards into its Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency. Credit: Romulo Serpa

Environmental defenders’ work is often deadly. In 2023, 196 environmental defenders were brutally murdered. Most of them were opposing deforestation, pollution, and land grabbing. Their struggles are for essential needs: clean air, healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, safe and sufficient water, and food.

Only four countries in Latin America and the Caribbean — Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico — account for 85 percent of the documented murders of environmental defenders, confirming this region as the most violent one in the world for those who defend the land and the environment.

The call to strengthen environmental defenders’ rights and work was heard loud and clear at the Third Forum on Human Rights Defenders in Environmental Matters of the Escazú Agreement, where countries from the region convened in the Caribbean island State of St. Kitts and Nevis in April.

This Forum marked a historic moment: it was the first event of its kind in the Insular Caribbean, a region already experiencing — and poised to disproportionately face — the severe impacts of the climate crisis.

“It served as a vital platform not only to advance defenders’ rights but also to expose alarming new threats: rising attacks not only against individual human rights defenders but also against groups and organizations, through the spread of “laws against NGOs” and strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) suits targeting environmental lawyers.”

SLAPPs are tactics used, mostly by businesses, to intimidate and silence environmental defender organizations. Unlike genuine legal actions, SLAPPs abuse the court system to drain resources and undermine activists’ efforts. These lawsuits can create a “chilling effect” on free speech, making others hesitant to speak out for fear of being sued.

They also burden public resources and waste judicial time on unnecessary cases. These tactics aim to silence collective action and dismantle the critical support networks that defenders rely on.

The Escazú Agreement is the first binding regional treaty to promote environmental democracy — the right to information, participation, and justice — in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is also the only one in the world that contains specific provisions aiming to guarantee a safe and enabling space for environmental defenders. It is the fruit of decades of hard work by regional governments, civil society organizations, and environmental defenders.

The Environmental Defenders Forums, in the framework of the Escazú Agreement, were established for the discussion and implementation of the Action Plan on Human Rights Defenders in Environmental Matters. This Action Plan outlines strategic measures to ensure the safety of environmental defenders in the region, as well as recognize and protect their rights while ensuring that States prevent, investigate, and sanction attacks and threats against them.

Hosting the Forum in the Insular Caribbean was a notable political achievement for the countries of this region. Internationally, discussions often group Latin America and the Caribbean as a single, cohesive entity. However, the experiences of defenders in Latin American nations and the continental Caribbean differ significantly from those in the Insular Caribbean.

Key distinctions — such as country size, government capacities, and unique environmental challenges, including heightened vulnerability to specific climate events — result in diverse needs and priorities for environmental defenders.

This event was eye-opening for many, as it shed light on the diverse realities within the Caribbean that are often overshadowed when grouped under the broad label of “Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Environmental defenders in the Caribbean face significant pressures despite lower reported lethal attacks compared to Latin America. Over a decade, three lethal cases were recorded in one country, but reports acknowledge these figures as incomplete due to challenges such as limited civil society presence, media repression, and insecurity. Additionally, non-lethal aggressions — such as criminalization, harassment, and stigmatization — often go overlooked.

During the Forum, Caribbean environmental defenders highlighted socio-environmental conflicts across industries like oil and gas, mining, tourism, and infrastructure. Despite their efforts, their work is often stigmatized, infantilized, and unrecognized —even by themselves — as many identify as “climate activists” or “community leaders” rather than environmental defenders.

This lack of recognition hinders awareness of their protections and State obligations under international human rights law, underscoring the need for States to better recognize, protect, and promote defenders’ rights.

State representatives had a limited presence at the Forum, unlike mandatory participation in the Escazú Conference of the Parties, leaving “empty chairs” without accountability. This absence isolates environmental defenders in echo chambers, limiting dialogue with decision-makers.

The Forum is a vital platform to address violence and threats against defenders, but State neglect undermines its purpose. By failing to engage in the Forum and to protect defenders, States violate their rights and international law, making their absence unacceptable.
In this critical context, strengthening the rights and work of environmental defenders is essential, with the Escazú Agreement and its Action Plan providing a vital framework.

The Advisory Opinion process of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the Climate Emergency presents a key opportunity for the region’s most influential Court to advance this goal.

We urge the Court to incorporate the Escazú Agreement’s specific standards as a baseline where Inter-American standards are less robust. This includes clearly defining the minimum essential content of the rights to access information, public participation, and justice in environmental matters under the American Convention.

Additionally, regional and international standards must be harmonized to ensure strong protections for environmental defenders, including a safe and enabling environment for their vital work.

There is no time to lose — every moment of inaction puts the lives of environmental defenders at greater risk. Without those who defend the planet, there can be no sustainable future. Protecting environmental defenders is not charity — it is survival.

Luisa Gómez Betancur is Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).

IPS UN Bureau

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‘The International Response Should Follow the Principle of ‘Nothing about Us, Without Us’’

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May 1 2025 (IPS) – CIVICUS speaks with Ukrainian gender rights activist Maryna Rudenko about the gendered impacts of the war in Ukraine and the importance of including women in peacebuilding efforts.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has profoundly impacted on women and girls. Many have been displaced and are struggling with poverty and unemployment. Those who’ve stayed endure daily missile attacks, damaged infrastructure, lack of basic services and sexual violence from Russian forces if they live in occupied territories. Women activists, caregivers and journalists are particularly vulnerable. The international community must increase support to ensure justice for victims and women’s inclusion in peace efforts.

Maryna Rudenko

What have been the impacts of the war in Ukraine, particularly on women and girls?

The war began in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, with Indigenous women, particularly Crimean Tatars, immediately and severely affected. They risked losing their property and livelihoods, and to continue working they were forced to change their citizenship. Pro-Ukraine activists had to flee and those who stayed faced arrest. This placed a heavier burden on many women who were left in charge of their families.

At the same time in 2014, Russia began supporting separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, leading to the occupation of territories such as Donetsk and Luhansk and the displacement of over a million people. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, many lost their homes again. Nearly seven million fled to European countries. This population loss poses a significant demographic challenge to Ukraine’s post-war development.

Since 2015, conflict-related sexual violence has been a major issue. Around 342 cases have been documented. The International Criminal Court recognised that conflict-related sexual violence has been committed in the temporarily occupied territories since 2014.

Ukraine also experienced the largest campaign of child abduction in recent history: Russia took close to 20,000 Ukrainian children from occupied territories and sent then to ‘camps’ in Crimea or Russia, where the authorities changed their names and nationalities and gave them to Russian families. Ukrainian children were forced to change their national identity. This is evidence of genocidal approach in Russia’s war activities.

The war has also devastated infrastructure and the economy. In my town, 30 km from Kyiv, the heating station was hit by 11 ballistic missiles, leaving us without electricity or water for a long time. It was very scary to stay at the apartment with my daughter and know that Russian ballistic missiles were flying over our house. Roughly 40 per cent of the economy was destroyed in 2022 alone, causing job losses at a time when the government spends over half its budget on the military. Civilians, including a record 70,000 women, have taken up arms.

Beyond the immediate human cost, the war is causing serious environmental damage, with weapons and missile debris polluting soil and water beyond national borders. Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, poses a very real risk of a nuclear disaster for Ukraine and Europe as a whole.

How have Ukrainian women’s organisations responded?

Starting in 2014, we focused on advocacy, championing United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1,325, which reaffirms the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution. The government adopted its National Action Plan on the implementation of the resolution in 2016. We formed local coalitions to implement this agenda, leading to reforms such as opening military roles to women, establishing policies to prevent sexual harassment, integrating gender equality in the training curriculum and gender mainstreaming as part of police reform.

Following the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian women’s civil society organisations (CSOs) shifted to providing immediate humanitarian relief, as survival became the top priority. Women’s CSOs began helping people, particularly those with disabilities, relocate to western Ukraine and providing direct aid to those who remained. As schools, hospitals and shelters for survivors of domestic violence were destroyed, women’s CSOs tried to fill the gap, providing food, hygiene packages and cash and improvising school lessons in metro tunnels.

People stood up and helped. In Kharkiv, which is located 30 km from the boarder with Russia, the local government created underground schools. It’s unbelievable that this happened in the 21st century and because of the aggression of a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Our children, women and men can’t sleep normally because every night there are missile and drone attacks.

In the second half of 2022, women’s CSOs and the government tried to refocus on long-term development. One of the first initiatives was to amend the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security to better address conflict-related sexual violence in both occupied and liberated areas. This was a much-needed response given the many reported cases of killing, rape and torture. This involved training law enforcement officers, prosecutors and other officials on how to document these crimes and properly communicate with survivors, who often blame themselves due to stigma surrounding the violence.

We have also reported Russia’s violations of the Geneva Conventions, particularly those concerning women, to UN human rights bodies.

Women’s groups are pushing for more donor support for psychological services to address trauma and helping plan for long-term recovery, aiming to rebuild damaged infrastructure and improve services to meet the needs of excluded groups. Some donors, like the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, have agreed to support the costs of mental recovery for women activists to help them restore their strength and support others.

How should women’s voices be integrated into recovery and peacebuilding efforts?

Women must have a real seat at the negotiation table. Genuine participation means not just counting the number of women involved but ensuring their voices are heard and their needs addressed. Unfortunately, the gender impacts of the war remain a secondary concern.

We have outlined at least 10 key areas where the gender impacts of the war should be discussed and prioritised in negotiations. However, it looks like these are being largely ignored in the current high-level negotiations between Russia and the USA. We heard that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the importance of returning Ukrainian children when he met with Donald Trump. It’s highly important for the mothers and fathers of these children and for all Ukrainians.

Women’s CSOs are working to ensure all survivors can access justice and fair reparations, and that nobody forgets and excuses the war crimes committed. We urgently need accountability; peace cannot be achieved at the expense of truth. This is particularly important because the Council of Europe’s Register of Damage for Ukraine only accepts testimonies of war crimes that happened after the 2022 invasion, leaving out many survivors from crimes committed since 2014. We are working to amend this rule.

The international response should follow the principle of ‘nothing about us, without us’. International partners should collaborate directly with women-led CSOs, using trauma-informed approaches. For women affected by combat, loss or abduction, recovery must start with psychological support, and civil society can play a vital role in this process.

The effective implementation of Resolution 1,325 also requires reconstruction funds that incorporate a gender perspective throughout. Ukrainian women’s CSOs prepared a statement to highlight the importance of analysing the war’s impact on the implementation of the UN’s Beijing Platform for Action on gender equality and we used this as common message during the recent meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Additionally, we believe it’s time to consider the successes and failures in implementation of Resolution 1,325 and its sister resolutions, because it’s 25 years since its adoption and the world is not safer.

We appreciate any platforms where we can speak about the experience of Ukraine and call for action to support Ukraine to help make a just and sustain peace in Europe and the world.

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SEE ALSO
Ukraine: ‘Civil society remains resilient and responsive, but financial constraints now hamper its efforts’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Mykhailo Savva 25.Feb.2025
Russia: Further tightening of restrictions on ‘undesirable’ organisations CIVICUS Monitor 30.Jul.2024
Russia and Ukraine: a tale of two civil societies CIVICUS Lens 24.Feb.2024

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Trump’s First 100 Days Portend Long-Lasting Damage to Press Freedom

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Opinion

NEW YORK, May 1 2025 (IPS) – Press freedom is no longer a given in the United States 100 days into President Donald Trump’s second term as journalists and newsrooms face mounting pressures that threaten their ability to report freely and the public’s right to know.

A new report released April 30 by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)– “Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy,” noted that the administration has scaled up its rhetorical attacks and launched a startling number of actions using regulatory bodies and powerful allies that, taken together, may cause irreparable harm to press freedom in the U.S. and will likely take decades to repair.

The level of trepidation among U.S. journalists is such that CPJ has provided more security training since the November election than at any other period.

“This is a definitive moment for U.S. media and the public’s right to be informed. CPJ is providing journalists with resources at record rates so they can report safely and without fear or favor, but we need everyone to understand that protecting the First Amendment is not a choice, it’s a necessity. All our freedoms depend on it,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg.

Emerging challenges to a free press in the United States fall under three main categories:
1) The restriction of access for some news organizations; 2) The increasing use of government and regulatory bodies against news organizations; and 3) Targeted attacks against journalists and newsrooms.

While The Associated Press (AP), a global newswire agency serving thousands of newsrooms in the U.S. and across the world, has faced retaliation for not adhering to state-mandated language, the Federal Communications Commission is mounting investigations against three major broadcasters – CBS, ABC, and NBC – along with the country’s two public broadcasters – NPR and PBS – in moves widely viewed as politically motivated.

“The rising tide of threats facing U.S. journalists and newsrooms are a direct threat to the American public,” said Ginsberg. “Whether at the federal or state level, the investigations, hearings, and verbal attacks amount to an environment where the media’s ability to bear witness to government action is already curtailed.”

Journalists who reached out to CPJ in recent months are worried about online harassment and digital and physical safety. Newsrooms have also shared with us worries about the possibility of punitive regulatory actions.

Since the presidential election last November until March 7 of this year, CPJ has provided safety consultations to more than 530 journalists working in the country. This figure was only 20 in all of 2022, marking an exponential increase in the need for safety information.

Globally, the gutting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media resulted in the effective termination of thousands of journalist positions, and the elimination of USAID independent media support impoverished the news landscape in many regions across the globe where the news ecosystem is underdeveloped or information is severely restricted.

As the executive branch of the U.S. government is taking unprecedented steps to permanently undermine press freedom, CPJ is calling on the public, news organizations, civil society, and all branches, levels, and institutions of government – from municipalities to the U.S. Supreme Court – to safeguard press freedom to help secure the future of American democracy.

In particular, Congress must prioritize passage of the PRESS Act and The Free Speech Protection Act, both bipartisan bills that can strengthen and protect press freedom throughout the United States.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

IPS UN Bureau

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The Disappeared: Mexico’s Industrial-Scale Human Rights Crisis

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Opinion

Credit: Raquel Cunha/Reuters via Gallo Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 28 2025 (IPS) – They found shoes, hundreds of them, scattered across the dirt floor of an extermination camp in Jalisco state. These abandoned shoes, once belonging to someone’s child, parent or spouse, stand as silent witnesses to Mexico’s deepest national trauma. Alongside charred human remains and makeshift crematoria meant to erase all evidence of humanity, they tell the story of a crisis that has reached industrial-scale proportions.

In March, volunteer search groups uncovered this sprawling death camp operated by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Teuchitlán. The discovery wasn’t made by sophisticated government intelligence operations but by mothers, sisters and wives who’ve transformed their personal grief into relentless collective action. For them, the alternative to searching is unthinkable.

Mexico is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering proportions. Over 121,000 people have disappeared over the past decades, with 90 per cent of cases occurring since 2006, when then President Felipe Calderón militarised the fight against drug cartels. Add to this the estimated 52,000 unidentified human remains held in morgues across the country and the true scale of this national tragedy begins to unfold.

A web of complicity

What makes Mexico’s crisis particularly sinister is the systematic collusion between arms of the state and organised crime. The Jalisco camp’s proximity to federal security installations raises troubling questions about official complicity and active participation in a system that treats some populations as expendable.

The crisis follows a well-established pattern. In states such as Jalisco and Tamaulipas, criminal organisations collaborate with local authorities to enforce territorial control. They use violence to recruit forced labour, eliminate opposition and instil terror in communities that might otherwise resist. Security forces are often implicated, as seen in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College, where investigations revealed that military personnel witnessed the attack perpetrated by a criminal organisation but failed to intervene.

Young people and women from poorer backgrounds bear the brunt of this horror. In Jalisco, a third of missing people are between 15 and 29 years old. Women and girls are systematically targeted, with disappearances often linked to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Ciudad Juárez has become notorious for femicides, with over 2,500 women and girls disappeared and murdered since the 1990s. Migrants transiting through Mexico are vulnerable to abduction for extortion or forced recruitment, as seen in the 2010 San Fernando massacre, when 72 migrants were executed for refusing to work for a criminal group.

Mothers turned activists

Faced with government inaction or complicity, civil society has stepped in. Human rights organisations document disappearances, support victims’ families and demand accountability, including by organising public demonstrations, collaborating with international bodies and bringing cases before international courts. But the most remarkable response comes from grassroots collectives formed by families of the disappeared. Throughout Mexico, hundreds of groups such as Guerreras Buscadoras, predominantly led by women – mothers, wives and sisters of the disappeared – conduct search operations, comb remote areas for clandestine graves, perform exhumations and maintain secure databases to document findings.

Their courage comes at a terrible price. In May 2024, Teresa Magueyal was assassinated by armed men on motorcycles in Guanajuato state after spending three years searching for her son José Luis. She was the sixth mother of a disappeared person to be murdered in Guanajuato within a few months. Another mother, Norma Andrade, has survived two murder attempts. Despite knowing the risks, she and countless others continue their quest for truth and justice.

Years of pressure from civil society culminated in the 2017 General Law on Forced Disappearance, which formally recognised enforced disappearance in national legislation and established a National Search Commission. While a significant achievement, implementation has proven problematic, with inconsistent application across Mexico’s federal system, inadequate information systems, insufficient forensic capacity and minimal penalties for perpetrators.

Time for change

The discovery of the Jalisco extermination camp has generated unprecedented public outrage, sparking nationwide protests. President Claudia Sheinbaum has declared combating disappearances a national priority and announced several initiatives: strengthening the National Search Commission, reforming identity documentation, creating integrated forensic databases, implementing immediate search protocols, standardising criminal penalties, publishing transparent investigation statistics and enhancing victim support services.

For meaningful progress, Mexico must undertake comprehensive reforms that address the structural underpinnings of the crisis. Critical measures include demilitarising public security, strengthening independent prosecutors and forensic institutions, guaranteeing transparent investigations free from political interference and providing sustained support for victims’ families.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has announced the opening of an urgent procedure examining Mexico’s disappearance crisis – a step that could elevate these cases to the scrutiny of the UN General Assembly. International oversight is needed to ensure state compliance with human rights obligations.

This moment – with public outrage at its peak, presidential commitments on the table and international scrutiny intensifying – creates a potential inflection point for addressing this national trauma. If there was ever a time when conditions favoured substantive action, it’s now.

But whatever happens at the official level, one thing remains certain: Mexico’s mothers of the disappeared will continue their quest. They’ll keep searching abandoned buildings, digging in remote fields and marching in the streets carrying photos of their missing loved ones. They search not because they have hope, but because they have no choice. They search because the alternative is surrender to a system that would prefer they kept silent.

And so they continue, carrying their message to the disappeared and to a state that has failed them: ‘Until we find you, until we find the truth’.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Children at the Center

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World Creativity & Innovation Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif

The ruins of a residential building in northern Gaza following an Israeli airstrike. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

NEW YORK, Apr 21 2025 – Creativity and innovation are essential to finding extraordinary solutions to abnormal problems. Now more than ever we must continue finding creative solutions to protect the world’s most vulnerable children from the excruciating pain of war, dispossession and destruction of their last hope: a quality education. The current humanitarian and development funding levels are falling. However, with creativity we can prevent further deterioration and instead turn towards an upward direction.

With bold, innovative action and connected problem-solving in a world of abundance we can better connect the dots between donors, governments, the private sector, UN agencies, civil society and other key partners to unleash our wealth of humanity towards those in unwanted scarcity: the world’s most vulnerable children whose only wealth is their hope for a quality education.

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published his groundbreaking theory, “On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres.” His new ideas sparked a revolution by placing the Sun – rather than the Earth – at the centre of our solar system.

We need a Copernican Revolution of our own today – one guided by data, evidence, creativity and innovation, and the highest of all values: empathy. We can then deliver on the reforms envisioned in the UN80 Initiative, Pact for the Future and other initiatives designed to reimagine the delivery of humanitarian aid. In short, we must place children at the center of our universe and use education as our single most powerful instrument to tap their vast potential. Only then can their hope turn into reality.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises in the United Nations, is embracing evidence-driven reforms to streamline our operations and ensure every donor dollar creates a positive impact on the lives of children caught on the frontlines of conflict, climate change and forced displacement. With the lowest overhead costs, we are lean, agile and fast-acting, and we place children and adolescents in emergencies and protracted crises at the center of everything we do.

Our work – and our value proposition – is driven by data and evidence to achieve optimal results and impact. Let’s start with the growing needs. When ECW became operational in 2017, it was estimated that approximately 75 million crisis-affected children needed education support. Today, with violent conflicts in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, horrific shocks from climate change-related natural disasters, and a unprecedented rise in human displacement and migration, that number has skyrocketed to nearly a quarter of a billion – 234 million to be precise.

Data also tell us that a lack of quality education – especially across the Global South – is costing us trillions of dollars in lost opportunities every year. “Limited educational opportunities and barriers for girls cost the world economy between US$15 trillion and US$30 trillion. In nine countries, the cost of out-of-school children was estimated to be greater than the value of an entire year of GDP growth,” according to the World Bank.

Additionally, investing US$1 in early childhood education can generate returns as high as US$17 for the most disadvantaged children worldwide. Imagine the impact every dollar could have in creating a million more opportunities for the world’s most vulnerable children.

Given the current funding environment, we must embrace our creative problem-solving and solutions orientation. Besides revisiting budgets and finding human-centred solutions to those left furthest behind, another creative approach toward resource mobilization comes from impact investments. Through partnerships with visionary businesses like Swiss Cantonal Banks and Tribe Impact Capital LLP, Education Cannot Wait is able to connect private capital with public goods as a driving force toward long-term economic growth, resilience and security. With the ability to crowd-in resources and expertise, pool funds and broker partnerships, ECW is igniting global reform to deliver on a development sector, such as education, in humanitarian crises with coordination, speed and impact.

Together with our strategic donor partners, ECW is reimagining the way we deliver life-saving education supports on the frontlines of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. One thing is certain, by following Copernicus’ evidence-based vision – and placing children at the center of our collective efforts – we can make the seemingly impossible possible – provided that we all do our part keeping our eyes on what really matters: those left furthest behind and every child’s right to a quality education – especially when this is their very last hope. By transforming their lives through a quality education, we empower them to arise from their suffering and become creative and innovative contributors to their society and, indeed, all of humanity.

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Standing Firm: Civil Society at the Forefront of the Climate Resistance

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Opinion

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LONDON, Apr 15 2025 (IPS) – The recent US court case that ordered three Greenpeace organisations to pay damages of over US$660 million to an oil and gas company was a stunning blow against civil society’s efforts to stop runaway climate change and environmental degradation. The verdict, following a trial independent witnesses assessed to be grossly unfair, came in reaction to Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protests. It’s vital for any prospects of tackling the climate crisis that Greenpeace’s appeal succeeds, because without civil society pressure, there’s simply no hope of governments and corporations taking the action required.

Civil society is more used to winning climate and environmental court cases than losing them. As CIVICUS’s 2025 State of Civil Society Report outlines, litigation has become a vital part of civil society’s strategy. Just last year, a group of Swiss women won a groundbreaking precedent in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled the government was violating their rights by failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea’s Constitutional Court found that the lack of emissions reduction targets breached young people’s constitutional rights. Other positive judgments came in countries including Ecuador, India and Italy. At the last count, climate lawsuits had been filed in 55 countries.

But fossil fuel companies have noticed civil society’s litigation successes and are also taking to the courts. They have the deep pockets needed to hire expensive lawyers and sustain legal actions over many draining years. Fossil fuel companies have filed over 150 lawsuits intended to silence criticism in the USA alone since 2012.

Protest restrictions

Civil society is doing all it can to demand climate action that matches the scale of the crisis, winning victories by combining tactics such as street protest, non-violent direct action and litigation, but it’s coming under attack. Peaceful protesters are being jailed and activists are facing violence in many countries. Alongside the chilling effect on protests of lawsuits such as the one against Greenpeace, governments in several countries are criminalising legitimate forms of protest. Globally, climate activists and defenders of environmental, land and Indigenous rights are among the groups most targeted for repression.

Security force violence and mass arrests and detentions, particularly of protesters, are in danger of becoming normalised. Last year in the Netherlands, authorities detained thousands for taking part in mass roadblock protests demanding the government keep its promise of ending fossil fuel subsidies. In France, police used violence at a protest against road construction in June and banned another in August. In Australia, activists opposing a huge coal terminal and a gas project were among those arrested in 2024.

In Uganda, campaigners against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline continue to face state repression. Last year, authorities arbitrarily arrested 11 activists from the campaign. These activists have faced intimidation and pressure to stop their activism.

Campaigners from Cambodia’s Mother Nature group paid a heavy price for their work in trying to stand up to powerful economic and political interests seeking to exploit the environment. Last July, 10 young activists were given long jail sentences after documenting river pollution.

Some states, like the UK, have rewritten protest laws to expand the range of offences, increase sentences and strengthen police powers. Last July, five Just Stop Oil activists were handed brutally long sentences of up to five years for planning a roadblock protest. The UK now arrests environmental protesters at three times the global average rate.

Italy’s right-wing government is introducing new restrictions. Last year, parliament passed a law on what it calls ‘eco-vandals’ in response to high-profile awareness-raising stunts at monuments and cultural sites. Another repressive law is being introduced that will allow sentences of up to two years for roadblock protests.

The struggle continues

Yet civil society will keep striving for action, which is more urgent than ever. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and it was crammed with extreme weather events, made more likely and frequent by climate change. Far too little is being done.

Fossil fuel companies continue their deadly trade. Global north governments, historically the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, are watering down plans as right-wing politicians gain sway. International commitments such as the Paris Agreement show ambition on paper, but not enough is achieved when states come together at summits such as last December’s COP29 climate conference.

There’s a huge funding gap between what’s needed to enable countries to transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to climate change. Global south countries want the most powerful economies, which have benefited from the industries that have caused the bulk of climate change, to pay their share. But of an estimated annual US$1.3 trillion needed, the most global north states agreed to at COP29 was US$3 billion a year.

Nor are fossil fuel companies paying their share. Over the past five decades the oil and gas sector has made profits averaging US$2.8 billion a day. Yet companies are currently scaling back renewable energy investments and planning still more extraction, while using their deep pockets to lobby against measures to rein them in. Making the global tax rules fairer and more effective would help too: US$492 billion a year could be recovered by closing offshore tax loopholes, while taxes on the excessive wealth of the super-rich could unlock US$2.1 trillion a year, more than enough to tackle the climate crisis.

Civil society will keep pushing, because every fraction of a degree in temperature rises matters to millions. Change is not only necessary, but possible. For example, following extensive civil society advocacy, last September the UK shut down its last coal-fired power station.

Civil society played a major role in campaigning for the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which requires large companies to align with the Paris Agreement. And last December, the International Court of Justice began hearing a case brought by a group of Pacific Island states, seeking an advisory opinion on what states are required to do to address climate change and help countries suffering its worst impacts. This landmark case originated with civil society, when student groups urged national leaders to take the issue to the court.

Trump’s return to the White House has made the road ahead much rockier. The world’s biggest historical emitter and largest current fossil fuel extractor has again given notice of its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, torn up renewable energy policies and made it easier to drill for fossil fuels. In response, other high-emitting nations must step up and show genuine climate leadership. They should start by committing to respecting the right of civil society to hold them to account. States and companies must cease their attacks on climate and environmental activists and instead partner with them to respond to the climate emergency.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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