21 October 2021
Ireland will be a key financial backer in a fund to protect environmental defenders, the Minister for the Environment has announced.
Over the next four years Ireland will provide half of the funding for a UN Rapid Response Mechanism to safeguard environmental defenders, which Minister Eamon Ryan called an “expression of solidarity with environmental defenders across Europe and neighbouring regions”.
The mechanism is set to complement existing elements of the Aarhus Convention, which oversees access to information, public participation, decision-making and access to justice on issues related to the environment. Ireland ratified the Convention in 2012 and has transposed it into national law 18 months following ratification.
Minister Ryan announced the funding decision today at a meeting in Geneva where members to the Convention met as they do every four years.
The development, the Minister hopes, “will shine a light of justice into dark corners.”
“It will call upon the authorities of the party to uphold the rule of law. It will be a voice for the women and men who are often the last line of defence for our land, air, forests, waters and wetlands. These constitute our life-support system on Earth.
We will be held accountable by our citizens. It will force us all to live up to commitments which we all made, when we signed the Convention,” he said.
According to Global Witness, 2020 was the deadliest year for environmental defenders on record with over 200 campaigners killed.
Their report found that the violence is disproportionately impacting communities in the Global South, especially Indigenous peoples.
A third of those killed in 2020 were from Indigenous communities, while they make up just 5 per cent of the global population.
The right to a healthy environment
The Government also announced this week that it will co-sponsor a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which recognises a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
The resolution was adopted earlier this year at the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
The Government has announced that it is to co-sponsor a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council which recognises a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
https://t.co/oFBht0tSnd
— Community Law & Mediation (@CLMirl) October 21, 2021
Community Law & Mediation said that the move was not a panacea, but noted that “the constitutional right to a healthy environment is key to addressing the environmental crisis and protecting human rights”.
“Given the Government’s support for a right to a healthy environment at international level, it should also support such dialogue at a national level.
Government should convene its promised Citizens Assembly on the biodiversity crisis and include in its agenda a right to a healthy environment,” they added.
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