international organisations

• SUDAN: ‘We are back to the situation that preceded the revolution’

  CIVICUS speaks about Sudan’s situation under military rule with Nazik Kabalo, a woman human rights defender (HRD) from Sudan. Nazik has worked in human rights advocacy, research and monitoring, with a focus on women’s rights, for the past 15 years.

  What happened to Sudan’s transition to democracy?

  Sudan is now facing the consequences of the major problems of the deal made by the military and civilian leaders in August 2019. Following the revolution, this deal initiated a transitional government in Sudan, a partnership between civilians and the military council. But this partnership was never equal: the military and former regime forces – including paramilitaries, militias, tribal militias and the security apparatus – had more economic and political power. They had controlled the country for 30 years, after all.

  On the other hand, for 30 years political parties and civil society had been under so much pressure that they only managed to stay together with the momentum of the revolution, to defeat the former regime. But the Sudanese democracy movement has too many internal divisions.

  Ours is an unfinished political transition that is missing transitional justice and mechanisms to limit the power of military and other armed groups. All armed groups had been involved in very severe human rights violations and remained partners with civilians in the new government. To be honest, I think the military coup was bound to happen. The political deal achieved in 2019 gave the presidency to the military for almost one and a half years. The coup happened on 25 October 2021, only few weeks before the date the military was expected to hand over the Supreme Council presidency to civilian leaders. But we always knew civilians didn’t really have a chance to lead the country.

  How has the situation evolved after the coup?

  Following the coup, the amount of violence and human rights violations was quite overwhelming. Violence is to be expected from the Sudanese military; it has led civil wars for 50 years and killing people is basically all it knows.

  Seven months after the coup, at least 102 people have been killed in peaceful protests, more than 4,000 have been injured, and over 5,000 have been detained. There have been attacks on the freedoms of association and expression. Journalists are being attacked: at least three female journalists have been prosecuted or arrested in the past couple of days. The military coup has completely destroyed the civic space and freedoms created after the revolution. Our military is learning from our neighbour, Egypt, to effectively crush the civic movement.

  For the past seven months we have lived under a state of emergency that was only lifted three weeks ago. But the lifting of the state of emergency made no difference to military practices on the ground. The international community has put some pressure on the government and the military but has not been able to stop the violence and civic space and human rights violations.

  An aspect to consider is that Sudan has three conflict areas: Blue Nile, Darfur and Nuba Mountains. As well as western and southern Sudan, there’s also inter-communal violence in eastern Sudan. The coup hasn’t been able to provide security, although this is always the main excuse for the military to take power. Violence in urban areas, including the capital, has increased, especially for women. Members of the security forces, including the Central Reserve Police (CRP), have perpetrated gang rapes and sexual assaults against women; for this reason, the CRP has been recently sanctioned by the USA. A peace agreement was signed in October 2020 with several armed groups but hasn’t been effectively implemented. 

  Sudan’s economy has been in a freefall since the coup. We expected to have our debt cancelled by this year, but because of the coup, the Paris Club, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank decided not to move forward. Instead, the IMF, the World Bank and international donors have frozen over two billion dollars in economic aid, which is directly affecting the general humanitarian situation. Recent reports from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimate at least half of Sudanese people will need humanitarian aid this year.

  Another impact of the coup was the internet shutdown. For at least seven weeks, HRDs lived under a complete communications shutdown. This has now been partially lifted, but internet and phone communications continue to be cut off on every day of protest – which means it has happened every single day for several weeks. Internet access is under very harsh surveillance, so no Sudanese activist feels safe to use the phone for work. Sudan has one of the worst cybercrime laws in the world: you can be prosecuted, tried and sentenced to five years in jail just for posting something on Facebook. A couple of months ago, a female HRD who reported the sexual violence that took place during protests was sent to jail, accused of posting ‘fake news’. She may be punished with up to 20 years in prison. The military have used this law to threaten activists both inside and outside Sudan.

  We are back to the situation that preceded the revolution. We feel that the old regime is back; in fact, the military has started appointing people from the former regime everywhere, from national television to the Humanitarian Commission, which is responsible for managing the work of civil society organisations (CSOs) inside Sudan. So CSOs are back to needing to request authorisation to hold meetings at venues outside our offices and are under constant surveillance. Activists, journalists and lawyers are being silenced because power went back to the military.

  What are protesters’ demands?

  Following the revolution, the deal reached between the military and civilians never satisfied the protest movement, which includes a high proportion of young people and women. They have never stopped protesting, not even during the transitional period, from August 2019 to October 2021. There have been at least 20 killings of HRDs since the transition began, but this hasn’t stopped them. So when the coup happened, people were instantly in the streets, even before an official announcement of the coup was made.

  Since 2018, protesters have demanded real democracy and civilian rule. We have had military governments 90 per cent of the time since we became independent: 59 years out of 64. After the regime fell on 11 April 2019, people started a sit-in in front of the military’s headquarters. This continued for two months and ended with the Khartoum Massacre on 3 June 2019, with attacks perpetrated by militias and security forces. Two hundred people were killed and at least 60 women were gang-raped. In August a deal was reached with the military, despite the massacre that literally happened outside their headquarters! This was a stab in the heart for many democracy groups.

  Right now, the protest movement wants to make sure civilians are the ones ruling the country. Military leaders should go back to guarding the borders and shouldn’t have anything to do with running the government anymore. The 2019 deal didn’t work, which means our only option is demanding radical change that puts power in people’s hands. Resistance committees have a slogan of ‘three nos’: no partnership, no negotiation or compromise, and no legitimacy. A process of dialogue and negotiations led by some political parties is currently taking place, but resistance committees refuse to engage. Unfortunately, this has not been welcomed by some international actors, but it comes as a direct result of recent Sudanese experience.

  Who are the people on the streets?

  Protesters have built an amazing grassroots movement; resistance committees have formed in every neighbourhood, even every block. Those who participate in them are ordinary people who have nothing to lose, so unlike the civilian elites, they are willing to continue the struggle until the end. They organise street protests every single day and are creating new ways of protesting, such as strikes, stand-ups, music, movies and poems. They use every tool available, including recreating Sudanese traditions and bringing our cultural heritage to the streets.

  Women and feminist movements are doing an amazing job, breaking so many norms. During the revolution, many young women were on the frontlines. The Angry, a protest group that stays on the frontlines of every protest, protecting other people and leading clashes with the police, includes lots of young women.

  Women are also working to provide medical care and trauma support. After 50 years of civil war, you will definitely be a traumatised country, but this has intensified following the past five years of revolt. Before, one was able to distinguish between people from war zones and people from cities. Right now, the whole country is a war zone. There are machine guns everywhere, firing bullets into neighbourhoods, and children are dying inside their own homes because bullets go through their roofs.

  Diaspora activism has also been key. Activists from the diaspora have been super effective in spreading the word, and during the internet shutdown they were online 24/7 to get information out to the world, not only sharing it on social media but also connecting people inside Sudan, who could receive international calls but not domestic ones.

   What kind of work are pro-democracy groups doing?

  The pro-democracy camp is very diverse. There are longstanding CSOs that have always promoted and advocated for human rights and continue to document violations, advocate, engage and build capacity inside the democracy movements. There are also new grassroots groups, the resistance committees, thar right now are the key movement leaders: other CSOs will follow their lead since they express the majority view. Professional organisations and trade unions are also a major group; they are key in organising mobilisations in urban areas. Doctors, lawyers, engineers and similar roles play an important role in putting pressure through strikes and civil disobedience. 

  Unfortunately, for the time being there’s not a single unified network or body that can represent the democracy movement in Sudan. This is the movement’s main weakness. Resistance committees are trying to produce a unified political declaration and how to unify this movement while including all of Sudan, even conflict areas, is being discussed.

  What international support do Sudanese HRDs need?

  Our country must not be forgotten. The international community must take action and support the democracy movement’s demands for fundamental change. International human rights bodies must put make Sudan a priority. Sudanese civil society is fighting to get Sudan on top of their agenda, especially since the war started in Ukraine and most attention is going that way.

  Neglecting building democracy in Sudan and leaving power in the hands of the military would be a big mistake. What’s going on here isn’t disconnected from what’s going on in Ukraine. Reports indicate the involvement of the Sudanese military and militias in smuggling gold that supports the Russian economy during this conflict. Moreover, many reports have exposed the strong relations of Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leaders with Russian leadership; they were in Russia the week the war started to ensure the flow of gold. RSF militias have relations with other African countries like Chad and the Central Africa Republic, which are sources of blood gold and blood diamonds entering Russia through Sudan. 

  Sanctions would be an important tool. A couple of days ago, the International Bar Association called on the UK to apply Magnitsky sanctions in Sudan. International CSOs should move ahead with similar actions.

  It’s understandably hard for the international community to deal with the people in the absence of an actual government or elite they could deal with. But young university students are the democracy movement’s leaders, and they represent us. Protests have continued for eight months now and will probably continue for many more, and activists need a lot of help.

  Because of persecution and violence, many CSOs and local groups have had to move their operations outside Sudan, and activists have had to relocate. Those working inside Sudan are having a very low-profile and using all the digital and physical security strategies available. Access to funding has also been increasingly challenging. The military wants to find out where funding for the democracy movement is coming from and has therefore increased surveillance, which makes it very risky to receive funds inside Sudan. Organisations working at grassroots levels and in conflict areas are suffering the most.

  Civic space in Sudan is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Follow@nazik_kabalo on Twitter. 

• SUMMIT OF THE FUTURE: ‘The UN Secretary-General underestimated the difficulty of reaching consensus’

  CIVICUS discusses the upcoming Summit of the Future with Renzo Pomi, who represents Amnesty International at the United Nations (UN) in New York.

  In September, world leaders will gather at the UN World Summit of the Future to adopt the Pact for the Future. Ahead of the summit, civil society, academia and the private sector have contributed to the pact’s zero draft. Civil society sees the process as an opportunity to strengthen commitments on the environment, human rights and social justice, and CIVICUS advocates for the inclusion of language on the protection and expansion of civic space. But much work remains to be done before, during and after the summit to ensure ambitious commitments are adopted and then realised.

  How did the Summit of the Future come about?

  In September 2021, the UN Secretary-General released a report, ‘Our Common Agenda’, outlining global challenges and proposing a summit for world leaders to address them. Originally scheduled for September 2023, the summit was postponed due to a lack of consensus and will now take place in September 2024. Just before the opening of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, world leaders will gather in New York to discuss the future and adopt by consensus an action-oriented document, the Pact for the Future.

  The pact and its two annexes – the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations – will be the summit’s main outcome. It aims to address our global challenges through commitments in five thematic areas: sustainable development and financing for development, international peace and security, science, technology and innovation, youth and future generations, and transforming global governance. The pact will address a wide range of challenges facing humanity and the international system, and will seek to make intergovernmental institutions such as the UN more fit for the purpose they were created for.

  What has the process towards the draft pact been like, and what role has civil society played in it?

  The drafting process has been largely a state-owned and state-exclusive process. Germany and Namibia have co-facilitated the negotiations and presented the zero draft in January and subsequent revisions in May and July 2024.

  Civil society participation has been very limited. We rely mostly on friendly states for information, as we are not in the room when negotiations take place. After each draft was released, we were invited to submit our recommendations and participate in virtual consultations to discuss the content. But, while we value these opportunities, nothing replaces the chance to be actively involved in negotiations. When you hold a virtual meeting like this, what you get is a series of hasty statements, not a real dialogue. As a result, we’ve had to lobby states to champion our issues, and it’s unclear whether our views will be reflected in the pact.

  While the co-facilitators are often blamed for this, the truth is that the process was agreed by all states. The UN Charter recognises civil society as an important stakeholder, as does the Secretary-General, but many states believe the UN should be exclusively state-run and civil society shouldn’t have a place in discussing important issues.

  Further, relations between civil society and the UN in New York are particularly strained compared to Geneva, where there is a more established tradition of including civil society in discussions. And the UN’s financial crisis means there’s no investment in hybrid meetings, which allow civil society organisations (CSOs) that can’t afford to travel to have a voice in meetings.

   

  What did you advocate should be including in the pact?

  We made two submissions, one before the zero draft was circulated and the other commenting on it. We analysed the whole document and focused on ensuring that a human rights perspective was adopted in every measure. Our proposals covered issues from Security Council reform to increased civil society participation in the UN.

  We have long argued that Security Council permanent members should refrain from vetoing or blocking credible resolutions on serious violations such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Unfortunately, this proposal is not accurately reflected on the draft. States may at the end agree to expand the Security Council, but otherwise most of the language simply reaffirms existing commitments, such as Article 27.3 of the Charter, which prevents states involved in conflicts voting on related resolutions but is currently ignored.

  We also highlighted that CSOs face several barriers to engaging with the UN. The Economic and Social Council’s NGO Committee, which reviews applications for consultative status, often acts as a gatekeeper, unfairly denying access to CSOs that challenge the positions of particular states. We have proposed dismantling this committee and setting up an independent expert mechanism to assess applications on the basis of merit rather than political considerations. However, this proposal is unlikely to be included in the pact’s final draft.

  How much real impact do you think the pact will have?

  We hope some of our recommendations will be included in the pact, but the geopolitical climate suggests many will not. The Secretary-General has correctly identified the challenges, but he has underestimated the difficulty of reaching consensus on meaningful commitments. International cooperation is now almost non-existent. Today’s context resembles the Cold War, where there was no room for agreement on even basic issues. In the current circumstances, it was unrealistic for the Secretary-General to think he could launch such a massive undertaking and get an action-oriented document with real commitments for reform adopted.

  It is said that even in the worst moments you have to push for the best. We may not get actionable commitments, but we may still get some good language and a minimum common denominator every country can agree on.

  For the pact to have a real impact, global civil society needs to push for the strongest possible commitments and their implementation. In 2005, a similar summit ended with a decision to create the Human Rights Council in place of the discredited Commission on Human Rights. Now it’s very difficult to foresee getting commitments this specific, and as we approach the summit, proposals are being watered down. Civil society will have to be very creative in finding ways to use the watered-down language to demand change.

  What’s next for civil society ahead of the summit?

  In the days leading up to the summit, Summit of the Future Action Days will allow civil society, states and UN bodies to propose side events. Getting selected is very difficult, as requirements include sponsorship by two member states and one UN entity, and support by a coalition or network of CSOs. As a result, only a few side events will be approved.

  As the summit approaches, civil society should focus on reviewing the second revision of the pact and identifying advocacy opportunities. Chances to advance our agenda will become more limited as September approaches. States will struggle to reach consensus on a final document and there will be no space to reopen closed discussions.

  Once the pact is adopted, civil society will need to continue to push for critical issues and stay vigilant in monitoring its implementation.

  Get in touch with Amnesty International through itswebsite orFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@amnesty on Twitter.

  This interview was conducted as part of the ENSURED Horizon research project funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

• SYRIA: ‘We spread the culture of human rights in a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records’

  CIVICUS speaks about Syria’s ongoing civil war and human rights crisis and its prospects for democratic change with Fadel Abdul Ghany, founder and Executive Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).

  Founded in 2011, SNHR is a human rights civil society organisation (CSO) that works to monitor and document human rights violations, protect victims’ rights and hold perpetrators accountable, promoting the conditions for transitional justice and democratic change.

  What is the current security situation in Syria?

  We have a team of approximately 22 people in Syria that daily monitors and documents human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and forced displacement. We have published daily reports on the civilian death toll for a decade. In September 2023, 55 civilians, including 12 children, were killed. Ninety-seven were killed in August, 55 in July and 42 in June. In the first half of 2023, 501 civilians lost their lives due to the ongoing conflict. Our monthly reports also cover arbitrary arrests, with 223 cases reported in August and 204 in September.

  We document crimes committed by all armed groups involved in the conflict, categorising them by perpetrator. From March 2011 to June 2023, a total of 230,465 civilian deaths were reported, with over 87 per cent attributed to Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias, three per cent to Russian forces and two per cent to ISIS. Based on our reporting and news of grave and pervasive violations no territory in Syria can be considered safe or secure.

  What are the working conditions for your colleagues in Syria?

  We consider ourselves on the frontline because we document violations on the ground and identify perpetrators. Our team operates discreetly in Syria, either from the office or from their homes using fantasy names. We safeguard their identities for security reasons. Their safety is more important than any documentation.

  Our team faces intense pressure, and if arbitrarily arrested, they risk severe torture by the regime led by Bashar al-Assad or other parties. We do our best to protect and provide security education to our staff. Our IT infrastructure is highly secure, and we’ve implemented measures to thwart cyber-attacks, which have included Russian attempts to hack our website.

  What’s the situation for Syrian refugees?

  Many Syrians aren’t safe in other countries either. In Lebanon and Turkey, refugees face the risk of forced return to Syria in violation of international law, specifically the 1951 Refugee Convention. Conditions are dire, with Syrians often blamed for economic hardship in host countries, even though Lebanon and Turkey receive substantial funding from the European Union and other donors to welcome refugees.

  The feeling of insecurity and lack of proper protection in neighbouring countries, which host over 70 per cent of refugees, drive Syrians towards-called ‘death boats’ to seek safety elsewhere in Europe. The international community should better distribute the responsibility of welcoming refugees, because the current allocation isn’t fair.

  What should the international community do to address Syria’s dire human rights and humanitarian situation?

  The international community must intensify efforts to achieve a political transition and end Syria’s 13-year-long conflict, which is taking a lot of lives and causing immense suffering, with widespread torture and forced displacement of half the Syrian population. Any prospect of political transition has been absent due to insufficient international pressure on all parties in the conflict, and particularly on the Assad regime, leaving the Syrian people and the conflict largely neglected.

  The international community must actively support efforts to fight impunity. The Assad regime has got away with numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity. There should be a collective effort to bring justice. If accountability is to be achieved, it also requires a political transition leading to the establishment of independent local courts.

  Chinese and Russian veto power at the United Nations Security Council obstructs the referral of war crimes to the International Criminal Court. With limited universal jurisdiction, only 27 sentences have been issued in Germany and other countries against Syrian war criminals, mostly from non-state terrorist groups such as Al-Nusra or ISIS.

  True accountability requires dismantling the Assad regime, the Syrian National Army, the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Islamist organisation of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other non-elected entities ruling Syria through fear.

  Aid should be directed to people affected by the recent earthquake and those displaced in northwest and northeast Syria. Continuous assistance is also vital for Middle Eastern states hosting most Syrian refugees. Such comprehensive support on a large scale is essential for advancing the Syrian movement toward democracy.

  How is Syrian civil society working for a transition to democracy?

  Syrian civil society continues to protest to demand respect for human rights, investigates rights violations and expose perpetrators based on the principle of equality and promote human rights through education. We work hard to spread the culture of human rights in a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records and to get rid of a decades-long dictatorship.

  SNHR publishes reports and statements urging a halt to violations and providing recommendations to other states. We conduct in-depth bilateral meetings with various foreign ministries, including those of France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA, and convene other high-level meetings. We actively participate in and organise advocacy events. The most recent, held on 21 September, focused on human rights violations and avenues for accountability and was co-hosted by the USA and co-sponsored by France, Germany, Qatar and the UK.

  I believe the international community should also provide substantial financial and logistical support to active Syrian CSOs that have played a significant role in the Syrian civil war and have, to some extent, replaced the state.

  What has triggered recent protests across Syria?

  Since early August, many regime-controlled areas of Syria have witnessed peaceful civil demonstrations. People took to the streets because they felt even more hopeless following Assad’s interview with Sky News Arabia on 9 August. He didn’t apologise nor did he express any willingness to change the way he’s ruling the country. Instead, he said that if he could go back to 2011, he would kill even more people than he did.

  There are ongoing protests in areas of northern Syria that aren’t controlled by the regime. Protesters seek to hold the Syrian regime responsible for the worsening economic, social and political conditions. Their calls echo those of the 2011 Arab Spring: they demand an end to family rule and a transition to democracy, freedom of speech, the release of illegally detained people and accountability for perpetrators. Their major message is that Assad must go.

  We have monitored and documented multiple vicious methods used by the regime’s security forces to suppress protests, including arrest, torture, enforced disappearances and prosecution of hundreds of protesters. The regime uses its media outlets to slander protesters or anyone criticising it as traitors or collaborators working with foreign entities. The Syrian regime has also attempted to stage counter-demonstrations with loyalists chanting pro-regime slogans and threatening anyone opposing the regime.

  ---

  Civic space in Syria is rated ‘closed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with SNHR through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@snhr and@FADELABDULGHANY on Twitter.

   

   

• TANZANIA: ‘The government is trying to silence those who are against the pipeline’

  CIVICUS speaks about the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project and its potential impacts on the climate and on the health and livelihoods of local communities with Tanzanian climate justice activist Baraka Lenga.

  Baraka is a young climate scientist and sustainability consultant, currently volunteering with Fridays for Future to raise awareness of climate change and pressuring businesses and government leaders to act urgently to address the climate crisis.

  What is EACOP, and what is wrong with it?

  EACOP is a massive crude oil pipeline that will involve the transportation of crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to a Tanzanian port located in Chongoleani village, in Tanga region. It will cover 1,445 kilometres in Uganda and Tanzania, but 80 per cent of the land it will go through is in Tanzania.

  Local communities depend on land as the crucial resource to support their livelihoods, which consist mostly of farming and livestock keeping, so if their land is taken or ruined by the pipeline, they will be seriously affected. The project is therefore going to affect the development of many communities and impact negatively on any effort to create a sustainable and liveable local environment.

  But EACOP will not only affect people; it will also pose a threat to the animals that depend on the land that will be taken up by this project.

  Further, it has been estimated that once operational the project will emit 34 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. This means it will amplify climate change and local communities will become poorer, more vulnerable and less resilient.

  How has civil society organised to resist this project?

  Very unfortunately, in my country, Tanzania, most civil society organisations (CSOs) are not organising against EACOP. One contributing factor may be the limited understanding of the pipeline project in Tanzania. Little information has been shared about the project and the consequences it will have on communities, contributing to Tanzanian civil society’s limited response.

  I have been working in my capacity as a freelance activist to raise awareness about the pipeline’s consequences and explaining why it needs to be stopped. I find it crucial for local communities to know and understand the extent to which EACOP could damage their environment and impact on their lives. Fortunately, I have been receiving support from colleagues from various parts of Africa who are using their resources to amplify our voices against EACOP.

  How has the government reacted so far?

  As most activists and CSOs have noticed, the government is trying to silence those who are against the pipeline. Some of us have raised our concerns since the very beginning of the project but our questions have not been addressed and the project has continued regardless.

  But we have continued campaigning because we cannot overlook the damage this project will have on local communities; it comes with a lot of investment that is allegedly meant to develop East African nations but in reality is going to bring more harm to innocent lives.

  What kind of support does the anti-pipeline movement need from international civil society and the wider international community?

  We would like environmental activists and CSOs from across the globe to join us in raising awareness about EACOP and pressuring the governments involved to put an end to this project. We want people to understand that the companies leading the project, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and TotalEnergies – along with the governments of Tanzania and Uganda, which have brought in both countries’ national oil companies into the project – are endangering wildlife, tipping the world closer to a climate crisis and affecting the livelihoods of our people.

  We have seen various multinational cooperation funds pull out of the project in compliance with their obligation to protect the environment and we hope more will do the same. Hopefully, a lack of funding will ultimately force the governments of Tanzania and Uganda to stop EACOP. 

  Civic space in Tanzania is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Follow@lenga2020 on Twitter.

• TANZANIA: ‘The human rights of the Maasai people are violated through involuntary assimilation and relocation’

  CIVICUS speaks about the unlawful eviction of Maasai people from their ancestral lands with Joseph Moses Oleshangay, a Tanzanian human rights lawyer and activist for democracy and Indigenous peoples’ land rights. Joseph is currently working with the Legal and Human Rights Centre to raise awareness of human rights violations and promote good governance in Tanzania.

  Why are Maasai people being evicted from their land in Tanzania?

  The Maasai eviction is largely caused by the government’s lust for money. The tourism and hunting business promises to bring a lot of capital, and unfortunately, that can only happen if the Maasai are removed from their native land. The government is currently planning to evict Maasai people living in Loliondo and Ngorongoro to establish a game-controlled area in Loliondo and potentially change the status of a conservation area in Ngorongoro to a game reserve.

  The government has proposed to establish game reserves in every single district ancestrally occupied by Maasai communities. The way this project is being carried out is unethical and threatens many lives and the cultural survival of the Maasai.

  Sadly, to gain public support and trust the government has created a narrative that this is a nature conservation project. But it has been scientifically proved that Maasai pastoralism is compatible with environmental and wildlife conservation. While the government generally accuses the Maasai as threatening tourism in Ngorongoro, 70 per cent of tourists in Tanzania in 2019 visited Ngorongoro, with the remaining 22 national parks and game reserves attracting only 30 per cent of the tourist inflow. Ngorongoro also contributes 52 per cent of the earnings from tourism. It is the only conservation area in Tanzania where humans – Maasai – are legally allowed to coexist with wildlife. As well as being by far the best tourism destination in Tanzania, it has the highest wildlife population density in the world. This shows that the government’s claim that the Maasai are threatening wildlife conservation and tourism is a completely false narrative.

  In Ngorongoro over 80,000 people are facing the threat of eviction, which the government justifies by claiming the population has exceeded the carrying capacity of the land. But according to the latest census, Ngorongoro has a human population density of 10 people per square kilometre, compared to a national average of 60.

  The tourism industrial complex is pushing the government to forcefully evict Maasai people from their land because they think the Maasai don’t add value to the business and will disrupt the activities they want to undertake in Loliondo, Ngorongoro and the neighbouring Serengeti National Park. The authorities know that wildlife massacre, one of the key businesses planned, won’t be possible under the Maasai’s watch and their pastoralism livelihoods will not fit the overall hunting and hotel aesthetic they are trying to create.

  The government has an obligation to take care of the environment and ensure the safety of all who live in it. If Maasai people are allowed to stay in the newly created game reserves, they will witness wildlife massacre and will inevitably suffer harm. The government cannot risk this being exposed.

  So without consulting with the Maasai community, the government has started its eviction plan in a manner that will force their integration with the majority community in the coastal region. To facilitate relocation, on 31 March the government withdrew all funds previously allocated to health, education and other key services. In 2021 the government threatened to demolish nine government primary schools and six health centres. In April 2022 the government’s chief spokesperson recognised that life-saving services were prolonging the Maasai presence in the Ngorongoro so there was a need to dismantle them.

  What human rights violations have been reported?

  Many human rights violations have been reported, and they are reaching a level we had not seen since our independence. They are more brutal than what our people experienced in the colonial era. Never before has our country witnessed a campaign targeting a specific community as we are now seeing in Ngorongoro. The Maasai are being portrayed as primitive people whose ancestral land is elsewhere, and the president has said they are new arrivals in Tanzania, so in case of a forceful relocation, the authorities can claim the Maasai have no attachment to Ngorongoro.

  In early June, the authorities installed beacons in the place destined to become a game-controlled area, against Tanzanian law and in violation of an order issued by the East Africa Court of Justice in 2018. In 2017 a Maasai representative filed a complaint at the Tanzanian Human Rights and Good Governance Commission against the planned eviction and submitted a case to the East Africa Court of Justice seeking intervention against violent operations that ended with at least 349 Maasai homesteads being set ablaze.

  Despite the temporary orders issued by the Court directing the government to halt relocation pending a final decision on the case, on 17 June 2022, just five days before the date set for delivery of a judgment, the government declared the contested land as a game-controlled area. Surprisingly, four days later the Court issued a notice that the decision would be delayed until September, giving the government leeway in executing atrocities in Loliondo.

  The demarcated area includes not only village land, which is forbidden by the law, but also people’s homesteads. The police have used teargas and guns, wounding 31 Maasai people. Before beacons were installed, all elected political leaders were arrested and detained incommunicado for seven days before being arraigned in court on murder charges – for a murder that happened one day after they were arrested.

  There are currently 27 Maasai people charged with murder and over 80 detained under the accusation of being unlawful immigrants. Some have been subjected to torture. Over 2,000 people have reportedly crossed the border with Kenya for security reasons.

  Since June, Maasai livestock have been killed or impounded by security forces and a large-scale operation is ongoing to silence anyone who speak against the situation in Ngorongoro and Loliondo.

  How will this eviction affect Maasai people?

  To understand how Maasai people will be impacted upon, one needs to understand who the Maasai are. They are a semi-nomadic pastoral people who move from one place to another in search of their livelihood. They have lived alongside wildlife for centuries and know how to preserve their environment. They have established their cultural practices and spiritual sites that define them as a distinct society.

  Relocation will disturb their culture. There is a place called Oldoinyo Lenkai (‘Mountain of God’) where the Maasai believe their god lives and usually conduct sacrifices during times of scarcity and crisis. If this land becomes a conservation area with restricted access their right to spirituality will be taken away. Ultimately, relocation has a strong chance of leading to their extinction as a people.

  One of the government’s justifications of the relocation process is what they call the need for forced civilisation of the Maasai people, who would have a better life if they coexisted with people from different backgrounds. But this will force them to adopt a culture that is not their own. Involuntary assimilation and relocation are the greatest human rights violations and generally fall under the accepted meaning of genocide under the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court.

  How are civil society activists and organisations fighting back?

  We are fighting this in many ways. We are challenging the government by debunking its narrative. The government is spreading propaganda to get public support, so what we do is inform people about the dangers of these evictions and that they are founded on false narratives. We also use our various platforms to highlight that the Maasai add value to both nature conservation and tourism, providing accurate information to counter false claims.

  We also have filed a court case against eviction. The law is one of the strongest tools we are using in fighting injustice in this battle. We can use the law to hold the government accountable and demand it halts the planned eviction. We are trying to make sure that the truth about what is happening is known not only internally but also by the international community.

  We have been fortunate enough to have regional and international organisations such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and United Nations human rights experts publicly condemn the actions of the Tanzanian government and urge it to stop unlawful evictions.

  But we have faced challenges, including the lack of functional legal processes in Tanzania. The 2018 court order requiring a halt to the operations have not been respected. Our government thinks it is above the law and this is affecting our progress in fighting the eviction. As activists our lives are in danger. The government threatens us and many activists had fled the country for safety.

  What kind of assistance do you need from international civil society?

  We need international organisations and activists to help us expose what is happening in Tanzania, because if this is known about internationally the government might be pressured to do better. International allies should use their platforms to highlight the gruesome violations of rights experienced by the Maasai people and keep people informed about our activities.

  Civic space in Tanzania is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Follow@Oleshangay on Twitter.

• UGANDA: ‘Our government cares only about profit, not people’

  CIVICUS speaks about the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project and its potential impacts on the climate and on the health and livelihoods of local communities with Nyombi Morris, founder of Earth Volunteers.

  Established in 2020, Earth Volunteers is a Ugandan civil society organisation (CSO) that brings together young people who are passionate about planting trees, protecting forests and standing up for climate justice. Earth Volunteers advocates for climate justice and promotes climate education in local schools.

  What is EACOP, and what is wrong with it?

  EACOP is a pipeline project that will transport oil from Uganda to Tanzania, for export through the Tanga port on the Tanzanian coast. It will travel through hundreds of miles, flowing oil through sensitive environments, including the richly biodiverse Murchison Falls National Park in western Uganda.

  The project is led by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and TotalEnergies, a French company, and funded by Standard Bank, among others. Ever since it kicked off in 2015, it has caused numerous activists to lose their lives and has put many natural resources on the verge of disappearing.

  Local communities are already being affected by the pipeline. While pipeline construction itself hasn’t yet started, a process has begun to acquire the land required for the pipeline and related facilities. Those who own land on the projected pipeline’s path or in its vicinity are already unhappy because of the mistreatment they are experiencing and the lack of transparency in the process. They say they were not consulted about the project before it was approved and they are now being pressured to sell off their farms, homes and land at cheap prices and forced to leave to make way for the pipeline.

  How is civil society in general, and your organisation in particular, mobilising against the pipeline project?

  I have not seen any established CSO come out to oppose or even challenge the pipeline project. It is only us, individual activists loosely connected through informal networks, who are trying to sensitise people and mobilise them against the danger of allowing money-makers to exploit our land to take away the oil and get rich off it. We can’t drink or eat oil, and this will only make us poorer and less healthy.

  As one of those activists, I have organised strikes to challenge the project, but since my last protest this March, I have received threats from unknown people who say they are police officers and tell me they are going to come and arrest me.

  How has the government reacted so far?

  Our government cares only about profit, not people. We have put pressure on them and urged them to be mindful about the approval they give to investors, as they only benefit the wealthy and do nothing to improve people’s lives. But the response we always get in return is threats.

  Personally, I do not expect my government to listen to my concerns. The problem is, if they do not, this is a death sentence for many people in both Uganda and Tanzania. We already face the challenge of inflation and we may be heading towards famine and insecurity because people are being forced to sell off their properties in western Uganda and the capital, Kampala, is their next destination. This is one of the biggest and fastest-growing cities in Africa, with a population that has already hit four million.

  What kind of support does the anti-pipeline movement need from international civil society and the wider international community?

  We need three different support structures. Firstly, we need funds to continue door-to-door mobilisation. We need to speak up with a strong voice, so it is our role to wake up the public and get people to start demanding justice.

  Secondly, we need the media to cover our movement and amplify our voice. We need the world to join us in challenging these perpetrators of environmental destruction. Except for Standard Bank, which is from South Africa, pipeline funders are from the global north, and we need people in their countries to know what is happening so they can join us in exposing these capitalist fundamentalists who only care about money – not about people, and not about nature.

  Finally, we need protection. I am constantly receiving threats, and since last week I haven’t even been allowed to tweet for fear of my life and the lives of my family. We are in danger and nobody is helping us with security and support. I am hiding at my sisters’ place but very soon we are going to run out of resources such as food.

  Every organisation I reach out to, they redirect me to CSOs that are not really independent but actually serve the government that is targeting me. I feel like there is no one I can trust in my country. This is terrible and traumatising, and many others are going through the same. We cannot imagine help coming from anywhere but international civil society.

  Civic space in Uganda is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Earth Volunteers through itswebsite or its Facebook andInstagram pages,and follow @earthvolunteers on Twitter.

• UGANDA: ‘Shrinking civic space means affected communities are not able to make their voices count’

  
  CIVICUS discusses the hopes and roles of civil society at the forthcoming COP28 climate summit with Ireen Twongirwe, a climate activist and CEO of Women for Green Economy Movement Uganda (WoGEM).

  WoGEM is a community-based civil society organisation (CSO) dedicated to advocating for and promoting women’s and girls’ participation in a greener economy. It brings together vulnerable women and girls and equips them with knowledge and capacities to engage in the search for sustainable community livelihoods and climate change mitigation and resilience efforts.

• UGANDA: ‘We’ll participate in COP28 to pressure world leaders to divert funding away from oil and gas’

  
  CIVICUS speaks about recent developments involving the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project and civil society’s efforts to stop it with Zaki Mamdoo, Campaign Coordinator of Stop EACOP.

  Established in 2020, Stop EACOP is a coalition of Ugandan environmental and climate justice organisations that oppose the pipeline project due to the significant threats it poses to protected ecosystems, water resources and community lands across Tanzania and Uganda.

  What are your coalition’s aims?

  Our aim is to halt the construction of EACOP to avert the catastrophic environmental and climate consequences associated with the pipeline and safeguard human rights and communal territories.

  To achieve this, we employ a multifaceted strategy: heightening public awareness, exerting pressure on financial institutions and raising their reputational costs so they distance themselves from the project, mobilising impacted communities and rallying to force governments and oil corporations to suspend the project.

  A cornerstone of our approach is engaging with young people. Our partner programmes in both Tanzania and Uganda are focused on youth. We proactively seek out young people in various initiatives, including security training sessions. Recently, we’ve identified student leaders from various universities who had organised to spread awareness about the project’s impacts among their peers. We are actively pursuing funding and other opportunities to bolster their efforts.

  Internally, we give space to youth representatives to contribute their perspectives. We’re committed to amplifying young voices and offering avenues for their growth and development as activists. A reflection of this is that I am 26 years old and trusted with the leadership as campaign coordinator.

  How has the situation evolved since welast spoke over a year ago?

  There have been significant changes over the past year. Drilling has started in one of the most important biodiversity hotspots. One of the companies leading the project, French energy conglomerate Total Energies, has launched oil drilling in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, home to diverse animal and bird species, including elephants, giraffes and lions. Its ecological significance is heightened by the presence of the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System, essential for Lake Albert fisheries.

  The pipeline threatens the park’s biodiversity and tourism appeal. It will also have economic impacts, as the park is a major contributor to Uganda’s economy, accounting for 59 per cent of exports and having generated over US$1 billion in revenue in 2022.

  Negative consequences are already evident, with displaced elephants damaging crops and posing threats to human lives in nearby communities. Tragic incidents involving elephants have already occurred in Buliisa district, where the park is located.

  This is clearly just another a case in which profit is prioritised over environmental and socioeconomic considerations.

  Our demands, however, remain unaltered: we adamantly call for the project’s complete cancellation due to its intolerable environmental and human risks. And while governmental authorities have largely remained unresponsive, we’ve achieved progress with financial institutions. Remarkably, 27 banks have already denied funding for EACOP, and an additional 23 major insurers and reinsurers have declined to support the pipeline.

  What restrictions do Stop EACOP activists face?

  We operate in fairly restrictive environments in which the freedom to protest is often violated. Recently, for instance, four of our activists were forcibly arrested on charges of ‘inciting violence’, transported in police vehicles and kept in jail overnight for protesting against the pipeline in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

  The activists, three women and one man, were protesting peacefully, but their arrests were unnecessarily violent. It must be emphasised that only four protesters were involved, so the degree of force applied was clearly excessive, yet not entirely unexpected. Historically, Ugandan authorities have responded aggressively to any demonstrations perceived as anti-government, in line with a dictatorial regime indifferent to public sentiments or alternate viewpoints. This reaction is not unprecedented, although it’s intriguing that the government seems threatened by even small-scale protests like this four-person event.

  But this won’t stop us: we will continue to demonstrate peacefully. Several of our members maintain a fund to secure bail or engage lawyers whenever activists are arrested. We arrange legal representation and explore the possibility of anticipatory bail when possible. However, given the sporadic nature of these protests, support is often provided post-arrest. We’ve also partnered with organisations that specialise in security training so that we can provide tools for advocates to voice their concerns without jeopardising their personal safety.

  How do you connect with the global climate movement?

  We connect with climate activists worldwide by sharing experiences and strategies and providing each other with support across borders. Global solidarity strengthens our efforts, so we appreciate any form of international backing for our cause.

  What lies ahead remains uncertain, but as demonstrated in numerous instances globally, when we come together to back local communities as they advocate for their rights and a more promising tomorrow, there is a potential to counter even the largest of corporate giants effectively.

  More than a million people have already raised their voices against EACOP. We believe that together we can stop it.

  Are you planning to engage with the upcoming COP28 climate summit?

  We’re deliberating on the optimal way to participate in COP28 to pressure world leaders to address the pipeline project directly and divert funding away from new oil and gas developments. I will be there to represent the campaign.

  Despite controversies surrounding the summit’s leadership and lack of an enabling civic space in the host country, the United Arab Emirates, we are hopeful that substantive progress will be made. But we recognise that lasting change will require continued people-powered mobilisation. We’re committed to sustaining our fight for climate justice and environmental preservation in East Africa.

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  Civic space in Uganda is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Stop EACOP through itswebsite and follow@stopEACOP on Twitter.

• UK: ‘Women in ethnic minority communities are often treated like second-class citizens’

  As part of the #16DaysOfActivism campaign, CIVICUS speaks about gender-based violence and civil society efforts to eradicate it with Halaleh Taheri, founder and Executive Director of the Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation (MEWSo).

  Founded in 2010, MEWSo is a London-based civil society organisation (CSO) run by and for women from ethnic minority communities of mostly Middle Eastern, North African and Asian backgrounds.

  The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that kicks off on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day.

  What work does MEWSo do?

  MEWSo was founded with the aim of supporting women, especially those displaced from the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, in London. We help women who are vulnerable and have no access to resources that will help them. Our services include advice and support on issues of domestic abuse and violence. We offer women assistance to navigate court procedures and help them seek refuge. Over the past few years we have worked a lot with migrant women because their situation is very hard. When they are faced with domestic violence and want to leave their homes, we support them emotionally, with accommodation and with their status with Home Office.

  We also offer free workshops to help improve women’s skills and empower them. We bring in specialists to give talks about mental and physical wellbeing so women can gain the confidence to leave the abusive spaces they find themselves in. Every year we tackle about 300 cases of domestic violence. We have five advisors working in different languages to accommodate those who struggle with English.

  We have created three campaigns. One is Polygamy Matters, which we run jointly with Greenwich University. It is aimed at empowering women to be independent. Another one is End Virginity Myth. We first formed a coalition against virginity testing; now both virginity testing and hymenoplasty have been banned, but the reality is that communities still continue practising it, so the campaign continues.

  A third campaign focused on the rights of LGBTQI+ people. LGBTQI+ issues are a big taboo in our communities and people suffer a lot of abuse from their families and community members. We have a range of projects to support them and ensure that they remain safe in their communities and live the life they deserve.

  Finally, we are part of two coalitions,Solidarity Knows No Borders Network andStep Up Migrant Women, advocating for the rights of migrant women and providing protection to those in abusive situations.

  What challenges have you faced in your work?

  We have faced several challenges. One of them is that in our communities the government has for years left people in the hands of community leaders. These leaders do not have a proper connection with women and children because they are driven by patriarchal values. They tend to lead people based on the most oppressive traits of their culture and enforce religious practices that exclude women and children. Women are often treated like second-class citizens and find it difficult to exercise their freedom. We have seen women trying to get out of abusive marriages being denied their request by their communities’ leadership. Community leaders should not have that much power over people because they are misusing it.

  Because of the nature of our work, community leaders have tried to make it difficult for us to reach certain vulnerable women and girls. They very rarely encounter someone who challenges them and if they see you as a threat, they immediately start making your work difficult. Nonetheless, we have been able to continue doing our work, finding ways to bring safety to women and children.

  Another challenge is that some of the women we help end up going back to their abusive partners because they are under pressure or have been abandoned by family and community. Sometimes there is no support with accommodation available and they worry they may end up in the street. Despite all our efforts, loyalty to family and fear of punishment makes them want to stay in abusive relationships. When faced with these situations, we continue creating spaces so that women can gradually gain the confidence to be free.

  Finally, we don’t have enough access to resources to help us carry out our work. Unfortunately, we can only offer limited support to women seeking safety.

  What are you doing for the #16DaysOfActivism campaign?

  This year, our efforts to raise awareness about women’s rights are focused on showing solidarity to the women’s liberation movement in Iran. Over the past two months Iranian women havespoken up andprotested against the oppression they face, sacrificing their life for freedom. I am originally a Kurdish freedom fighter from the 1979 revolution in Iran. I have lived four decades in exile and rebuilt my life in different countries. I am passionate about and active in the women’s liberation movement, following all the news and analysis of the recent uprising in Iran. For this reason, we have organised an international event,Raise Your Voice International Women's Conference, that will be held on 28 November and will feature speakers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Palestine, where women face similar issues as a result of religious restrictions.

  What should the international community do to contribute to eradicating gender-based violence?

  Countless women around the world are being discriminated against socially, economically and politically. Cases of abuse and femicide are on the rise and there are few mechanisms in place to stop them. Unaddressed issues range from forced marriage and female genital mutilation to unemployment and lack of health and educational resources.

  We cannot stand it anymore; we need governments and international bodies to take action. The United Nations has many member states who are mistreating their citizens. These states attend meetings and are given a global platform although they are doing a miserable job at home. They shouldn’t have such privileges when they are torturing and executing women.

  The protests in Iran and the actions of resistance in Afghanistan and elsewhere are showing that people, and specifically women, are taking charge and fighting for their freedom. Women in many places are connected because they carry the same pain and so it is only natural for them to unite to fight against their common oppressor. Women’s liberation movements are making it globally known that freedom is women’s natural right and they are willing to claim it. They are fed up with the empty promises that governments and international bodies have repeatedly made to fight against gender-based violence. This year cannot be one of further promises – it has to be one of action.

  https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/election-officials-censor-parties-campaign-speeches-like-the-dictatorship-did

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  Civic space in the UK is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with MEWSo through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@MewsOrg on Twitter.

• UN CYBERCRIME TREATY: ‘Civil society is fact-checking the arguments made by states’

  CIVICUS speaks with Ian Tennant about the importance of safeguarding human rights in the ongoing process to draft a United Nations (UN) Cybercrime Treaty.

  Ian isthe Chair of theAlliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, a broad network of civil society organisations (CSOs) advancing the crime prevention and criminal justice agenda through engagement with relevant UN programmes and processes. He’s the Head of the Vienna Multilateral Representation and Resilience Fund at theGlobal Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, a global CSO headquartered in Geneva, focused on research, analysis and engagement on all forms of organised crime and illicit markets. Both organisations participate as observers in negotiations for the UN Cybercrime Treaty.

  Why is there need for a UN treaty dealing with cybercrime?

  There is no consensus on the need for a UN treaty dealing with cybercrime. The consensus-based bodies dealing with cybercrime at the UN, primarily the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), could not agree on whether there was a need for the treaty since the issue was first raised officially at the UN Crime Congress in 2010, and in 2019 it was taken to a vote at the UN General Assembly. The resolution starting the process towards a treaty was passed with minority support, due to a high number of abstentions. Nevertheless, the process is now progressing and member states on all sides of the debate are participating.

  The polarisation of positions on the need for the treaty has translated into a polarisation of views of how broad the treaty should be – with those countries that were in favour of the treaty calling for a broad range of cyber-enabled crimes to be included, and those that were against the treaty calling for a narrowly focussed treaty on cyber-dependent crimes.

  What should be done to ensure the treaty isn’t used by repressive regimes to crack down on dissent?

  Balancing effective measures against cybercrime and human rights guarantees is the fundamental issue that needs to be resolved by this treaty negotiation process, and at the moment it is unclear how this will be accomplished. The most effective way to ensure the treaty is not used to crack down on dissent and other legitimate activities is to ensure a treaty focused on a clear set of cyber-dependent crimes with adequate and clear human rights safeguards present throughout the treaty.

  In the absence of a digital rights treaty, this treaty has to provide those guarantees and safeguards. If a broad cooperation regime without adequate safeguards is established, there is a real risk that the treaty could be used by some states as a tool of oppression and suppression of activism, journalism and other civil society activities that are vital in any effective crime response and prevention strategy.

  How much space is there for civil society to contribute to the negotiations process?

  The negotiations for the treaty have been opened for CSOs to contribute to the process through an approach that does not allow states to veto individual CSOs. There is space for CSOs to bring in their contributions under each agenda item, and through intersessional meetings where they can present and lead discussions with member states. This process is in some ways a model that other UN negotiations could follow as a best practice.

  CSOs, as well as the private sector, are bringing vital perspectives to the table on the potential impacts of proposals made in the treaty negotiations, on practical issues, on data protection and on human rights. Fundamentally, CSOs are providing fact-checking and evidence to back up or challenge the arguments made by member states as proposals are made and potential compromises are discussed.

  What progress has been made so far, and what have been the main obstacles in the negotiations?

  On paper, the Ad Hoc Committee has only two meetings left until the treaty is supposed to be adopted – one meeting will take place in August and the other in early 2024. The Committee has already held five meetings, during which the full range of issues and draft provisions to be included in the treaty have been discussed. The next stage will be for a draft treaty to be produced by the Chair, and then for that draft to be debated and negotiated in the next two meetings.

  The main obstacle has been the existence of quite fundamental differences in visions for the treaty – from a broad treaty allowing for criminalisation of and cooperation on a diverse range of offences to a narrow treaty focussed on cyber-dependent crimes. Those different objectives mean that the Committee has so far lacked a common vision, which is what negotiations need to discover in the coming months.

  What are the chances that the final version of the treaty will meet international human rights standards while fulfilling its purpose?

  It is up to the negotiators from all sides, and how far they are willing to move in order to achieve agreement, whether the treaty will have a meaningful impact on cybercrime while also staying true to international human rights standards and the general human rights ethos of the UN. This is the optimal outcome, but given the current political atmosphere and challenges, it will be hard to achieve.

  There is a chance the treaty could be adopted without adequate safeguards, and that consequently only a small number of countries ratify it, thereby diminishing its usefulness, but also directing the rights risks to only those countries who sign up. There is also a chance the treaty could have very high human rights standards, but again not many countries ratify it – limiting its usefulness for cooperation but neutering its human rights risks.

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  Get in touch with the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice through itswebsite and follow@GI_TOC and@IanTennant9 on Twitter. 

• UN CYBERCRIME TREATY: ‘This is not about protecting states but about protecting people’

  CIVICUS speaks withStéphane Duguin aboutthe weaponisation of technology and progress being madetowards a United Nations (UN) Cybercrime Treaty.

  Stéphaneis an expert onthe use of disruptive technologies such as cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns and online terrorism and theChief Executive Officer of the CyberPeace Institute,a civil society organisation (CSO) founded in 2019 to help humanitarian CSOs and vulnerable communitieslimit the harm of cyberattacks andpromote responsible behaviour in cyberspace. It conducts research and advocacy and provides legal and policy expertise in diplomatic negotiations, including theUN Ad Hoc Committee elaborating the Cybercrime Convention.

  Why is there need for a new UN treaty dealing with cybercrime?

  Several legal instruments dealing with cybercrime already exist, including the 2001 Council of Europe Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, the first international treaty aimed at addressing cybercrimes and harmonising legislations to enhance cooperation in the area of cybersecurity, ratified by 68 states around the world as of April 2023. This was followed by regional tools such as the 2014 African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection, among others.

  But the problem behind these instruments is that they aren’t enforced properly. The Budapest Convention has not even been ratified by most states, although it is open to all. And even when they’ve been signed and ratified, these instruments aren’t operationalised. This means that data is not accessible across borders, international cooperation is complicated to achieve and requests for extradition are not followed up on.

  There is urgent need to reshape cross-border cooperation to prevent and counter crimes, especially from a practical point of view. States with more experience fighting cybercrimes could help less resourced ones by providing technical assistance and helping build capacity.

  This is why the fact that the UN is currently negotiating a major global Cybercrime Convention is so important. In 2019, to coordinate the efforts of member states, CSOs, including CyberPeace Institute, academic institutions and other stakeholders, the UN General Assembly established the Ad Hoc Committee to elaborate a ‘Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Criminal Purpose’ – a Cybercrime Convention in short. This will be the first international legally binding framework for cyberspace.

  The aims of the new treaty are to reduce the likelihood of attacks, and when these happen, to limit the harm and ensure victims have access to justice and redress. This is not about protecting states but about protecting people.

  What were the initial steps in negotiating the treaty?

  The first step was to take stock of what already existed and, most importantly, what was missing in the existing instruments in order to understand what needed to be done. It was also important to measure the efficacy of existing tools and determine whether they weren’t working due to their design or because they weren’t being properly implemented. Measuring the human harm of cybercrime was also key to define a baseline for the problem we’re trying to address with the new treaty.

  Another step, which interestingly has not been part of the discussion, would be an agreement among all state parties to stop engaging in cybercrimes themselves. It’s strange, to say the least, to be sitting at the table discussing definitions of cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes with states that are conducting or facilitating cyberattacks. Spyware and targeted surveillance, for instance, are being mostly financed and deployed by states, which are also financing the private sector by buying these technologies with taxpayers’ money.

  What are the main challenges?

  The main challenge has been to define the scope of the new treaty, that is, the list of offences to be criminalised. Crimes committed with the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) generally belong to two distinct categories: cyber-dependent crimes and cyber-enabled crimes. States generally agree that the treaty should include cyber-dependent crimes: offences that can only be committed using computers and ICTs, such as illegally accessing computers, performing denial-of-service attacks and creating and spreading malware. If these crimes weren’t part of the treaty, there wouldn’t be a treaty to speak of.

  The inclusion of cyber-enabled crimes, however, is more controversial. These are offences that are carried out online but could be committed without ICTs, such as banking fraud and data theft. There’s no internationally agreed definition of cyber-enabled crimes. Some states consider offences related to online content, such as disinformation, incitement to extremism and terrorism, as cyber-enabled crimes. These are speech-based offences, the criminalisation of which can lead to the criminalisation of online speech or expression, with negative impacts on human rights and fundamental freedoms.

  Many states that are likely to be future signatories to the treaty use this kind of language to strike down dissent. However, there is general support for the inclusion of limited exceptions on cyber-enabled crimes, such as online child sexual exploitation and abuse, and computer-related fraud.

  There is no way we can reach a wide definition of cyber-enabled crimes unless it’s accompanied with very strict human rights safeguards. In the absence of safeguards, the treaty should encompass a limited scope of crimes. But there’s no agreement on a definition of safeguards and how to put them in place, particularly when it comes to personal data protection.

  For victims as well as perpetrators, there’s absolutely no difference between cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes. If you are a victim, you are a victim of both. A lot of criminal groups – and state actors – are using the same tools, infrastructure and processes to perform both types of attacks.

  Even though there’s a need to include more cyber-enabled crimes, the way it’s being done is wrong, as there are no safeguards or clear definitions. Most states that are pushing for this have abundantly demonstrated that they don’t respect or protect human rights, and some – including China, Egypt, India, Iran, Russia and Syria – have even proposed to delete all references to international human rights obligations.

  Another challenge is the lack of agreement on how international cooperation mechanisms should follow up to guarantee the practical implementation of the treaty. The ways in which states are going to cooperate and the types of activities they will perform together to combat these crimes remain unclear.

  To prevent misuse of the treaty by repressive regimes we should focus both on the scope of criminalisation and the conditions for international cooperation. For instance, provisions on extradition should include the principle of dual criminality, which means an act should not be extraditable unless it constitutes a crime in both the countries making and receiving the request. This is crucial to prevent its use by authoritarian states to persecute dissent and commit other human rights violations.

  What is civil society bringing to the negotiations?

  The drafting of the treaty should be a collective effort aimed at preventing and decreasing the amount of cyberattacks. As independent bodies, CSOs are contributing to it by providing knowledge on the human rights impacts and potential threats and advocating for guarantees for fundamental rights.

  For example, the CyberPeace Institute has been analysing disruptive cyberattacks against healthcare institutions amid COVID-19 for two years. We found at least 500 cyberattacks leading to the theft of data of more than 20 million patients. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

  The CyberPeace Institute also submits recommendations to the Committee based on a victim-centric approach, involving preventive measures, evidence-led accountability for perpetrators, access to justice and redress for victims and prevention of re-victimisation.

  We also advocate for a human-rights-by-design approach, which would ensure full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms through robust protections and safeguards. The language of the Convention should refer to specific human rights frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is important that the fight against cybercrime should not pit national security against human rights.

  This framing is especially significant because governments have long exploited anti-cybercrime measures to expand state control, broaden surveillance powers, restrict or criminalise freedoms of expression and assembly and target human rights defenders, journalists and political opposition in the name of national security or fighting terrorism.

  In sum, the goal of civil society is to demonstrate the human impact of cybercrimes and make sure states take this into consideration when negotiating the framework and the regulations – which must be created to protect citizens. We bring in the voices of victims, the most vulnerable ones, whose daily cybersecurity is not properly protected by the current international framework. And, as far as the CyberPeace Institute is concerned, we advocate for the inclusion of a limited scope of cybercrimes with clear and narrow definitions to prevent the criminalisation of behaviours that constitute the exercise of fundamental freedoms and human rights.

  At what point in the treaty process are we now?

  A consolidated negotiating document was the basis for the second reading done in the fourth and fifth sessions held in January and April 2023. The next step is to release a zero draft in late June, which will be negotiated in the sixth session that will take place in New York between August and September 2023.

  The process normally culminates with a consolidation by states, which is going to be difficult since there’s a lot of divergence and a tight deadline: the treaty should be taken to a vote at the 78^th UN General Assembly session in September 2024.

  There’s a bloc of states looking for a treaty with the widest possible scope, and another bloc leaning towards a convention with a very limited scope and strong safeguards. But even within this bloc there is still disagreement when it comes to data protection, the approach to security and the ethics of specific technologies such as artificial intelligence.

  What are the chances that the final version of the treaty will meet international human rights standards while fulfilling its purpose?

  Considering how the process has been going so far, I’m not very optimistic, especially on the issue of upholding human rights standards, because of the crucial lack of definition of human rights safeguards. We shouldn’t forget negotiations are happening in a context of tense geopolitical confrontation. The CyberPeace Institute has been tracing the attacks deployed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We’ve witnessed over 1,500 campaigns of attacks with close to 100 actors involved, many of them states, and impacts on more than 45 countries. This geopolitical reality further complicates the negotiations.

  By looking at the text that’s on the table right now, it is falling short of its potential to improve the lives of victims in cyberspace. This is why the CyberPeace Institute remains committed to the drafting process – to inform and sensitise the discussions toward a more positive outcome.

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  Get in touch with the CyberPeace Institute through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@CyberpeaceInst and@DuguinStephane on Twitter.

  
  

   

• UN PLASTICS TREATY: ‘Human health and the environment must come first’

  CIVICUS speaks about the progress being made towards a United Nations (UN) Treaty on Plastic Pollution with Vito Buonsante, an environmental health lawyer and technical and policy advisor at the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN).

  IPEN is a global network of civil society organisations (CSOs) seeking to improve chemical policies and raise public awareness to ensure that hazardous substances are no longer produced, used or disposed of in ways that harm human health and the environment.

  Most people don’t know there is a UN Treaty on Plastic Pollution in development. When and how did the process start?

  In March 2022, the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), the world's highest-level decision-making body on the environment, approved a broad mandate to start talks on an international treaty to address the growing threats from plastic pollution. The scope of the Plastics Treaty is meant to include all impacts from plastics throughout their lifecycle, including effects from the toxic chemicals in plastics on human health and the environment. It should help move the world towards a toxic-free future.

  In IPEN’s analysis, based on UNEA’s mandate, the final agreement must address the health impacts of plastics and their chemicals in four ways. First, it must address the use, release of and harms from toxic chemicals from plastics in all of their lifecycle, from production to consumption and waste management. Second, as the mandate emphasises the importance of promoting sustainable design, the treaty must ensure that hazardous chemicals are eliminated from plastic production and plastics with hazardous chemicals are not recycled.

  Third, the UNEA resolution noted the importance of preventing threats to human health and the environment from toxic plastics and calls for coordination with the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, the 1998 Rotterdam Convention concerning the importation of hazardous chemicals, the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, a global policy framework adopted in 2006. The treaty must therefore address the health and environmental impacts due to exposure to hazardous chemicals and toxic emissions throughout the plastics lifecycle.

  Fourth, there’s the issue of microplastics, which the UNEA resolution recognises as included in plastic pollution. This means the treaty must also address the chemical health and environmental hazards from microplastics, including their potential to be vectors for chemical contamination.

  What progress was made in the first session of negotiations?

  The first session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, took place in Punta del Este, Uruguay, from 28 November to 2 December 2022.

  In this first meeting states had the opportunity to express their intentions for the treaty that they envision. On one side, we have seen a large group of states, working under the umbrella of the High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution, that have expressed their desire for a treaty that makes a difference in how plastics are made and tackles the root causes of plastic pollution. On the other side, there is a group of states fighting for a treaty that makes no difference to the status quo. Worryingly, these countries include Japan, Saudi Arabia and the USA, all of which want to see a treaty focused only on waste management rather than the entire lifecycle of plastics, and built on the basis of voluntarily agreed national commitments rather than binding obligations across the board.

  The second session will take place in late May and early June in Paris, France. Negotiations should be completed by the end of 2024, and it should be possible to make the deadline. Global measures can be agreed. The science is very clear: it would be delusional to think that recycling the growing amounts of plastics that are being produced is the solution to the plastic pollution crisis, after 40 years of failing to recycle even a small amount of the plastic waste. It is too early to understand in which direction the talks will go, but it should be possible to agree on a number of global standards, even at the risk of some states not immediately ratifying the treaty.

  What would an ambitious treaty look like?

  The most important measure an effective treaty should include is the reduction of the total production of plastics. If production doesn’t slow down, over the next 20 years the amount of plastic will double and it will become truly impossible to control.

  A second key measure concerns the design of plastics. Here there is a need to remove all toxic chemical additives, such as bisphenols, PFAS and flame retardants, and all toxic polymers such as PVC and polystyrene. These chemicals are known to cause adverse health impacts, disrupting hormonal functions, fertility and children’s brain functions, among others. Removing them from plastics will create safer material cycles. It is also very important to improve transparency about both plastics ingredients and the quantities and types of plastics produced. Without a clear picture of what is produced and where, it will be difficult to beat plastic pollution.

  Ambition should also extend to implementation. There must be a commitment from developed countries to create a fund to implement the treaty. No matter how stringent the provisions of the treaty are, without considerable investment in implementation, impact will be limited. Commitments have recently been adopted for funds for climate and biodiversity, but there is not yet a fund established to tackle plastic pollution and other chemicals and waste-related actions.

  What are environmental CSOs bringing to the negotiating table?

  CSOs hold a wide range of expertise and experiences that are very valuable for treaty negotiators. IPEN, for instance, has advocated for the recognition of the impacts of the toxic chemicals in plastics for over two decades, clearly showing through many scientific reports and testing of plastics and plastic products how plastics products are exposing communities and vulnerable populations to toxic chemicals.

  We are optimistic that the need to solve this planetary crisis will prevail. The international community has been failing on climate change and cannot fail on plastics as well. The Plastics Treaty could be a way to show that international cooperation is the best way to solve global problems and that human health and the environment can and must be put ahead of national interests and business interests.

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  Get in touch with IPEN through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@ToxicsFree and@VitoABuonsante on Twitter.

  
  

   

• UN PLASTICS TREATY: ‘It is up to civil society to speak up for the public when their governments won’t’

  CIVICUS speaks about the progress being made towards aUnited Nations (UN) Treaty on Plastic Pollution with Aidan Charron, End of Plastics and Canopy Project Coordinator with EARTHDAY.ORG.

  Growing out of the first Earth Day in 1970, EARTHDAY.ORG is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150,000 partners in over 192 countries to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide.

• UN RESOLUTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE: ‘The climate crisis is a human rights crisis’

  CIVICUS speaks with Hailey Campbell about the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)resolution on the environment, which enables the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on states’ obligations to address climate change.

  Hailey is a climate activist and co-executive director of Care About Climate, ajustice-driven climate education and empowerment civil society organisation (CSO) and network of international young climate leaders seeking to share climate solutions on the international stage.

  What was the origin of the initiative to take climate matters to the ICJ?

  The historic initiative was first introduced in 2019 by the Pacific Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC), a youth-led organisation established by students from eight Pacific Island countries. The PISFCC started by persuading the Pacific Island Forum, the region’s main political and economic organisation, to bring the issue of climate change and human rights to the ICJ. CSOs from the Pacific supported this campaign and built the Alliance for a Climate Justice Advisory Opinion (ACJAO) to include other non-state actors. In 2021, the state of Vanuatu, a small island state that is highly susceptible to climate catastrophes, initiated negotiations and the drafting of the resolution, which was later supported by over 130 countries and over 220 CSOs, and eventually adopted by consensus by the UNGA on 29 March 2023.

  Do you view this resolution as a civil society victory?

  This resolution is a monumental victory! This victory is the beginning of a wave of change in how we all think about the climate crisis and a reminder that climate change doesn’t respect geopolitical boundaries. Environmental CSOs, young leaders, island nations leading the call for the resolution, and PISFCC are reminding the world that before being an advocate, a fossil fuel executive, or a politician, we are all people. As humans, we all share this beautiful planet and sharing it requires caring about each other. If some leaders fail to recognise this, they should be held accountable.

  The resolution calling for an ICJ advisory opinion is also a celebration of island innovation and perseverance. Islanders have relied on traditional knowledge and collaborative leadership to adapt to environmental impacts for thousands of years. Taking the world’s greatest challenge to the highest court highlights their strength and experience. As a young person living on an island in the Pacific, I am grateful to the leadership of other young islanders and allies who are paving the way for future generations to have a sustainable future.

  How could the ICJ help address climate change?

  The ICJ is the world’s highest court, which sets precedents via advisory opinions and rules on how states should cooperate globally. As such, it plays a prominent role in keeping peace among our nations.

  The ICJ advisory opinion embodies the reality that we can’t solve the climate crisis by continuing the very practices that brought us to it. The scope of the resolution moves beyond the Paris Agreement, referencing the importance of having a safe climate as a vital human right for well-being. Through outlining potential legal consequences for nations causing significant harm to vulnerable communities and future generations, it could finally ensure greater accountability for the climate crisis. If nations are held more accountable and pushed to act, the door is opened to ensure fossil fuel emissions are fully eliminated and capacity-building for adaptation needs are fulfilled.

  How have you personally engaged in advocating for this resolution and broader climate action?

  I first learned about the PISFCC’s campaign in 2019, when I got involved with the climate movement following the COP25 climate change summit. As a sustainability student dedicated to working in the climate field, I was inspired by how a small group of students across island boundaries was strongly calling for an ICJ advisory opinion. I started following their journey and supporting their calls to action in various ways, from reposting social media content to bringing up relevant arguments in my conversations with leaders at subsequent COPs.

  Inspired by their island leadership, I accepted an internship with the Local 2030 Islands Network, the world’s first global, island-led peer-to-peer network devoted to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. I learned more about island sustainability and the impacts of climate change from island leaders and was amazed by their examples of innovative solutions and optimist spirit. Empowered to use my education to support islanders in making their voices heard, I chose to focus my master’s degree on developing a workplan for how islanders can work together with their communities to develop, track and implement sustainable solutions for climate change.

  This journey of student activism helped me become a cross-sector environmental leader, work on climate adaption on islands, and lean into coalitions, like Care About Climate, as vulnerable groups to stand up for our right to a climate safe future. In fact, their inspiration led to my empowerment to work with young people to ensure the first-ever inclusion of young people as stakeholders in a UN climate conference decision at COP27.

  What can international allies do to support this struggle?

  All international allies must continue fighting! This historic resolution is only the first step. Before the ICJ can issue its opinion, written and oral arguments from states and select international organisations, such as the United Nations Environment Program, will be requested. It is important for community members to continue contacting their national representatives and international organisations selected to submit testimonies and call for support of the opinion. In fact, the PISFCC have just launched an amazing handbook to support policymakers, youth, and environmental CSOs in understanding their role that I highly recommend checking out. My favourite example from the handbook is about the importance of sharing your personal testimony as to why you believe in the need for an ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate rights and what impact it could have on your future with your national representatives. I hope everyone feels empowered to join me in the Alliance to stay up to date on ways to make an impact.

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  Get in touch with Care About Climate through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@careaboutclimate and@hailey_campbell on Twitter andInstagram.

   

• UN TAX CONVENTION: ‘People power is the major weapon we bring to the fight against inequality’

  CIVICUS speaks about civil society’s work to tackle inequality from the ground up and discusses the prospects of a United Nations (UN) tax convention with Jenny Ricks, Global Convenor of Fight Inequality Alliance.

  Fight Inequality Alliance is a growing global coalition bringing together a wide range of social movements, grassroots and community-based organisations, civil society organisations, trade unions, artists and individual activists organising and mobilising from the ground up to find and push for solutions for the structural causes of inequality in order to rebalance power and wealth in our societies.

  Is there a global consensus that inequality is wrong and needs to be addressed?

  In recent years there has been quite a consensus that inequality has reached new extremes and is damaging for everybody in society as well as for the environment. We are at a time when it’s not just people on the frontlines who are most affected by inequality saying it’s wrong and grotesque and it needs to change, but even organisations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are saying it’s a problem. The Pope is saying it’s a problem. Governments have signed up to reducing inequality through one of the Sustainable Development Goals.

  There is this broad consensus on the surface: it seems like everybody thinks concentration of power and wealth at the top of societies has gone too far and the gap is too extreme and affects people’s daily lives and livelihoods as a matter of life and death. And not only that: it also corrodes democracies. When oligarchs control the media, buy elections, crack down on human rights defenders and civic space and trash the environment, it affects everybody.

  But underneath that superficial consensus, I think there’s still deep disagreement about what fighting inequality really means. We at the Fight Inequality Alliance are interested in dismantling the systems of oppression that drive inequality, including neoliberalism, patriarchy, racism and the legacy of colonialism. These are the deep structural roots of the inequalities that are the reason billions of people struggled to survive under a global pandemic while the richest people in the world continued to have a great time. So we have an agenda of transformation of the nature of our economies and our societies, and not just tinkering with the status quo, making minor tweaks to stop people rioting.

  How can structural inequality be tackled?

  When we started forming the Fight Inequality Alliance, we were clear that the problem was not a matter of lack of policy solutions. We know what the policy solutions are to fight inequality, such as the measures needed to tackle climate change, the redistributive tax policies needed or the policies required to ensure decent work.

  The problem was that the overwhelming concentration of power and wealth at the top wasn’t matched by a countervailing force from below. The richest and most powerful are organised and well-funded. They are pursuing their interests and their greed aggressively and successfully. What we have is people power. But across civil society and beyond, groups were very fragmented, very siloed and focused on their individual agendas and absorbed by the issues their constituencies most need them to respond to. There was not enough connection across struggles.

  0rganising around inequality is a good way for people to understand how their struggles are interconnected: underneath the day-to-day struggles there are common roots, and therefore there are also common solutions to be fought for. That’s where we saw our role lay, and also in shifting the narratives we have about inequality. We need to change what we envisage as being necessary and possible in our societies, and build power behind the alternative visions we are striving for. When we are limited by what popular narratives deem as natural or normal, such as the false idea that billionaires are hardworking geniuses so deserve unlimited wealth, it limits our energies and our organising capacities for structural change.

  People at the grassroots know their problems and their solutions. Inequality isn’t an issue for economists and technocrats to solve: it is primarily a fight that needs to be fought by people. And the voices of people living at the sharp end of these inequalities needs to be heard. They are the real experts in this struggle. So people power is the biggest weapon that we bring to the fight. Governments and international institutions want to take these debates to the technical arenas of policy-making bodies and conference hall settings, wrapping them in technical language that intentionally makes them inaccessible to most people. Many issues that require structural changes, and certainly inequality, are seen as things to be measured, reported on and talked about in economic circles.

  But inequality is a human tragedy, not a technical matter. It is about power. And solutions need to be owned by the people whose lives are most affected by it. We need to shift the balance of power, in our societies and in the global arena, not wrangle over the wording of a technical paper discussed behind closed doors, and that’s done by organising on a large scale. This people power is the major weapon we bring to the fight against inequality.

  Why is taxation important in the struggle against inequality?

  Fighting inequality requires us to redistribute power and wealth, and taxation is a major redistribution tool.

  Over the last decade or two civil society has done a lot of work to try and challenge the fact that the richest people and the biggest corporations across the world are not paying their fair share of tax. The economic model is exploitative, unjust and unsustainable, based on resource extraction, primarily from the global south, abusive labour practices, underpaid workers and great environmental damage.

  But everyone can relate to this issue nationally too – when it comes to national or local budgets, governments often increase indirect taxes such as value-added tax, which is the most regressive kind of tax because it applies to anything people buy, including essentials, instead of taxing rich people or multinationals more, and they have set up whole global industry and schemes to avoid and evade tax on a massive scale.

  Redistribution is happening as we speak, but it is based on extracting from the poorest and distributing towards the wealthiest people in the world – billionaires, corporate shareholders and the like. That is what we are fighting to reverse, at a local level as well as globally.

  How could a UN convention on taxation help?

  The current level of wealth concentration is so grotesque that it requires solutions and action at all levels. We need to fight on the local front where people are struggling while we push for systemic change in places like the UN. The discussion of global tax rules feels quite distant from the day-to-day struggles that most people, within our alliance and beyond, are campaigning for. But decisions made about them have repercussions for those struggles.

  Rules on taxation have so far been set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member states – a rich countries’ club. How can decisions over global taxation rules that affect everybody sit anywhere but the UN, which for all its faults and failings is the only multilateral body where every state has a seat at the table?

  Even so, as we have seen with climate negotiations, there is a huge power struggle that needs to be fought at the UN. It will still be a titanic struggle to get the kind of global tax rules we want. But if global tax rules are made within the OECD, the majority of the world doesn’t even stand a chance. Asking rich countries to please behave better is not going to yield the kind of transformation we want.

  So in November 2022 we saw a first positive step as the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for more inclusive and effective international tax cooperation and urging member states to kick off negotiations on a global tax treaty. The resolution echoed a call made by the Group of 77 (G77), the largest bloc of developing countries in the UN, as well as the Africa Group, and gave the UN a mandate to monitor, evaluate and determine global tax rules and support the establishment of a global tax body.

  A global tax convention would put global south states on an equal footing with global north states, so the proposal faced pushback. Global power dynamics were clearly at play. This was to be expected: this is bound to be a long-term process, and an open-ended one. There is no guarantee it will result in the strong global framework that we need. But it’s still a fight worth fighting, and the UN is the right arena for it, simply because there’s no other space to have these negotiations. Where else could the G77 or the Africa Group renegotiate global tax rules?

  How are you campaigning in the light of the resolution?

  We are not directly campaigning for the UN Tax Convention as much as we are trying to bring people into this agenda in a different way. We’ve been campaigning a lot on taxing the rich and abolishing billionaires, which is a more appealing way to present the issue and mobilise people around it. We can’t imagine hundreds of thousands of people taking to the street for the UN Tax Convention at this point. So instead we’ve been organising around the need to tax the rich, domestically and globally, both individuals and corporations.

  This call has a lot of popular resonance because people find it easier to link it to their primary struggles, for jobs, healthcare spending, better public services or basic income, or against austerity measures, regressive tax rises or subsidy cuts. It’s become part of the campaigns of a lot more movements across the world through our organising over the last few years. This has been the way into the tax agenda for a lot of grassroots movements in the global south. It has potential to bring people’s attention to the broader tax justice agenda. You can’t start by holding a community meeting about the UN Tax Convention. You need to start from the daily inequalities people are facing.

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  Get in touch with Fight Inequality Alliance through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@jenny_ricks and@FightInequality on Twitter.

• UNITED NATIONS: ‘Civil society has always been an integral part of the UN ecosystem’

  CIVICUS speaks with Natalie Samarasinghe, Chief Executive Officer of the United Nations Association UK (UNA-UK) about the UN Secretary-General’s recent ‘Our Common Agenda’ report and the need to include civil society voices in the UN.

  A nationwide grassroots movement of over 20,000 people, UNA-UK is the UK’s leading source of independent information and analysis about the UN and is devoted to building support for the UN among policymakers, opinion-formers and the public.

  

  What does ‘Our Common Agenda’ hope to achieve and what are its major recommendations?

  ‘Our Common Agenda’ is a report released by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in September 2021. While ‘UN releases report’ may not be the most earth-shattering headline, this one stands apart for two reasons.

  First, the way it was put together. It was mandated by the General Assembly’s declaration to mark the UN’s 75th anniversary, which tasked the Secretary-General with producing recommendations for responding to current and future challenges. The report draws from feedback received from 1.5 million people and 60,000 organisations who took part in the UN75 global conversation, as well as input generated through an innovative digital consultation that enabled stakeholders from various sectors to exchange ideas.

  Second, its visionary tone. The report reads like the manifesto of a second-term Secretary-General. Having been dealt a challenging hand, from national parasites to a global virus, Guterres spent his first five years in post firefighting multiple crises and in sensible, if technocratic, reforms. He is newly reappointed to a second term, and this report signals that he now means business: he has big ideas and he wants to see them through. This further bolsters the case for Secretaries-General to serve a single, longer term of office.

  Peppered with facts and figures, the report features a grim analysis of the state of the world — and an even grimmer prognosis — while also presenting a hopeful alternative scenario predicated on collective action, a bit like an existential version of a ‘choose your own ending’ book.

  It sets out four big-picture shifts: a renewed social contract anchored in human rights; urgent action to protect global commons and deliver global public goods; greater solidarity with young people and future generations; and an upgraded UN that is more inclusive, networked and data-driven.

  For each shift, there are a number of proposals. Some are concrete, such as a global COVID-19 vaccination plan and a biennial meeting of the G20 and international institutions. Others are more open – an emergency platform to respond to future shocks, for example, and plans to transform education. Some – such as that of repurposing the Trusteeship Council as a steward for future generations – are grounded in long-standing ideas. Others, such as a global digital compact, would take the UN into new territory. And some are intended to give effect to the proposed changes, notably a Summit of the Future to be held in 2023 and a World Social Summit to beheld in 2025.

  What are the positives that the report identifies for civil society and people’s participation in the UN?

  One of the most interesting aspects of the report is that it recalibrates the UN’s role on the world stage. Arguably, the biggest transformation to have taken place since the UN’s founding in 1945 is the explosion of actors at the local, national and international levels. It was refreshing to see Guterres combine ambition for the UN’s role with humility about what it can achieve, and set out clearly that success depends on action by, and partnerships with, other stakeholders, including civil society organisations (CSOs).

  The report notes that CSOs have been an integral part of the UN ecosystem from the outset. It positions CSOs as a central part of a new social contract, linking them to building trust and cohesion, as well as delivery across a host of areas, from sustainable development to climate action, digital governance and strategic foresight. It also advocates for institutions, the UN included, to listen better to people, adopt participatory approaches and reduce complexity so that their processes and outcomes are better understood.

  Guterres recommends that governments conduct consultations to give citizens a say in envisioning their countries’ future. He calls on states to consider suggestions for widening participation in all intergovernmental organs. In addition, he announces two changes within the UN Secretariat: a UN Youth Office and the establishment of dedicated civil society focal points in all UN entities, to create space for participation at the country and global levels and within UN processes.

  What is missing or could be strengthened in the report?

  The report is remarkably forthright in parts. In calling for a renewed social contract, for instance, Guterres weaves together a number of politically challenging issues, such as human rights, taxation and justice. He is right to position these issues as essentially national, but defining a way forward will be tricky: the emphasis on the UN’s role in ‘domestic’ issues will undoubtedly irk governments, while CSOs may fear it signals a retreat into norm-setting and technical assistance.

  In other places, Guterres pulls his punches. This is perhaps wise in contested areas such as peace and security, where the report sets out modest proposals that are, for the most part, already underway. UNA-UK and partner CSOs would have liked more emphasis on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and on halting the development of lethal autonomous weapons.

  On climate, Guterres’ signature issue, the report could have gone further to frame the ‘triple crisis’ of climate disruption, pollution and biodiversity loss as an interrelated emergency with human rights at its core. It could also have sensitised policymakers to a bolder set of measures. And after an excellent distillation of the challenges, those looking for new approaches on women’s empowerment and gender equality are also left wanting.

  For many of us, though, the biggest disappointment was on civil society inclusion. Guterres’ language is positive but less emphatic than in his Call to Action on Human Rights and there are few specifics that move beyond warm words.

  During the stakeholder consultations, CSOs from all regions called for a high-level UN civil society champion to help increase and diversify participation and advise on access – be it to UN headquarters or to climate COPs. This was the one concrete proposal that attracted widespread support and while the report commits to exploring it further, there is some bewilderment as to why Guterres did not move forward with an appointment that is in his gift.

  Of course, it is important to have focal points across the system. Many UN entities already do. But we know from our experience with gender, human rights and so on that mainstreaming is not enough. That is surely part of the thinking behind the creation of a Youth Office. It should be applied to civil society too.

  What should happen next to improve participation in the UN?

  In the short term, the proposed roll-out of systemwide focal points should happen swiftly and in consultation with civil society. A timeline and process should be set for mapping and monitoring engagement, as envisaged by the report. A high-level champion would be a natural instigator for both, so hopefully this position will be established.

  In the medium term, a number of other changes would be helpful, including a system-wide strategy on civic space inside and outside the UN; a simple online platform to support engagement, which could include a citizen petition mechanism; a voluntary fund to support participation, as well as tools such as social impact bonds to finance in-country CSO activity; and a new partnership framework to enhance partnership capacity – including in-country,  simplify engagement and improve vetting.

  In the longer-term, the UN should move towards a partnership model, launching a global capacity-building drive to transfer a number of its functions to CSOs and others who are better able to deliver on the ground. This would enable the organisation to focus on the tasks it is uniquely well-placed to undertake. Indeed, the report already seems to move in this direction with its emphasis on the UN as a convenor and provider of accurate data, foresight and analysis.

  What more can civil society do to push for change and how can the UN best support civil society?

  The UN already depends on civil society across the spectrum of its work. We are critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing the climate emergency. We provide essential assistance in humanitarian crises, sometimes as the only players with access to, and the trust of, marginalised communities. We stand up for those who are ignored and abused. We are essential partners for the UN while also serving as its conscience, urging it to be bold and ambitious, and to act without fear or favour. And we do all this in the face of increasing attacks.

  As such, CSOs can push for making progress on ‘Our Common Agenda’, from advocacy with states to provide the Secretary-General with the mandate needed to forge ahead, to fleshing out the many proposals in the report and taking action in their communities, capitals and UN forums.

  We can do this from the sidelines – we are well-practised in making our voices heard despite shrinking civic space. But we will be much more effective if we are given a formal role in dedicated processes such as preparations for the Summit of the Future and in the work of the UN more generally; and if we know we can count on the support of UN officials. Appointing a civil society champion would be a good start.

  Get in touch with UNA-UK through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@UNAUK and@Natalie_UNnerd on Twitter.

• UNITED NATIONS: ‘Getting a strong Ocean Treaty across the line would be nothing short of historic’

  CIVICUS speaks with Ellie Hooper of GreenpeaceAotearoa about civil society’s role in the ongoing negotiations towards the development of a United Nations Ocean Treaty. Greenpeace is a global environment campaigning network that comprises 26 independent national and regional organisations in over 55 countries across all continents as well as a co-ordinating body, Greenpeace International, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that create a green and peaceful future.

  What is the significance of the proposed Ocean Treaty?

  A strong global treaty on the oceans could revolutionise the way oceans are managed, putting an end to fragmented governance that has failed to protect our blue planet the way we need to.

  If done right, one of the key things the Ocean Treaty could deliver is the creation of fully protected marine areas on the high seas. These areas would be off limits to destructive human activities such as industrial fishing and mining. At the moment there is no legal mechanism to create fully protected areas outside of national jurisdictions, which has become a real problem. The ocean is under threat from all sides and to protect it we need to take a holistic view tackling multiple risk factors.

  Getting a strong treaty across the line would be nothing short of historic. Scientists tell us that to avoid the worst of the climate and biodiversity crisis we must protect at least a third of the world’s oceans by 2030. A strong treaty would give us the mechanism to do this. The ocean is a huge carbon sink and has absorbed a great deal of global warming to this point. It’s also home to amazing biodiversity, produces the oxygen we breathe, stabilises the climate and is a food source for millions around the world.

  In short, keeping the ocean healthy is vital to our survival and the entire functioning of our blue planet. But more and more research shows it is in decline. To turn this around we need to step up and protect it by reducing the multiple pressures on the system.

  Science shows that fully protected marine areas are one of the best tools we’ve got to help the ocean recover and thrive. When these are put in place in the right areas – places known to be high in biodiversity, migratory pathways or unique ecosystems – ocean health improves and marine life flourishes. This has positive impacts across the board, from the number of creatures in the sea to how well the ocean can absorb carbon.

  Why is the treaty process taking so long?

  We’re talking about a hugely ambitious conservation effort. Getting a treaty across the line involves countries around the world agreeing to its terms, and that is not an easy feat.

  While it’s disappointing that leaders failed to reach a conclusion on this at the latest round of negotiations held in August, this doesn’t mean an agreement isn’t going to happen. At the last meeting a great deal of progress was made, with countries showing more flexibility and a real sense of urgency. They ran out of time, but we are not giving up hope that this historic agreement is on the horizon. What needs to happen now is for countries to come together without delay and thrash out their remaining discrepancies.

  How has civil society in general, and Greenpeace specifically, advocated for the treaty?

  There’s been a great deal of civil society pressure for this treaty, with many organisations around the world pushing hard for its best version to materialise.

  Greenpeace has been actively involved in the treaty process since the beginning. It sends a team to each round of negotiations and has run a global campaign to raise awareness of the threats facing the ocean and how a treaty could counter them. Our approach has been twofold: to build public momentum around the agreement while doing all the behind-the-scenes work, talking to ministers and other public officials in all the regions where we’re active.

  As a consequence, millions of people around the world have joined the campaign for a strong treaty. They’ve done that in various ways, from signing petitions, sending letters and recording video messages to attending marches. Many people around the world are invested in this issue and their engagement has been critical to getting this far.

  For us here at Greenpeace Aotearoa, it’s been inspiring to see the number of people willing to stand up for ocean protection, and we know that their voices have been heard. It’s fair to say that their repeated calls on New Zealand’s leaders to support a strong treaty has resulted in New Zealand supporting a far more progressive position at negotiations. That’s really people power in action. When we work together, we can make real change happen.

  We’ve also met regularly with the New Zealand delegation to the treaty negotiations, as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and we consistently communicate with them about what this treaty needs to look like in order to protect the ocean for the future.

  What can environmental civil society organisations and activists do to ensure the treaty is adopted?

  Treaty negotiations need to urgently resume. At the latest round, countries ran out of time to agree on all its terms, but they’re almost there. So it’s up to civil society activists and organisations to keep pushing world leaders to prioritise reconvening and getting this done. We don’t want it to fall to the bottom of the agenda – it’s simply too important.

  In more practical terms, making noise about the need for this treaty is really important. That could look like sharing content online, signing petitions, or writing to your country’s minister of foreign affairs to show how important getting this treaty done is. None of us can survive without a healthy ocean, so we all need to up to protect it.

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  Get in touch with Greenpeace Aotearoa through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@GreenpeaceNZ and @EleanorRowena on Twitter.

• UNITED NATIONS: ‘Ocean Treaty negotiations are largely a backroom discussion that excludes civil society’

  CIVICUS speaks John Paul Jose about civil society’s role in the ongoing negotiations towards a United Nations (UN) High Seas Treaty. John is an environmental and climate activist from India who currently serves as one of the youth ambassadors of the High Seas Alliance (HSA) and a member of the Youth Policy Advisory Council of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. The HSA is a partnership of more than 40 civil society organisations (CSOs) plus the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It aims to build a strong common voice and constituency for ocean conservation.

  What is the significance of the proposed treaty?

  Seventy-one per cent of the surface of the Earth is covered by ocean, 64 per cent of which are high seas. The ocean regulates the global climate and sustains life on the planet. It sequesters much of the historic and cumulative carbon emissions: phytoplankton, marine forests and whales, in particular, play a significant role in locking carbon in the ocean. However, the ocean has been systematically ignored in efforts to address the climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity, which have focused almost exclusively on the land.

  As the high seas are a global commons, it is largely governed by the International Maritime Organization, a UN agency responsible for regulating shipping that was established in 1948, and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and its autonomous intergovernmental body, the International Seabed Authority, established in 1994.

  But high seas are experiencing unprecedented threats that were not foreseen when those agreements were reached, such as the accumulation of plastics, chemical and industrial waste, acidification, deep sea mining, bottom trawling and, last but not least, the overall impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures and the overexploitation of marine habitats and species increase the danger of ocean collapse.

  This is why it is urgent to develop a global treaty on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction – a High Seas Treaty. This would provide the legal basis for the conservation of marine ecosystems and the protection from extinction of countless species yet to be discovered. Only one per cent of the high seas are currently protected, and the treaty aims to make it 30 per cent by 2030.

  This would be the equivalent of the Paris Agreement for the oceans. Through marine conservation and the sustainable use of marine resources, it will preserve the carbon cycle. By creating marine protected areas, it will contribute to the restoration of marine habitats and the replenishment of the marine resources on which many communities around the world rely for their livelihoods. It will further contribute to global climate resilience. Once it comes into effect, many practices harmful to the ocean will cease to exist within the protected areas.

  Why is the treaty process taking so long?

  It has been 15 years since the negotiations started, but cooperation has been lacking regarding many aspects of the treaty. Differences would need to be resolved in between sessions, and a treaty should be finalised to include all the aspects where agreements have been reached, leaving space for future amendments as differences over more contested elements are subsequently resolved. And intergovernmental conferences should definitely happen more often.

  One element being discussed is the equitable distribution among states of marine genetic resources, which are essential in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, agricultural and other industries. The current overemphasis on benefit sharing is an illusion, as we don’t know enough about such benefits, since much of the ocean is still unexplored. But it is a fact that 10 countries account for 71 per cent of global fishing and 98 per cent of patents of genetic codes of marine life in the high seas. Those few countries’ greed and unwillingness to share benefits and marine technology and knowledge, and the obvious concerns this creates among less powerful countries, are one big reason for the deadlock.

  There is also a stalemate on defining criteria for environmental impact assessments and the implementation of marine protected areas. What is at stake here are the interests of deep-sea mining industries and industrial fisheries.

  However, the treaty process has seen a lot of success in convening discussions and negotiations. As of now, more than 100 states are highly committed to backing the treaty as it stands and some, such as Costa Rica, are leading by example by pushing forward regionally, opening up additional avenues for conservation.

  The treaty is likely to be finalised at the next session, so further efforts should be put into funding delegations from global south countries so they can be a stronger voice and bring more balance into negotiations.

  How has civil society in general, and the HSA in particular, advocated for the development and adoption of a treaty?

  Since its inception, the HSA has advocated for protecting at least 50 per cent of the ocean, engaging decision-makers, experts and civil society. We are now focused on keeping up the momentum of the intergovernmental conferences, as this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a legally binding treaty to protect the planet by changing the way we govern the high seas. This process has created a lot of awareness about the importance of the high seas, so governments that used to be unfamiliar with them are now supporting a robust treaty.

  That said, it should be noted that only states are considered as parties to the treaty, so non-state voices have no space in the negotiations. Treaty negotiations are largely a backroom discussion that excludes civil society and experts. Many of us cannot even witness live negotiations and documents are only made available once discussions have been closed.

  There are also clear inequalities among participating states. Many states with limited resources bring very small delegations and lack the expertise to engage productively in the discussions. It would make a difference to all parties involved if civil society were able to bring its expertise into the process.

  What can environmental CSOs and activists do to ensure the treaty’s adoption?

  There are clear limits to what we can do to expedite the treaty’s adoption. We believe it is crucial to have a treaty as soon as possible, and it is better to have an incomplete one than to have none. So states should move forward on all the issues where agreements have been reached and design an amendment process to integrate further issues and stakeholders’ concerns in the future.

  CSOs and activists can contribute to the process by bringing diverse perspectives to the table. As current negotiations are closed discussions among states in which civil society, scientists and the private sector don’t have a seat, we only can do so by advocating with receptive states that do have a seat at the table.

  We can also campaign to bring bottom-up pressure into the process, by bringing the concerns the treaty tries to address into the discussion of the global climate movement and getting the wider public engaged. Resources such as the HSA’s Treaty Tracker provide access to useful information regarding the treaty and negotiations. This information should reach across the globe and empower people to demand that world leaders finalise the treaty, and to call on their own governments to hear them in environmental policy process.

  A treaty would provide a legal basis for action, but even without one, states, communities and corporations can act to protect the high seas. Many countries already have marine protected areas within their national jurisdictions, and more can be established with public participation. Civil society should engage in these processes but should not be limited by national boundaries. It’s time for us to transcend borders and advocate for the global commons as well.

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   Get in touch with the High Seas Alliance through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@HighSeasAllianc and@johnpauljos on Twitter.

• UNITED NATIONS: ‘Outstanding issues on the binding treaty on business and human rights are mainly political’

  CIVICUS speaks with Fernanda Hopenhaym, chair of the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Business and Human Rights, about the process to develop a binding international treaty on business and human rights.

  Why is a binding treaty on business and human rights so important?

  The process to develop this treaty stems from the conviction that a legally binding instrument is needed to regulate the obligations of private companies and, above all, to facilitate access to justice for victims of their abuses. Its aim is to incorporate human rights protections in the context of business activity.

  An international treaty would transcend the jurisdictional limitations of states. Transnational capital operates across borders. Huge numbers of companies in most sectors operate global supply chains. When abuses occur somewhere in these chains, it is very difficult for victims to access justice, as there are no justice mechanisms that transcend borders. Corporate operations are transnational but justice is not.

  Of course, states must take measures at the domestic level, strengthen their regulations, improve their laws and develop public policy and action plans to ensure effective protection of human rights. And companies must also make commitments to improve their practices. The treaty under negotiation would be part of a package of measures that are complementary, not mutually exclusive.

  The treaty process began in June 2014, when the UN Human Rights Council established an open-endedintergovernmental working group mandated to negotiate and agree on an international legally binding instrument to regulate the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises under international human rights law.

  What role is the Working Group on Business and Human Rights playing?

  TheWorking Group on Business and Human Rights is a UN special procedure, established by a 2011resolution of the Human Rights Council, with a mandate to promote, disseminate and implement theGuiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, exchange and promote good practices and lessons learned from the implementation of the Guiding Principles, and assess and make recommendations on these. Its mandate has been successively renewed in 2014, 2017 and 2020. It is composed of five independent experts, mostly academics, and has balanced geographical representation. I have been a member of the Working Group since 2021. The other four current members are from Australia, Nigeria, Poland and Thailand. Three of the five of us are women.

  While it does not have any decision-making authority over the Treaty, the Working Group plays an important role. We participate in almost all negotiating sessions through roundtables and discussions and we provide technical opinions. We have commented on the draft articles and we encourage the proactive participation of states from different regions of the world.

  One of the premises of the Guiding Principles is the development of measures that can be combined in order to address the problems that exist in relation to the protection of human rights in the context of business activity. A legally binding instrument is just one of those necessary measures.

  The Working Group has been very clear in sending out a message favourable to the treaty negotiation process.

  What progress has been made in negotiating the treaty?

  In the previousinterview we had in 2018, the process had been going on for four years. At that time the fourth session of negotiations, based on the ‘zero draft’, was about to start in Geneva. And I was not yet part of the Working Group. Four more years have passed, and at the eighth session held in October 2022, the third draft, which emerged in advance of the 2021 negotiations, was discussed.

  The pandemic affected the negotiation processes, partly because face-to-face contact was not possible for a long time. Representatives and delegates in Geneva, for example, were unable to meet in person for more than a year, so the possibilities for exchanges were severely limited. In turn, the pandemic affected the participation of civil society and other stakeholders in the discussions. Processes slowed down and therefore were extended.

  Currently, the third draft is still being discussed, and Ecuador, which chairs the Intergovernmental Working Group, has apparently said that it will not bring yet another new draft to the table, but that changes, modifications and additions will continue to be made to this third draft. Eventually, all these adjustments will lead to a final draft.

  The current draft has come a long way on issues such as acknowledging vulnerable groups, women, children and Indigenous peoples. Its scope, which was a very tough issue to negotiate, has also been clarified. In general, civil society’s position is to prioritise transnational corporations, while the current draft proposes that all companies should be under the umbrella of the treaty. The current draft reflects the position shared by our Working Group. A number of issues have been untangled, although there are still many things to be resolved.

  What are the unresolved issues?

  There are many discussions that are more political than technical. Some states and the private sector have said that the text is too prescriptive and rigid. Civil society has expressed that it wants more clarification and specificity on some issues such as the definition of the courts where cases covered by the treaty would be adjudicated and the consideration of the victims’ perspective, as the burden of proof remains a contentious issue. On this point the Working Group has been very clear: states have an obligation to facilitate access to justice and to remove barriers and obstacles for victims to access justice.

  While the European Union (EU) and the USA participate in this process, they lack conviction on the direction of the text. The EU is very active, but I see divergent positions among its member states. Many countries, such as France, support it, but the EU as a whole maintains reservations.

  One of the great triumphs of the early process was that China did not block it, but rather abstained. The same was true of India. This was partly because the treaty was supposed to be about transnational corporations. China has not approved of the extension of the treaty’s scope to all companies and has lately taken a more negative position.

  African states have participated very little in the last two rounds of negotiations. We believe that South Africa, which was co-leader with Ecuador when the resolution that initiated the process was negotiated, is also unhappy with the expanded focus beyond transnational corporations. Ecuador has recently called for the formation of a ‘friends of theChair‘ group and Africa is the only region without participating members.

  Latin America in comparison is participating quite proactively, although the region has experienced many political changes, including in Ecuador itself, which are likely to influence negotiating positions.

  In sum, there are ongoing technical discussions on the draft articles, but most of the outstanding issues are mainly political discussions. For this reason, I think the process will take several more years.

  Do you think that the final version of the treaty will meet civil society expectations?

  My hope is that we will not be left with a treaty that sets out good intentions without establishing clear rules. As is the case in all negotiations of this nature, some of the issues civil society is calling for will probably be left pending. There is a lot to accommodate: the perspectives of states, the expectations of business and the private sector in general, and the demands of civil society and all rights holders.

  I would expect a pretty good text, which in some ways reflects the character of the process, which has included a very strong civil society and social movements. From my perspective, the process has been sustained not only by the commitment of states to negotiate, but also by the impetus of civil society and dialogue among all involved.

  My expectations are intermediate. With some caution as to the scope of the articles, I think the treaty will contain some elements that satisfy civil society, and particularly victims.

  What work will need to be done once the treaty is adopted?

  To begin with, I think there is a long way to go before this treaty is adopted. It may still take several more years. There is a long way to go in the negotiations and regarding the content of the text.

  Once the treaty is adopted, ratification will have to be pushed through. Let us remember that international treaties only enter into force when a certain number of states ratify them, and only those states that ratify them are bound by them. This is where I see a huge challenge ahead. Hopefully, once we get to produce a good, comprehensive text, the process of ratification will not be so slow and cumbersome.

  For this to happen, we will need a strong civil society to push states to ratify the treaty so it enters into force and becomes binding on the signatory parties. Again, I would expect this process to be long and arduous, as the issue of human rights protection in the context of business is a thorny one, given that there are many interests at stake. What lies ahead will be a big challenge for all involved.

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   Follow@fernanda_ho and@WGBizHRs on Twitter.

   

• VENEZUELA: ‘We need a multilateral, flexible and creative approach from the international community’

  CIVICUS speaks with Feliciano Reyna, founder and president of Acción Solidaria, a Venezuelan civil society organisation (CSO) established in 1995 with the mission to contribute to reducing the social impact of the HIV epidemic. As a result of the multiple crises facing Venezuela, Acción Solidaria has expanded its scope of action and provides medicines and medical supplies to wider vulnerable populations.

  

  How has the current crisis come about in Venezuela?

  A process of dismantling the rule of law has taken place over several years and is still ongoing. The judiciary has long ceased to be independent and now operates according to the interests of the government. Added to this is a high level of corruption. Many documents and reports, such as a recent one by the United Nations (UN) Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela, describe how a non-independent justice structure was put in place, taking advantage of the opacity of public data and discretionary state management.

  As a result, many people, acting in their own interest, destroyed the economic and productive apparatus. Nowadays the Venezuelan economy is 20 per cent of the size it was in 2013. This has impacted on poverty levels, the quality of public services and the resulting lack of protection.

  An initial period of enormous income, lasting many years, allowed for a great waste of wealth, with resources reaching the major groups that supported Hugo Chávez’s government, from 2005 to 2013. But money was just spent on individual benefits, not invested in public services. Thus, little by little, the public sector was left in a state of total abandonment: hospitals, roads, lighting, electrical system, water distribution. Everything is pretty much destroyed. There are about four million people who cook with firewood or charcoal because they don’t receive gas. Where I live, we get water once a week for 24 hours, and sometimes we don’t get water for two or three weeks.

  There was a major shift in the global economy, with a sharp drop in oil prices coinciding with Chávez’s last days in office. When Nicolás Maduro took power in 2013, the fragility of a regime largely based on Chávez’s personality was exposed. Maduro’s victory triggered political protests because his mandate was questioned, and very harsh repressive practices were adopted in response. The situation has deteriorated ever since, leading to the current human rights crisis. CSOs have documented arbitrary detentions, torture and cruel treatment under detention. There has been a sustained attack on dissent and political opponents. Anyone in a position of power who is viewed as a political threat is taken out of play.

  The years between 2014 and 2016 were terrible. In addition to human rights violations, there was widespread harm caused to the population in terms of health, nutrition, access to water, education and other rights. As the economy deteriorated, there began to be many social protests, not for political reasons but regarding income, lack of resources, power cuts, lack of transportation and public services, and so on. With two major exceptions – the 2017 and 2019 protest waves, in which people expressed political grievances – the vast majority of protests have been social protests, not ideological ones, through which many people who ultimately supported and voted for the government expressed their discontent.

  While the attack on opposition and dissent has driven many into exile, economic shortages have led to a massive emigration wave. More than four million Venezuelans have emigrated, including many professionals, teachers and doctors, further weakening service delivery systems.

  What is the context in which civil society works?

  There state has been greatly weakened and is unable to control all the territory under its jurisdiction, so it has handed over control to other groups. Power is increasingly in the hands of local parastate actors who enjoy small bubbles of well-being within the context of immense poverty in which the vast majority of the population lives.

  Because of the weakening of the state and the deterioration of the oil industry, which has always been the main source of national income, the government has opened some spaces for a freer economy. That means that in order to serve the populations we work with, we have been able to import medicines and supplies thanks to international cooperation. Our international donors send us supplies or pay for transportation so that we can receive them, using a door-to-door delivery system.

  Since 2017 Acción Solidaria has brought in almost 240 tons of aid. We have grown from nine staff in 2016 to 40 in 2021. Every week about 120 people come to the offices of Acción Solidaria to seek medicine. Most of them are women and people with very little resources, over 55 years old. The things they need may be available in the parallel economy, but at prices they can’t afford.

  But the environment for civil society remains a high-risk one. Last year we experienced a raid by the Special Action Forces, the most fearsome command of the Bolivarian National Police. What they did to us was not an official operation but a criminal action. CSOs doing human rights advocacy are criminalised, and CSOs conducting humanitarian action face serious problems of access and are subject to extortion by these autonomised groups and paramilitary actors. We have become targets not because we are opponents or dissidents, but because we have coveted resources.

  One colleague of ours was imprisoned 160 days ago and five comrades from an organisation that works alongside the UN Refugee Agency were imprisoned for a month in a military facility.

  As the electoral process was underway, the government’s information networks among the population seemed to have become aware that government programmes – which transfer the equivalent of about US$4 a month to their beneficiaries – could not compete with the nearly US$60 that humanitarian organisations were transferring to people in their target populations, without demanding anything in return, simply as part of the humanitarian response. So they immediately stepped in and suspended the 38 humanitarian aid programmes that were making cash transfers.

  Following the elections, the transfer ecosystem has started to begin again, but so far only transfers from the Food and Agriculture Organization and UNICEF have been reactivated.

  How much popular support does the Maduro government have left? Did it have enough to win the November regional elections, or did it resort to fraud?

  In November 2021, regional elections were held to renew all executive and legislative seats in the country’s 23 federal entities and 335 municipalities. The official turnout was just over 40 per cent, and the government won 19 governorships, compared to four won by the opposition. The government also won 213 mayorships, but various opposition groups won 121, a not insignificant number.

  The conditions of electoral competition were set up well before the selection of candidates, the campaigns and the voting took place, as new members to the National Electoral Council (CNE) were appointed. The CSO Foro Cívico had proposed names of independent candidates for the CNE: people with a strong electoral background who could build a bridge of dialogue with the people in government who wanted a less authoritarian rule. This resulted in a more balanced CNE, with one independent rector and one from the opposition among the five full members, and three out of five alternates proposed by civil society. This allowed us to expect an election with greater legitimacy than previous ones.

  The electoral process was very tense. While there was no fraud in the sense that voting figures were changed, there was a lot of pressure and obstacles to prevent opposition supporters from voting. Leading opposition politicians were disqualified and unable to stand as candidates. The conditions in voting centres, including schedules, were altered for the government’s benefit, and many people were brought out to vote, despite the fact that the government no longer has the same mobilisation capacity as in previous elections. Turnout was low for several reasons: because millions of people have emigrated, and because many popular opposition figures were not taking part in the election.

  The opposition also bore a great deal of responsibility for this, because it viewed the elections with a lot of suspicion. Many of its key spokespeople were opposed to participating, and it did not reach the kind of broad agreements that would have allowed it to win as many as 10 or 12 governorships. In part, its growth was limited not just by the obstacles imposed by the government, but also by its own inability to reach an agreement.

  Still, it is important to emphasise that the playing field was not level. The opposition could have won more governorships than it did, but there was a clear limit to this. This was seen in Hugo Chávez’s home state of Barinas, which the government could not afford to lose to the opposition. An opposition candidate clearly won there, so after the fact the Supreme Court ruled that the winning candidate did not actually meet the conditions to be eligible to compete, and ordered a rerun.

  Faced with these limitations, which were foreseeable, there was a part of the opposition that from the beginning opposed participating in the elections and left the way open for many pro-government victories that might not otherwise have taken place.

  How consolidated is the Maduro regime, and what are the chances that a democratic transition can take place?

  A democratic transition does not seem to be an option in the short term. The opposition is very diverse and is dispersed both programmatically and in terms of its institutional approach, so it is questionable whether it would be able to govern if it had the opportunity right now.

  What lies ahead of us is a long trek through the desert. The government suffers from many weaknesses, but it has the support of China, Iran, Russia, Turkey, and a lot of political support from Cuba and other countries in the region, as is apparent in the UN Human Rights Council. Maduro’s government has adopted a deft approach in the image of these supportive states: despite corruption and lack of transparency, it has allowed an opening in the economy while keeping its repressive behaviour intact.

  The international support that the government receives is important and has been systematically underestimated, while the support received by the interim government led by Juan Guaidó has been overestimated. It has been said that he has the USA and 60 other countries on his side, but those who support him with real actions are in fact much fewer.

  For many in the opposition, the interim government has itself been a big problem, partly because it became associated with the Donald Trump administration, and partly because since the interim government was established what it did became the only thing that mattered, and the space of the National Assembly, which had enjoyed broad popular support, was abandoned.

  The interim government was prompted on the basis of Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution. Since by virtue of his fraudulent re-election in 2018 Maduro was not recognised by the opposition as a legitimate president, the opposition-dominated National Assembly proclaimed its president, who at the time was Juan Guaidó, as interim president of Venezuela. I think that the opposition should have continued to work through the National Assembly, an elected and legitimate body whose presidency alternated between the parties with the most votes. Evidence of corruption could have been collected and mechanisms sought to protect the country’s assets with the help of the international community.

  Instead, the opposition named itself as a legitimate government without having any control over internal processes. And when it took over, it set out expedited conditions and deadlines, demanding that Maduro should first leave office so that the interim government could constitute itself as a transitional government and organise free elections.

  The choice of the opposition to proclaim an interim government was the result of it underestimating the government’s forces and overestimating its own. When expectations were not met, as was bound to happen, disaffection with the interim government began to grow. There is still an enormous desire for change, because things remain bad for the vast majority of the population, but the hope that this change would be achieved through the interim government has faded.

  What kind of support should the international community provide to facilitate a democratic transition?

  What we would like to see from the international community is a multilateral, flexible and creative approach. The change of administration in the USA has been extremely important because the approach of the Trump administration was unilateral and overbearing. Fortunately, the Biden administration appears to adhere to a multilateral approach and to include Europe, Canada and other countries in our region.

  Regarding Europe, it was very important that the European Union sent an election observation mission for the 21 November elections, as it was for the UN and the Carter Center to send their election experts. The UN also has essential contributions to make in humanitarian and human rights matters, both in terms of mobilising resources to address the humanitarian emergency in the country and to support migrants and refugees across the region, as well as with regard to the human rights violations that continue to occur.

  The international community must listen to civil society and pay attention to the grievances of the people who are directly affected by the measures that external actors take in relation to Venezuela. Many of the sanctions that have been imposed on the government, such as the US secondary sanction that penalises the exchange of oil for diesel, end up not affecting the government, which has alternative courses of action, and instead harm users and consumers, ordinary people whose already complicated lives are complicated even further.

  If this part of Venezuelan society were listened to, it would be possible to think of alternative policies to generate spaces for negotiation and agreements that would allow us to return to the path of democracy and human rights in a non-violent manner.

  Civic space in Venezuela is rated as ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Acción Solidaria through itswebsite or itsFacebook andInstagram pages, and follow@AccionSolidaria and@fjreyna onTwitter.