In this thematic report, the UNSR on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Clément Voule, discusses key threats and challenges facing climate activists and civic space in the context of climate justice globally.

This guide, created by ECNL, explores the key standards that protect climate activists’ civic freedoms.  It maps out the standards that protect the rights of environmental defenders, the types of restrictions that impact them, and the mechanisms that can enforce their rights and freedoms.

This briefer, presented by ICNL and ECNL, outlines some of the common legal and extralegal measures used to target civil society actors working on climate justice. Many of these measures violate international and regional law and threaten civil society’s ability to address urgent environmental challenges.

ALLIED and the Universal Rights Group, with support from Freedom House and the Lifeline Fund, published two complementary reports outlining recommendations to donors and civil society organizations on how to increase support, enhance protection, and safeguard environmental human rights defenders and climate activists.

Climate change and the response to the crisis is set to transform the global economy, politics, and society by 2040. This briefing explores how states’ responses to the climate crisis over the next two decades will affect civic space for a range of established and new actors.

In early 2022, ICNL, NRGI, PWYP, Oxfam USA, and the Institute of Development Studies convened partners from civil society, academia, and multilateral institutions to explore natural resource governance in restricted environments, new strategies to defending and expanding civic space for NRG activists, and implications for just energy transitions.

This Business & Human Rights Resource Centre briefer covers the first human rights benchmark study of the largest renewable energy companies. The study showed that most lack the essential human rights policies to avoid abuse of the communities and workers on which a just transition depends.

This issue of ICNL’s Global Trends examines common techniques used by governments and corporations to undermine the ability of environmental groups and activists to exercise freely their rights to assemble, associate, and express themselves.

The “NGO Climate Compact: Commitments toward Environmental Action and Sustainability” represents a pledge by the InterAction community, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international NGOs, to urgently work to address climate change. It recognizes that the environment is central to achieving organizations’ missions to serve the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

This article, written by ECNL, highlights that restrictions on civil society undermine climate mitigation efforts and impede the collaboration that is so crucial to slowing the climate crisis over the next decade. It lays out pledges for delegates of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to ensure freedom of assembly and climate defenders are protected and included in the climate conversation.

This ECNL paper focuses on government restrictions that restrain activists and groups from meaningfully participating in decision-making processes on climate and environmental issues.

Global Witness’s annual report on the killings of land and environmental defenders documents the many ways defenders are being criminalized, with countless people threatened, arrested, or thrown in jail for daring to oppose the governments or companies seeking to profit from their land.

This CIVICUS report examines the power of the growing climate movement, as well as restrictions that are holding it back. It also details how UN member states have collectively failed to respond, and makes recommendations on how to meaningfully recognize the youth climate movement.

This study maps laws and regulations in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia that impact civic space, participation, and assembly as it relates to climate change and climate justice activism with a focus on their compatibility with international standards and laws.

Climate defenders in Africa face common challenges in exercising their assembly and association rights. On May 13, 2021, civil society organizations that work on climate justice from across sub-Saharan Africa, met with UNSR Voule to share first-hand information about the threats and challenges to freedom of peaceful assembly and association facing climate defenders.

The battle over environmental activism has moved indoors to legislatures and courtrooms. This ICNL analysis looks at new types of “lawfare” to weaponize the law to undermine environmental organizations and their message.

Corporate-backed Bills Threaten Rights of Peaceful Protesters (March 2020)

Targeting Protesters through Extreme Penalties (October 2019)

Guilt by Association: Critical Infrastructure Bills and the Right to Protest (September 2018)