New Achievements
Report launch for the Guatemalan legal delegation including Indigenous human rights defenders, Lesbia Artola and Sandra Calel
Legal Empowerment for grassroots Guatemalan defenders.
Responding to requests from Indigenous leaders concerned by threats to the rule of law and the rights of rural communities, PBI organised a high-level legal delegation to Guatemala in March. Human rights lawyers from the UK, Brazil, Peru and the US met with tens of NGOs, visited Indigenous communities and jailed human rights defenders, and engaged with Guatemalan authorities, the diplomatic community and the private sector.
In an initial press conference the delegation called for urgent action to protect Indigenous peoples and expressed grave concern at the impact of violent forced displacements. They subsequently successfully advocated for Guatemalan authorities to stall planned evictions of Indigenous communities.
Following the unexpected election of progressive candidate Bernardo Arevalo as President in August 2023, Guatemala’s democratic institutions are under increased pressure from vested interests opposing change. PBI’s team there is on high alert, travelling the country to provide protection to the communities and NGOs denouncing threats to the rule of law. In the UK, we helped the legal delegation prepare a report launch and international advocacy plan together with Indigenous leaders.
Land, environmental and Indigenous defenders
Mexico: Combating Criminalisation so grassroots leaders can continue to protect our planet
The grassroots FPDTA-MPT movement has successfully stalled and challenged a series of apparently corrupt and polluting extractive projects on Indigenous lands including thermoelectric plants, water bottling facilities, and a gas pipeline. As a consequence, the criminalisation of Alejandro Torres Xocolatl - one of the group’s leaders - intensified in June 2023 when he was detained. PBI carried out a global mobilisation of political and civil society contacts, whilst simultaneously providing on-the-ground observation at his judicial hearings. Alejandro’s arrest warrant was withdrawn and he is now back on the front lines.
Tackling extra-judicial killings and sexual violence in Kenya.
In February 2020 we sent a delegation from the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk to Nairobi to put members of the UK legal community in touch with grassroots defenders from Social Justice Centres and women human rights defenders across the informal settlements. The Alliance and PBI UK have identified a series of priority capacity building areas where the legal community could make a difference.
The delegation participated in a conference in Mathare marking the end of ‘UMKU: Good Relationships for Safety’, our two-year EU-funded project seeking to tackle impunity by bringing families of victims and activists within social justice centres into dialogue with magistrates, the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) and even members of the police.
At the invitation of PBI, the conference was attended by Dr Agnes Callamard, former UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, who stressed the need to raise international awareness of this problem and to ensure accountability at the highest levels in order to restore trust in the rule of law. We interviewed her as part of our latest multimedia project to hear her perspective on the social justice movement and extra-judicial executions in Nairobi.
Calling on international banks to prevent human rights abuses.
Defunding criminalisation of land rights defenders is a critical step in the promotion of environmental rights.
As an active member of the Defenders in Development Campaign, PBI UK continued to advocate for the World Bank to commit not to tolerate reprisals and retaliation against those speaking up in the context of its financial projects and operations and on 10 April 2020, were successful – seeing the Bank publish a statement expressing this commitment.
Developing the capacity of land rights defenders in Guatemala.
This has included the development and production of training materials and popular bulletins for defenders and communities affected by business and human rights abuses, based on the Simmons & Simmons Toolbox.
The popular bulletins were made possible by the financial support of the Matrix fund and have reached more than 2,000 indigenous people from communities with low literacy levels who are impacted by negative human rights practices by corporates. These vital tools are helping communities to understand their rights and how to claim them.
Building the capacity of defenders through pro bono legal support.
With pro-bono support from law firm Simmons & Simmons and following consultation with human rights defenders, PBI UK continued to roll out our centralised online resource for rural communities and lawyers dealing with corporate human rights violations: the Human Rights Defenders Toolbox, comprised of 16 factsheets and video materials in English and Spanish.
The toolbox is currently being piloted in Colombia and Honduras and has been incorporated into the training programmes of defenders working on business and human rights within a range of local networks.
Meanwhile, Simmons & Simmons have been providing continued legal expertise, funding and support for our work in support of human rights defenders. The firm is currently in the process of updating the toolbox so that PBI accompanied defenders have access to the most up-to-date law.
We have hosted three webinars with Simmons & Simmons as part of our toolbox distribution program. It has also been featured in two episodes of the celebrated podcast Human Rights in Context, and was nominated for the Law Society Excellence Award 2019. Its materials have been shared with the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights for worldwide dissemination.
Developing our ground-breaking multimedia campaign.
At the second annual Sir Henry Brooke Awards, we launched the first phase of our multimedia project: The Right to Defend: Portraits of Resilience, Hope and Solidarity. This new project comprises film and interview materials from the field, alongside inspiring photography of human rights defenders taking a stand against injustice.
The project represents a shift in our communication and marketing strategy, and is the most extensive multi-media, multi-platform awareness raising and advocacy project in support of human rights defenders PBI UK has undertaken. We have produced nine short documentary films, a comprehensive online platform and a series of six webinars. Altogether we have told the stories of more than 130 defenders, often for the first time.
Our flagship film, We Are Not Who They Say We Are, has been selected for 10 film festivals. It was launched in response to rising transfemicide rates in Honduras.