Issues we work on

Human Rights Defense

Whether it’s unjust imprisonment or outright kidnappings and assassinations, social movement activists are targets of human rights violations around the world. We support movements to strengthen collective security; monitor and document violations; campaign against impunity; take legal actions; and push for the recognition of new forms of human rights.

Impact Overview

Political polarization and the quest for profits have led to intensified attacks on already marginalized communities. But those targeted are taking action to demand, defend, and realize their basic human rights.

In Brazil, peasants facing land thefts are training in legal defense. In Palestine and Haiti, human rights activists are documenting abuses and bringing cases to the International Criminal Court. In Honduras, Indigenous and Afro-descendant movements are winning prosecutions against corporate-backed killers. And at the global level, social movements have joined together to develop legal instruments (e.g., around territorial rights and the rights of peasants) and win their adoption by UN bodies. Social movements are also filling gaps in existing human rights monitoring and advocacy by forming their own global networks to this end.

Work we’re accompanying:

Ongoing efforts to achieve justice for Berta Cáceres and other murdered and abducted Indigenous and Afrodescendant activists in Honduras
A global campaign for the implementation of United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
Bringing violations against Palestinian and Garifuna peoples before bodies like the International Criminal Court and Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
Documenting human rights abuses in Palestine, Brazil, Haiti, and beyond
The formation of an international alliance coordinating human rights defense across global movements

The struggle for justice often brings activists into direct confrontation with state, corporate, and paramilitary forces interested in maintaining inequality and power.

In 2022, these forces murdered over 400 human rights defenders globally. Police militarization and the extraction of nature have led to violent clampdowns on democratic rights. Political polarization amid economic despair have further brought right-wing coups and vigilante attacks on communities already living on the margins.

Such violence was exemplified in the 2016 murder of our dear co-agitator, Berta Cáceres, from our partner COPINH in Honduras. Berta was murdered for opposing a dam that would have cut through the Lenca people’s sacred river and territory. With support from allies both inside and outside Honduras, including Grassroots International, COPINH successfully pressured the Honduran courts to prosecute the state and corporate forces behind her murder.

As many organizers in Haiti describe, the country is facing multiple deep, converging crises – and Western corporations and states are among the responsible parties. Our partners are building their capacity to monitor abuses, assist those experiencing human rights violations, and end the culture of impunity.

In Palestine, human rights organizations in Gaza and the West Bank are documenting abuses from Israel’s ongoing colonial violence. Every week, human rights workers brave checkpoints and blockades to track every injury and death from Israeli bombs. They are bringing these violations to light before the International Criminal Court.

Our partners are also challenging the limitations of existing human right frameworks by developing their own. A powerful example is the landmark adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas by the UN General Assembly in 2018, following years of effort by our global partner La Via Campesina and allies.