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media advisory
friends of the earth international
10 december 2004
environmental rights abuses exposed in
new report
GENEVA (SWITZERLAND) / WASHINGTON, DC (US)
-- December 10, 2004 – A new report released
today December 10th on Human Rights day
exposes some thirty cases of environmental
rights abuses world-wide.
The report ‘Our Environment, Our Rights’
[1] launched by Friends of the Earth
International expands the definition of human
rights to include environmental rights (such
as rights for environmental refugees, right
to claim ecological debt and the right to
environmental justice) and shows how and
where these rights are abused.
The 70-page testimony shows that the most
blatant environmental rights violations tend
to be inflicted on people whose civil,
political, social and economic rights are not
respected.
“Marginalized people around the world,
including women, people of color and
impoverished people in industrialized
countries, suffer from environmental
injustice by bearing the brunt of pollution,”
said Sonja Ribi of Pro Natura / Friends of
the Earth Switzerland.
“Our work shows that the basic right to
life and the right to development cannot be
fulfilled without the right to a healthy
environment,” said David Waskow of Friends of
the Earth in Washington. “In theory, existing
human rights laws should protect our right to
a healthy environment, but in practice that
is not the case," he added.
According to Tatiana Roa of Friends of the
Earth Colombia “governments and transnational
corporations are steadily seizing control of
land, water, forests and minerals and all of
this leads to environmental and human rights
violations such as evictions, pollution, and
destruction”.
The Friends of the Earth report was
released ten years after the first-ever
declaration of principles on human rights and
the environment [2] drafted at the United
Nations in Geneva in 1994.
for more information
contact:
United States
In Washington: David Waskow (Friends of the
Earth US)
Tel: +1 202 222-0716 or email:
Europe
In Switzerland: Sonja Ribi (Pro Natura /
Friends of the Earth Switzerland)
Tel: +41 61 317 92 42 or email:
Colombia:
Tatiana Roa (CENSAT / Friends of the Earth
Colombia): Tel: +57-310-3090862 or email:
FOEI Human Rights p ublication
available at:
In English:
http://www.foei.org/publications/link/env-rights/index.html
In Spanish:
http://www.foei.org/esp/publications/link/env-rights/index.html
In French:
http://www.foei.org/fr/publications/link/env-rights/index.html
[2] The 1994 Draft Declaration of Principles
on Human Rights and the Environment is
available online,
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/1994-dec.htm
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