Fracturing the Earth Violating Rights

fracking-guide-225x30012 June 2015: I recently co-wrote and edited a new guide for Mercy International Association: Global Action on how the international human rights framework can be used to initiate rights-based advocacy against human rights violations that result from the harm caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

A Guide To Rights-Based Advocacy: International Human Rights Law and Fracking makes an important contribution to the nascent topic of fracking’s impact on human rights, by summarizing:

  • Examples of harm caused by fracking, which demonstrate the enormous negative impact on human and animal life and the environment;
  • How these effects of fracking can breach multiple human rights, including violations to the right to health, water, food, housing, freedom of information and expression, the rights of children, and the cultural and collective rights of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, and peasant communities;
  • The ways in which international human rights law offers various accountability mechanisms, venues for information and action, and tools to empower and 
    • reposition people and communities as rights-holders; 
    • How governments have a duty to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, and to prevent violations of human rights by non-state actors.

    This report, A Guide to Rights-based Advocacy: International Human Rights Law and Fracking, is offered as a work in progress, inviting further contributions from around the world. It encourages more collaborative efforts on this vital subject, with the ultimate goal of empowering rights-holders, shaping policy, and ensuring accountability.

     

 

Liberty & Humanity

ARTICLES:

A Guide to Rights-Based Advocacy: International Human Rights Law and Fracking

When the earth is cut

Someone, something, somewhere pays