Environmental defenders are being killed for protecting our future – the law needs to catch up

By Damien Short, Co-Director Human Rights Consortium, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Three environmental defenders – people who take action against the exploitation of natural resources – are murdered or disappeared somewhere in the world every week. The latest report by Global Witness, an NGO that investigates environmental and human rights abuses, has recorded more than 2,250 such cases since 2012.

The vast majority of the 146 land and environmental defenders killed in 2024, according to the report, were murdered in Latin…

Read complete article

~	El Salvador: Criminal system used as a weapon to punish human rights defenders

~	The Nobel peace prize has a record of being awarded to controversial nominees

~	Gaza ceasefire and Donald Trump’s ‘dead cat diplomacy’

~	AI, drone ships and new sensors could leave submarines with few places to hide in the ocean

~	What could burst the AI bubble?

~	Should we decide by lottery who gets a medical treatment first?

~	Attachment to our home town runs deep – so what happens when it faces dramatic change?

~	The evolution of male mental health in television

~	Chemical pollutants affect wildlife and human behaviour. But industry toxicologists are reluctant to carry out tests, new survey reveals

~	Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses uses critical dystopia to challenge us to build a better future