Human Rights Standards for Conservation

The document maps the extensive legal landscape of international 'hard' and 'soft' law relevant to conservation, identifying over 30 categories of rights. It highlights a normative trend toward increasing recognition of Indigenous and local community rights within the CBD and IUCN frameworks, arguing that these standards must be distilled into accessible guides to prevent human rights violations, such as forced evictions, during the establishment of protected areas.

• The research identifies over 30 broad categories of rights that can be affected by conservation interventions, divided into substantive individual and collective rights, substantive land and natural resource rights, and procedural rights.
• Conservation initiatives, specifically the creation of protected areas, can lead to gross human rights violations, including forced evictions and the denial of access to traditional medicines.
• There is a documented increase in the recognition of Indigenous and local community rights within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with the percentage of COP decisions referencing these groups rising from 48.4% at COP 7 (2004) to 72.7% at COP 11 (2012).
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has shifted its approach from instructing local communities on conservation methods in 1958 to adopting a 'Rights-based Approach to Conservation' that acknowledges historic injustices.
• IUCN Resolution 4.056 establishes that all state and non-state actors involved in conservation are obligated to secure the substantive and procedural rights of affected persons as guaranteed by national and international law.
• The document concludes that while a detailed set of internationally agreed rights now exists, they are not easily accessible to conservation actors, necessitating the creation of a multi-stakeholder guide to ensure compliance.

APA

Jonas, H., Roe, D., & Dilke, A. (2014). Human Rights Standards for Conservation. Natural Justice. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Human-Rights-Standards-Conservation-p2.pdf

Chicago

Jonas, Harry, Dilys Roe, and Athene Dilke. Human Rights Standards for Conservation. Natural Justice, 2014. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Human-Rights-Standards-Conservation-p2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Jonas |first1=Harry |last2=Roe |first2=Dilys |last3=Dilke |first3=Athene |title=Human Rights Standards for Conservation |publisher=Natural Justice |date=November 2014 |url=https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Human-Rights-Standards-Conservation-p2.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{jonas2014human, author = {Jonas, Harry and Roe, Dilys and Dilke, Athene}, title = {{Human Rights Standards for Conservation}}, institution = {Natural Justice}, year = {2014}, month = nov, url = {https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Human-Rights-Standards-Conservation-p2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }