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Human Rights Impacts of E-Waste
The report details how the hazardous materials in e-waste—including lead, mercury, and cadmium—violate fundamental human rights such as the right to life, health, and food. It highlights the severe health consequences for workers and children in informal recycling sectors, particularly in China, India, Ghana, and the Philippines, where archaic recovery methods lead to systemic toxic exposure.
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Document type: Report
Los residuos electrónicos y su impacto en los derechos humanos
The report details how the lifecycle of electronic products, characterized by rapid obsolescence and the use of toxic materials, leads to severe human rights violations. It highlights the presence of hazardous substances like lead, mercury, and cadmium in e-waste and documents the resulting health crises in informal recycling hubs, particularly in China, India, Ghana, and the Philippines. The document argues that unregulated recycling practices violate the rights to life, health, adequate food, and safe working conditions, disproportionately affecting children and marginalized populations.
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Document type: Report
Human Rights Impacts of Mercury Pollution
The report details how mercury pollution impacts human health and violates international human rights. It highlights the vulnerability of fetuses and children to neurotoxins, the dangers of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), and the systemic failure to protect workers and communities from toxic exposure. Key examples include the Minamata disaster in Japan and mercury-contaminated grain in Iraq.
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Document type: Report
La contaminación por mercurio y los derechos humanos
The document details how mercury exposure—through industrial emissions, artisanal gold mining, and contaminated food sources—causes severe neurological and systemic health damage, particularly in fetuses and children. It links these health outcomes to violations of international human rights frameworks and provides case studies of mass poisoning in Japan, Iraq, and South Africa.
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Document type: Report
States’ Human Rights Obligations in the Context of Climate Change
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) issued climate-related recommendations or questions to 35 out of 43 States considered in 2023. The Committee primarily focused on the differentiated impact of climate change on women, emphasizing the need for gender-responsive strategies in adaptation and disaster risk reduction, as well as the increased vulnerability of rural, Indigenous, migrant, and refugee women. While less frequent than adaptation, the Committee also addressed mitigation policies, fossil fuel extraction—specifically criticizing Norway's expansion of oil and gas permits in the Arctic—and the necessity of women's participation in the UNFCCC loss and damage fund.
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Document type: Briefing
States’ Human Rights Obligations in the Context of Climate Change
The CERD increased its climate-related outputs in 2023, focusing on the disproportionate impacts of climate change on Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in several countries. The Committee emphasized the need for adaptation measures to consider specific ethnic needs and the importance of free, prior, and informed consent for extractive projects. Additionally, the Committee's draft General Recommendation No. 37 highlighted the negative health outcomes of climate change, including heat-related illness and mental health impacts, which disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities.
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Document type: Briefing
States’ Human Rights Obligations in the Context of Climate Change
The document synthesizes the work of UN human rights treaty bodies (HRTBs) in addressing climate change, specifically focusing on Concluding Observations issued to States. It highlights that while climate change is not explicitly in key human rights treaties, HRTBs increasingly use their monitoring roles to argue that protecting human rights requires specific climate action. The report details recommendations across several themes, including the disproportionate impacts on women, children, and indigenous peoples, the need for gender-sensitive and child-sensitive climate strategies, and the obligation of some States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel extraction to meet human rights standards. It provides detailed analysis of the three most active bodies: CEDAW, CESCR, and CRC.
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Document type: Report
States’ Human Rights Obligations in the Context of Climate Change: CESCR
The document outlines the CESCR's monitoring of the ICESCR, highlighting how climate change threatens substantive rights such as the right to water, food, and health. It details the Committee's increasing use of Concluding Observations to urge States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, transition to renewable energy, and protect vulnerable groups, particularly indigenous peoples, from climate impacts.
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Document type: Report
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The document serves as a reference tool to track the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' rights and traditional knowledge within the UNFCCC process, highlighting over 60 decisions and the establishment of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform.
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Document type: Briefing
Civil Society Statement on the October 31 Decision of the World Bank’s Board of Directors on the Review of the Inspection Panel’s Toolkit
The statement argues that the World Bank's recent updates to the Inspection Panel's Toolkit are insufficient to modernize the independent accountability mechanism. While welcoming the addition of an advisory role and improved information sharing, the signatories contend that the failure to implement monitoring and dispute resolution functions leaves the Panel deficient compared to other mechanisms. They specifically criticize the reliance on the management-led Grievance Redress Service (GRS) as a substitute for independent dispute resolution and call for the complaint filing deadline to be extended to at least two years after project completion or loan closure.
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Document type: Statement
Déclaration sur les déchets contenant des nanomatériaux
The document argues that the increasing use of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) in consumer, industrial, and medical products is leading to their proliferation in waste streams, posing risks to human health and the environment that are not yet fully understood. Signatories demand that governments and companies implement extended producer responsibility, restrict the transboundary movement of MNM waste, and establish a public registry of nano-products in Europe to ensure transparency. The statement also advocates for the development of safe recycling technologies and the integration of waste prevention into publicly funded nanotechnology research to support a safe circular economy.
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Document type: Statement
Declaration on Waste Containing Nanomaterials
The Declaration on Waste Containing Nanomaterials argues that the increasing presence of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) in waste streams poses risks to human health and the environment due to uncertainties regarding their toxicity. The signatories call for the implementation of full producer responsibility, the restriction of transboundary waste movements, and the creation of an EU-wide public nano-product registry to ensure transparent quantification of waste flows. They further advocate for innovation in waste prevention, the development of safe recycling and disposal technologies, and the establishment of verifiable end-of-waste criteria to support a circular economy without introducing new environmental risks.
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Document type: Statement
Reform Options for ISDS
The document argues that ISDS is an asymmetrical system that often undermines state sovereignty and public interest. It suggests reforms including the multilateral termination of bilateral investment treaties (BITs), allowing state counterclaims, creating 'public interest carve-outs' to protect the right to regulate, implementing 'clean hands' clauses to bar bad-actor investors, requiring the exhaustion of local remedies, and granting third parties full legal standing in proceedings.
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Document type: Briefing
Appendix 1: Case Studies Illustrating the Human Rights Implications of Large-Scale, Internationally-Financed Projects
The document catalogues alleged human rights implications across numerous international projects in sectors such as mining, energy, and forestry. It organizes these cases by the specific right implicated, including the rights to adequate food, housing, health, and life, as well as freedoms from forced labor and torture. The case studies highlight recurring issues such as forced resettlement, environmental contamination of water and land, the use of military force to suppress protests, and inadequate compensation for displaced populations.
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Document type: Case study
chrp-nicc-report-2022-f4ad9b97566966fd.pdf
The document argues that a small number of fossil fuel and cement producers, termed 'Carbon Majors', are responsible for a significant portion of global greenhouse gas emissions and the subsequent climate crisis. It details how these entities' activities and disinformation campaigns have led to severe human rights violations, particularly in the Philippines, where climate-induced disasters like Typhoon Haiyan have caused immense loss of life and livelihood. The text leverages international human rights law, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the 'Carbon Majors' study to establish a framework for corporate accountability and legal liability for climate damages.
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Document type: Report
ebbflow_mar06-f0770a36271565e9.pdf
The document analyzes the global debate over water privatization, contrasting the view of water as an economic good promoted by international financial institutions with the view of water as a human right. It details the role of the World Bank and IMF in pushing privatization through loan conditionalities and provides case studies of both failed privatization (Cochabamba, Bolivia) and successful participatory public management (Porto Alegre, Brazil).
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Document type: Policy brief
Natural Resource Subsidies, Trade and Environment: The Cases of Forests and Fisheries
The paper argues that natural resource subsidies—direct, indirect, and implicit—lead to overcapitalization, technological inefficiency, and overconsumption, resulting in severe environmental damage. Using forests and fisheries as case studies, it demonstrates how low rent capture and fleet modernization subsidies drive deforestation and stock depletion. The author suggests that international bodies, particularly APEC's Economic Committee, should adopt 'full-cost pricing' and the 'User-Pays Principle' to internalize environmental externalities and ensure sustainable resource management.
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Document type: Research paper
Remedy and Reparations for Climate Harm: The Human Rights Case
The report argues that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis, creating a legal obligation for States and corporations to provide effective remedy and reparations. It critiques the UNFCCC's voluntary approach to loss and damage, highlighting how it fails to uphold human rights standards and is hampered by debt injustice in the Global South. The document outlines legal pathways through international courts (ICJ, ITLOS, IACtHR) and national litigation to enforce accountability. Finally, it proposes six guiding principles for climate reparations—victim-centric, inclusive, intersectional, adequate, accountable, and trackable—drawing on lessons from other large-scale harm mechanisms.
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Document type: Report
Seasick: The Turbulent Impact of Offshore Oil and Gas on Ocean Biodiversity and Coastal Livelihoods
The document details how offshore oil and gas activities—from exploration to decommissioning—damage marine ecosystems and coastal communities, highlighting specific risks like noise pollution, chemical contamination, and invasive species across various global hotspots.
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Document type: Policy brief
COP22 Finanzas Verdes: Hacia dónde va el mercado de bonos verdes
The green bond market experienced rapid growth between 2013 and 2016, with total emissions reaching USD 81 billion in 2016. The market is increasingly dominated by the private sector, with corporate and bank emissions rising from less than 1% in 2010 to 66% in 2016. While mitigation projects—specifically clean energy, energy efficiency, and low-carbon transport—receive approximately 75% of funds, financing for adaptation grew from less than 1% in 2011 to 5% of total emissions, driven largely by US municipalities. China emerged as a leading market, projecting to be the largest globally. To support the Paris Agreement, the Climate Bonds Initiative targets annual green bond emissions of USD 1 trillion by 2020. The document recommends that governments implement national capital mobilization plans, apply international standards like the Green Bond Principles and Climate Bonds Standard, and develop national verifier networks to reduce market friction and prevent greenwashing.
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Document type: Briefing