This statement is delivered on behalf of Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization that investigates and reports on human rights abuses happening in all corners of the world.
Consultations with its partners, prior statements, and reports informed Human Rights Watch submissions. Regarding UPR, Human Rights Watch participated in consultations with other Russian and international NGOs but is not aware of and has not been part of any consultations involving Russian authorities and independent civil society organizations. In 2022, Russian authorities de-registered Human Rights Watch's Russia office, which effectively amounts to a ban on operations in the country.
This statement focuses on addressing in Russia issues pertaining to the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and attacks on environmental human rights defenders, the rights of older people, the rights of migrant workers and discrimination based on race or ethnicity.
On request of the Environmental Crisis Group, which is a Russian initiative to support environmental defenders, but could not attend this session, the section on environmental defenders incorporates information from their UPR submission and recommendations.
Human Rights Watch's submission on Russia for this UPR fourth cycle also covers several other issues-- pertaining to rights to freedom expression, assembly, and association, as well as the situation for human rights defenders in general-that were addressed by other members of this panel.
ISSUE 1: - RIGHT TO A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
During the previous UPR cycle, 25 countries made recommendations to the Russian Federation on human rights defenders in general. These included recommendations to ensure the unrestricted work of civil society and review the current restrictive legal framework, especially the laws on foreign agents, undesirable organizations and extremism in line with its international obligations to ensure that civil society organizations, can exercise their activities without fear of stigmatization or punishment by law; to guarantee the rights to freedom of assembly and association and exercise of the right to freedom of expression, including online, without fear of reprisal; and to ensure effective investigations into all reports of attacks on, or threats against, human rights defenders.
Ecuador made recommendations to Russia on the right to a healthy environment, specifically to "sign and ratify the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity in order to guarantee the right to health and to a healthy environment", while Indonesia recommended to "step up its efforts to develop social and environmental impact assessments on the enjoyment of human rights prior to issuing licenses for mining and exploitation of natural resources".[1]
Russia remains one of the world's top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases and is contributing to the climate crisis. The Climate Action Tracker rates Russia's climate targets, policies and finance as "critically insufficient" to meet the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.[2]
Unprecedented forest fires in Siberia and Russia's Far East in 2021 resulted in a loss of over 17 million hectares of forests and trapped several cities in heavy smoke.[3] In 2022, nearly 4 million hectares of forests burned, over half in these regions.[4] A large portion of Russia's forests were explicitly excluded from fire-fighting measures.[5]
Lack of transparency and inadequacy of environmental impact assessments sparked sustained mass protests in 2018 and 2019 against the construction or expansion of landfills, waste incineration plants, and waste processing plants that protesters believed would be dangerous and could be harmful for their health.[6] In response the government opened administrative and criminal cases against numerous activists accusing them of violation of peaceful assembly rules, resisting police and assaulting private security guards.
Human rights watchdogs in Russia continue to report physical attacks, harassment, intimidation, and prosecution of grassroots environmental activists and groups. According to the Environmental Crisis Group, during the last three years at least 52 environmental defenders were attacked and injured in varying degrees of severity.[7] The group's submission demonstrates how such attacks continue to go unpunished.[8]
Environmental defenders are also targeted by authorities using Russia's "foreign agents" and "undesirable organizations" laws. For example, between April and July 2023, Russian authorities blacklisted five environmental groups including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), [9] thus banning their operations in Russia and potentially putting many Russian environmental defenders at risk, since participation in the activities of an undesirable organization is a criminal offence, punishable by up to four years in prison.[10]
States should recommend the Russian government to:
- Ensure that environmental defenders, including grassroot activists, can in practice exercise their rights to free expression and peaceful assemblies, without fear of reprisal;
