Download Justice For the Ocean, Coastal Communities, and Future

JUSTICE FOR THE OCEAN, COASTAL COMMUNITIES, AND FUTURE GENERATIONS
A Rights-based Approach to Ocean Conservation in the Sustainable Development Goals
The oceans and seas are a life-sustaining support system on which we all depend—a global commons to
be held in trust for the common good. Yet decades of unrestrained and unsustainable human activity has
led us to the current crisis of climate change, overexploitation, and contamination. These environmental
abuses are directly related to peoples’ ability to enjoy their human rights.
The SDGs are a unique opportunity for us as a global community to assume our shared duty to respect
and protect the oceans. Our assessment and recommendations are inspired by our constituencies in coastal
communities around the world and guided by local and global research, the international human-rights
framework, and our diverse spiritual traditions. We call on Member States to transform the systemic
factors behind practices that damage the oceans, disrupting ecosystems, and undermining human rights.
The Crisis: What Are the Root Causes?
The TST Issue Brief on Oceans and Seas1 emphasizes the importance of healthy oceans to achieving
many sustainable development objectives and alerts to the major indicators of crisis. Unsustainable
extraction tops the list of “increasing, complex challenges”2 that threaten our ability to ensure healthy,
resilient, and life-sustaining oceans.
Based on the assessment and experience of our members, we urge Member States to tackle:
Category of threats
Unsustainable extraction
Pollution
Climate change impacts
Unsustainable coastal
economic development
Manifestations
fossil-fuel extraction
deep seabed mining
offshore oil and gas drilling
overfishing
harmful fishing methods
plastics
chemical, oil, nuclear sewage
industrial drainage/run-off
noise, sonar, radar, light
greenhouse gas emissions
acidification
rising temperature
construction on or near habitats
harmful tourism
Consequences with impact on
human rights and ecological health
loss of biodiversity
reduced carbon-absorption
contamination of marine food chain
toxic seafood
food shortage
melting ice caps
coral bleaching
rising seas
storms
coastal erosion
loss of livelihood
forced displacement
militarization of the seas
“salination” of coastal lands
nitrogen dead-cycles at river mouths
The unsustainable extraction of marine non-living resources, e.g. deep sea mining, offshore oil and gas
drilling is a serious concern and illustrates the need for a transformative approach if the SDGs are to be
effective. Beyond the threats to marine life from the extraction itself, a development agenda that
maintains our dependency on fossil fuels to reach economic or energy goals would directly undermine
efforts in the same agenda to improve ocean health and resilience.
1
2
TST Issue Brief on Oceans and Seas, available at: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/.
Id. at 2-3.
Governance of the Global Commons: A Rightsbased Approach for the Common Good
Governance of the global commons for the common good
requires “increased coherence, coordination and collective
decision-making at the global level, grounded in international
human rights standards and guided by the human rights
commitments of the international community.”
The interdependence of the health of ocean ecosystems and the
full guarantee and enjoyment of human-rights cannot be
underestimated. The manifold ocean crises caused by the
prevailing model of development have led to violations of the
rights to food, to health, to an adequate standard of living, to a
cultural life, and even to life itself.3 Human-rights violations can
also contribute to the promotion of policies that harm oceans.
Guaranteeing the rights to public participation, freedom of
expression and assembly, and self-determination in relation to
ocean policy determinations increases the likelihood of adopting
policies that are more effective in advancing the objectives of
conservation and sustainable development.4
Key elements to draw from
international human-rights law:
people-centered development, attention to
root causes, broad public participation,
inclusion, accountability, nondiscrimination, reducing inequalities,
empowerment, the rule of law, democracy,
good governance, access to justice, access
to information, an active role for civil
society, social protection floors, and
effective international cooperation
OHCHR, Open Letter on Human Rights and
Post-2015 Agenda from Navanethem Pillay,
to all Permanent Missions in New York and
Geneva (June 3, 2013)
A Litmus Test to Guide a Critical Assessment Grounded in Human-rights Standards
To make human-rights principles and norms operational for analyzing oceans in the SDGs, we urge the
application of the Mining Working Group’s four-part litmus test.5 To any proposed draft set of goals,
targets, and indicators, we must apply the following test:
Principle
Legal norms
First, do no harm.
Responsibility to respect and
protect
Eradicate root
causes of poverty
Obligation to promote and
fulfill
People as rightsholders
Rights to participation,
access to justice
Sustainability
Rights of future generations,
intergenerational equity,
environmental law
3
Guiding questions
Are there elements or gaps that will in effect promote
policies or practices that undermine human rights or are
contrary to the objective of ensuring healthy, resilient, lifesustaining oceans and ecosystems?
Will the type of development policies promoted make
actual contributions to eradicating poverty, measured by the
increased enjoyment of civil, cultural, economic, political
and social rights?
Are people empowered and protected to exercise their
rights to participate in policy determinations? Is effective
remedy guaranteed if harm occurs?
Adopting a precautionary approach, what are the answers to
these questions as applied to the rights of future
generations? What is the assessment from the perspective
of the rights of nature and planetary boundaries?
See, inter alia, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights obligations related to environmentally sound
management and disposal of hazardous substances and waste, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/21/48 (July 2, 2012), para. 39.
4
See Center for International Forestry Research & International Union for Conservation of Nature, Rights-based Approaches:
Exploring Issues and opportunities for conservation (2009), p. xviii.
5
See Mining Working Group at the UN, Rights-based Litmus Test: Assessing Resource-extraction Policies in the Context of
Sustainable Development (Dec. 4, 2013), available at www.miningwg.wordpress.org.
Recommendations
Whether through a stand-alone goal or a comprehensive series of cross-cutting targets and indicators, the
SDGs must address the root causes of the ecological and human dimensions of the ocean crises. Therefore
we must encourage policies aimed to:
Shift the current paradigm away from the extractive development model
- Regulate and rapidly decrease all drilling toward zero
- Require strict adherence to precautionary principle on deep seabed mining6
- Move away from nuclear energy entirely
- Increase support for energy from tide, wave, ocean wind, solar, and other sustainable renewable
energies
- Require trust funds for activities with an elevated risk of damage, to influence incentives and
guarantee the right to effective remedy
- Apply appropriate practice to stop overfishing
- Prioritize communal, subsistence, small-scale and family fishing operations in licenses and catch
shares
Reduce sources of pollution and remedy contamination:
- Reduce plastic waste through packaging and disposal legislation, including plastic-bag bans
- Monitor and reduce and sensory pollution
- Establish river to sea watershed initiatives to reduce pollution from agriculture and industry
- Eliminate mercury emissions and acid rain from factories and power plants
- Accountability for fishing agreements, and spread of exotic specials
- Monitor seafood toxicity
Address climate change issues such as mitigation, reparation, system change
- Increase marine sanctuaries and refuges
- Restore carbon-absorbing natural habitats, including mangrove forests, tidal wetlands, inland
forests, and native grassland communities
- Reduce global dependence on fossil fuels
Promote ability of coastal communities to pursue own development objectives
- Invest in small-scale, sustainable projects targeted at historically discriminated groups
- Increase “knowledge dialogue” with respect for traditional or indigenous expertise and practices
- Increase commitment to ecosystem sciences and conservation biology
- Measure poverty eradication with indicators from the rights-based definition in the Guiding
Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
Guarantee accountability
- Instruct States to report on impact to ocean health and efforts to mitigate climate change in their
reporting to UN human rights mechanisms, including the Universal Periodic Review
- Adopt a legal binding instrument governing business and human rights
For more information: Mining Working Group, [email protected]
6
See, e.g., Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, Elizabeth Mitchell, Legal Opinion on the Application of the Precautionary
Principle to Deep Seabed Mining in the Pacific Region (August 2012).