,
9 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Big deal news of the week: An international human rights court in Rome has called for a worldwide ban on fracking, on the grounds that it unavoidably violates human rights, including the rights to life, water, and full information and participation. tribunalonfracking.org/wp-content/upl… 
The court affirmed that governments have an obligation to protect the rights of their citizens. Failure to prevent the advance of climate change and its impacts on the rights to life, liberty, and security is failure to meet internationally recognized human rights obligations.
Widespread government failures have created a global “axis of betrayal,” according to the international court, in which governments and fossil-fuel industries collude – at great cost to people and the planet – in human-rights violations to their mutual profit.
The name of this court is the Permanent People’s Tribunal, established in 1979 on the basis of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples (Algiers Charter) adopted in Algiers on July 4, 1976.
An investigative phase was conducted over two years. A Special Session was conducted for five days last May and four preliminary tribunals in prior months that included rich oral testimony from members of frontline fracked communities from around the world.
Concerned Health Professionals NY is proud to have contributed to the body of evidence considered by the court through submission of our compendium of scientific findings on the risk and harms of fracking. I also provided oral testimony last May. concernedhealthny.org/compendium
BEST OF ALL: Complete materials from the hearings, all oral testimony and arguments, all reports, all amicus curiae briefs are now freely available! In both video and text! Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal Session on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change. tribunalonfracking.org
So, make use of this trove of evidence and go tell it on the mountain. Fracking is “necessarily and inherently” a human rights violation. It’s bad and can’t be made unbad.
Closing this thread with one sentence from the court’s 102-page advisory opinion: “It is clear from the bulk of the testimony heard by this Tribunal that fracking could not be made ‘nonracist’ or ‘noncolonialist’ without incurring costs that the industry is unable to tolerate.”
