SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
cop29
Stand Up for Human Rights in Azerbaijan, at COP29 and Beyond
The rare international spotlight on Azerbaijan as it prepares to host COP29 represents a critical opportunity to mark strong concern about its crackdown on independent civil society.
Sep 13, 2024
The following is a statement released by a group of international organizations representing human rights and climate interests on September 11, 2024.
We, the undersigned civil society organizations, movements, groups, and individuals, highlight the urgent need to address serious human rights concerns in Azerbaijan in the lead-up to its hosting this year’s United Nations Climate Conference, or COP29, to be held in Baku from November 11 to 22, 2024.
Azerbaijan’s government has a longstanding and well-documented pattern of repressing independent civil society and silencing critical voices. Hosting an international gathering such as COP29 in this context raises grave concerns about the ability of civil society, including environmental activists, human rights defenders, and journalists, to participate freely and safely before, during, and after the conference.
Robust and rights-respecting climate action requires the full and meaningful participation of civil society in climate negotiations, including the key outcome documents of COP29.
The rare international spotlight on Azerbaijan as it prepares to host COP29 represents a critical opportunity to mark strong concern about its crackdown on independent civil society and press for an end to abuses.
Azerbaijani human rights groups estimate that hundreds of people are behind bars in the country on politically motivated charges. A new wave of detentions is currently under way, with dozens of activists and media figures arrested on baseless, serious criminal charges.
Among those targeted is Gubad Ibadoghlu, a well-known academic and anti-corruption expert who has specialized in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas industry. Dr. Ibadoghlu was violently arrested on July 23, 2023, and the authorities pressed bogus charges against him involving counterfeit money and distributing extremist religious materials. During his nine-month detention, his chronic health conditions deteriorated sharply as a result of the authorities’ refusal to provide him with adequate medical treatment. Dr. Ibadoghlu is currently under house arrest. If convicted, he could face up to 17 years in prison.
Another emblematic case is that of Anar Mammadli, a prominent human rights defender and a founding member of the recently formed Climate of Justice Initiative, a civil society undertaking that seeks to use COP29 to promote civic space and climate justice in Azerbaijan. Mammadli was arrested on April 29, 2024, amid Azerbaijan’s escalating crackdown on independent voices, and charged with spurious currency smuggling.
At least 18 journalists and other individuals affiliated with Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13, the last remaining independent outlets in Azerbaijan, are either behind bars or otherwise implicated in baseless criminal prosecutions. Just on August 21, authorities arrested Bahruz Samadov, a PhD candidate at Charles University in Prague and a regular contributor to numerous international and regional publications and media, while he was visiting Baku to spend time with his grandmother. Samadov is in pre-trial detention facing treason charges, widely believed to be related to his outspoken peace activism. On July 22, the authorities arrested another researcher, Igbal Abilov, also on spurious treason charges. He, too, remains in pretrial custody.
In his opening address to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2024, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk highlighted Azerbaijan for specific concern, “urg[ing] the authorities in Azerbaijan to review, in line with international human rights law, all cases of journalists, activists, and other individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” and to immediately release them.
The government of Azerbaijan has to date refused to heed this and numerous, similar calls by its international partners.
Robust and rights-respecting climate action requires the full and meaningful participation of civil society in climate negotiations, including the key outcome documents of COP29. The dire human rights situation in Azerbaijan makes it incumbent on the U.N. Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat and member states to take concrete steps to ensure safe space for diverse civil society participation at COP29. They should ensure that the government of Azerbaijan does not inhibit individuals and groups critical of the government from participating in the conference and that the host government respects the rights of all participants to speak freely and to peacefully assemble inside and outside the conference venue.
This year’s climate conference is the third in a row to take place in an authoritarian country—following Egypt and United Arab Emirates as hosts of, respectively, COP27 and COP28. As highlighted by the U.N. and other independent experts, respect for freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and allowing critical voices and the free flow of information, are integral to effectively and meaningfully tackling the climate crisis, and should be a core requirement for hosting events such as COP.
The UNFCCC should set human rights criteria for future COP hosts, including an obligation to realize the rights to freedom of speech and assembly that are preconditions to ensure an ambitious COP outcome. In addition, for this and future climate COPs, the UNFCCC should make host country agreements—which set out arrangements between COP summit organizers and host country authorities—public and accessible in a timely manner, and ensure that they comply with international human rights law.
The UNFCCC and member states should also ensure that interests of the fossil fuel industry do not undermine the credibility and outcome of climate negotiation at COP29 and future COPs.
We urge UNFCCC and member states to press the Azerbaijani government to respect its human rights obligations, including by immediately and unconditionally releasing arbitrarily detained activists and human rights defenders. They should also call on Azerbaijani authorities to implement concrete, measurable, structural reforms, such as amending its laws regulating nongovernmental organizations and media, to ensure that positive changes endure beyond COP29, and put into place mechanisms for follow-up monitoring, to verify that progress is upheld and to enable effective and timely intervention in the event of any backsliding, especially in any cases of retaliation or backlash traceable to engagement in or around the climate talks.
We urge the government of Azerbaijan to uphold its commitments as a member of numerous multilateral organizations and initiatives that have human rights elements, and its obligations as a party to key international human rights treaties, by taking the following steps:
- Immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders, journalists, and civil society activists wrongfully held on politically motivated grounds, and drop the bogus charges against them;
- Cease the use of criminal prosecution as a tool to suppress government critics and members of civil society; and
- Lift undue restrictions on civil society by amending laws related to registration and funding of nongovernmental groups and media, bringing them into compliance with international standards and recommendations issued by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.
UNFCCC member states and Secretariat, and other key international actors and organizations, such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the World Bank Group, as well as companies with business interests in Azerbaijan, should all stand in firm solidarity with Azerbaijan’s independent civil society.
Many civic actors, at great personal risk, continue to fight for human rights and climate justice in the country and the region. Azerbaijan’s international partners should put their weight behind the calls for specific steps made here, hold Azerbaijan accountable, and help ensure that the government takes them as a matter of urgent priority.
If you or your organization are interested in joining the statement, please complete this form.
Organizations:
Anar Mammadli Campaign to end repression in Azerbaijan
CEE Bankwatch Network
Center for American Progress
Climate Rights International
Committee to Protect Journalists
Crude Accountability
Endangered Scholars Worldwide
European Exchange European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE)
FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Freedom Now
Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Human Rights Foundation
Human Rights House Foundation
Human Rights Watch
International Partnership for Human Rights
Natural Resource Governance Institute
New University in Exile Consortium
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Open Contracting Partnership
PEN America
PEN International
People in Need
Publish What You Pay
ReCommon
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Individuals:
Corinna Gilfillan
Simon Taylor, Co-Founder & Director, Hawkmoth
Keep ReadingShow Less
In Samoa, UN Chief Says Low-Lying Island Nations Face 'Annihilation' by Climate Chaos
"We need all countries to honor their promises on climate finance and a strong finance outcome from this year's COP where we will discuss the financial commitments after 2025."
Aug 22, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned in Samoa on Thursday that low-lying Pacific island nations face the threat of "annihilation" from rising sea levels, cyclones, ocean heatwaves, and other dangers driven by human-caused climate chaos.
"High and rising sea levels pose an enormous threat to Samoa, to the Pacific, and to other small island developing states. These challenges demand resolute international action," Guterres said. "Sea levels are rising even faster than the global average, posing an existential threat to millions of Pacific Islanders."
"If we are not able to stop what is happening with climate change, this problem that we see in Samoa will not stay in Samoa."
Recalling the 2009 earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 192 people and devastated Samoa, Guterres said that "we have seen people that moved their houses inland, we have seen people that persisted coming back and rebuilding, we have seen an enormous determination of people to fight against, not only the impact of the tsunami, but the impacts of the rising sea levels and of the storms and the cyclones."
"I've seen a wall that is protecting a village from the sea; that wall in 20 years, because of the tsunami—because of the rising sea level, and because of the heavy storms—has already been built three times," he continued.
"People are suffering. Economies are being shattered. And entire territories face annihilation," Guterres stressed.
Guterres said Samoans' ambitious plans to tackle the "existential threat for millions" are being impeded by a lack of promised funding from rich nations. He pointed to the Loss and Damage Fund, agreed to in 2022 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, as well as rich countries' 2021 pledge to double climate adaptation funding to $200 billion.
"We are fighting hard for climate justice," said Guterres, but "we are not seeing the money that is needed and that's why we ask for the reform and the international financial institutions in order for the funding needs of countries, like Pacific countries, to be met."
"We need all countries to honor their promises on climate finance and a strong finance outcome from this year's COP where we will discuss the financial commitments after 2025," he added.
COP29—which has been criticized by green groups for being chaired by a former oil executive—is set to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan in November.
Low-lying Pacific island nations are among the least responsible for the climate emergency but are among the most adversely affected by the crisis. To help address this, Guterres reiterated his call for small island nations like Samoa to have access to $80 billion in development from special drawing rights (SDRs), which are reserve assets controlled by the International Monetary Fund that can be exchanged for cash. Rich countries can also place SDRs in a fund for developing nations' use.
The secretary-general also said that new income streams are key to the survival of nations like Samoa whose tourism industries were devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic and which "have not received the support of the international community."
"If we are not able to stop what is happening with climate change, this problem that we see in Samoa will not stay in Samoa," Guterres warned. "It will be happening more and more everywhere in all coastal areas, from New York to Shanghai, from Lagos to Bangkok."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Azerbaijan's New Climate Fund, Easy on Fossil Fuel Producers, Denounced as 'Smoke Screen'
The country's new climate finance fund—an initiative watered down by fossil fuel producers—draws criticism as the oil-producing country prepares to host the U.N. climate summit in November.
Jul 12, 2024
Climate campaigners on Thursday dismissed Azerbaijan's plan for a $500 million climate investment fund, arguing that it was a small, poorly designed initiative meant to distract from the nation's oil production.
The criticism came following news that Azerbaijan, which is seeking to bolster its green credentials as it prepares to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in November, plans to raise at least $500 million of financing for clean energy investments in the Global South. The money would come from fossil fuel producers, including the state-owned Azerbaijani company SOCAR.
Azerbaijani officials considered introducing a levy on fossil fuel producers to raise money for the fund but, after facing opposition from oil-producing Gulf countries, opted for a voluntary, public-private investment model, an anonymous source toldReuters.
350.org called Azerbaijan's plan a "commercial" venture and said "we must distinguish profit-driven investments from genuine efforts," in a statement.
"The role of a COP presidency is to drive forward highly concessional climate finance, not profit from it," said Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns. "We demand accountability through tax levies, not token charity, in this climate emergency. Those responsible for the climate crisis must pay for what they have created."
🧵1/4
BREAKING: @COP29_AZ plans a $500mn fund with the money of #fossilfuel industry to fund the energy transition - sounds good at first, but its a charade to distract us from the #fossil industrys deadly unwillingness to transition. Lets unpack:https://t.co/R1A6gP0x1S
— Andreas Sieber (@ClimateAndreas) July 11, 2024
Azerbaijan's new fund marks the second year in a row that an oil-producing nation has sought to deflect criticism by announcing a climate finance venture ahead of the U.N. summit.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which hosted COP28 last year, announced a far larger climate investment fund, with a $30 billion initial investment and a goal of raising $250 billion. Forbesreported after COP28 that "the reality is the fund is an investment tool with a primary purpose of profits for the investors."
Like the UAE last year, Azerbaijan faces questions as its commitment to climate action.
"Several diplomats and negotiators have privately expressed concerns that Azerbaijan, which relies heavily on oil and gas revenues, is fundamentally reluctant to address the question of how to shift away from fossil fuels," The Financial Timesreported.
In January, Azerbaijan appointed a 20-year oil and gas veteran to lead COP29 talks, drawing criticism from environmental groups. A Global Witness report revealed that the country plans not to phase out fossil fuel use, per an international agreement made at COP28, but to raise gas production by one-third in the next decade.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular