Letter to Hon. Janet Yellen, Secretary of Treasury, and Hon. Anthony Blinken - Congresswomen Escobar and Torres Lead Letter Urging Treasury and State Departments to Impose Targeted Sanctions Against Individuals Responsible for Human Rights Abuses of Environmental Defenders

Letter

Dear Secretaries Yellen and Blinken,
We write to you to express our growing concern over the treatment of indigenous and local
environmental activists--often referred to as "environmental defenders"--across the world. We
urge you to consider using existing authorities, as provided by the Global Magnitsky Human
Rights Accountability Act (Global Magnitsky Act) and Section 7031(c) of the FY 2021
Consolidated Appropriations Act, to impose targeted sanctions against those persons, including
entities, responsible for human rights abuses of environmental defenders and corruption related
to climate-impacting industries; and to integrate these tools into the Administration's strategy to
combat climate change. Because these abuses are often connected to ecologically-destructive
industrial and corporate activities, using sanctions in this context would create a deterrence
against destructive activities that exacerbate climate change.
The 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ºC recognized the critical role of
indigenous and local communities around the world in protecting ecological systems.1 Research
across multiple countries has demonstrated that indigenous-managed lands have lower rates of
deforestation and carbon loss, and it is estimated that indigenous and locally-managed forests
globally contain at least 17% of the world's stored carbon.
Despite their critical role in maintaining captured carbon and protecting critical ecosystems,
indigenous and local communities have increasingly had their sovereignty and safety threatened.
The rise in incursions into these communities by agribusiness, mining, and other industries
across the globe increases the likelihood of serious human rights abuses and directly harms the
vital ecosystems protected by these communities.
Global Witness, a respected organization investigating human rights abuses, has documented that
an average of four environmental defenders have been killed every week since the signing of the
Paris Agreement in 2015, and that even more have been targeted by physical assaults, death
threats, sexual violence, arrest and detention without cause, and retaliatory lawsuits.4 To cite a
few examples:
● Brazil: On November 1, 2019, indigenous activist Paulo Paulino Guajajara was shot and
killed in an ambush by five illegal loggers in Brazil's Maranhão state. Paulino was a
member of the group "Guardians of the Forest" which works to stop illegal logging on
indigenous land. More than 42 Guajajara indigenous people were murdered by loggers
between 2000 and 2018. As enforcement of environmental regulations and indigenous
protections has relaxed under President Bolsonaro, deforestation has worsened and at
least four more Guajajara members have been killed since Paulo Paulino's murder, with a
total of 24 defenders murdered in 2019.
● Colombia: United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
Michel Forst visited Colombia in 2018 and collected testimony revealing that defenders
"have been threatened and targeted by international or national companies, particularly
by those in the extractive or hydroelectric sector," and that he received "allegations of
collusion between companies and politicians, sometimes at very high levels." Since his
visit, the violence has worsened, with over 64 murders of environmental defenders in
2019 alone, the worst of any country.
● Honduras: March 3, 2021 marked the fifth anniversary of the murder of Honduran
activist Berta Cáceres in 2016. To date, only one of the men who ordered her killing has
been arrested. Amnesty International documented that Ms. Cáceres was harassed and
received numerous death threats from industry members prior to her killing. As noted
in a 2017 Congressional letter to the Department of State, over 100 environmental
activists, more than 30 journalists, and more than 30 trade unionists have been murdered
in Honduras since 2009.8 With 14 killings of environmental defenders in 2019, Honduras
had the worst per-capita rate in the world.
● Philippines: With 43 environmental defenders killed in 2019, the Philippines had the
second highest total of killings that year of any country. This total included the killing of
forester Kandatu Bansil by an armed hitman in 2019 while collecting evidence
investigating illegal logging practices. He was 1 of 8 government-employed
environmental defenders killed that year.
● South Africa: On October 22, 2020, environmental defender Fikile Ntshangase was shot
and killed in her home after receiving death threats for more than a year. Ntshangase was
a local leader of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO),
a community organization leading legal challenges to the expansion of local coal
mining. Details in her killing share similarities to other killings, like the 2016 killing of
Sikhosiphi Rhadebe, who had been leading opposition to the expansion of mining of
titanium in the Xolobeni region. No arrests or convictions have been made for either
killing. Global Witness found that nearly 1 in 4 killings of environmental defenders in
2019 were linked to mining or extractive industries.
These examples represent only a fraction of the global violence, threats, harassments, and other
human rights abuses faced by environmental defenders. Since 2015, at least 150 environmental
defenders have been killed each year. The number of killings per year has increased during that
same period, and according to the most recently available annual data, at least 212 environmental
defenders were murdered globally in 2019 alone, although restrictions on the press and NGOs
and a lack of government documentation in many countries likely means human rights abuses
and extrajudicial killings are underreported.
Many of these abuses are connected to industries such as agribusiness, energy, and mining, many
of which are involved in corrupt business activities that are also sanctionable under U.S. law.
Disputes over indigenous land tenure, illegal business practices, and lack of government
protections in many areas create conditions ripe for human rights violations and environmental
destruction. Amazon Watch has documented how the entanglement between American corporate
supply chains and the finances of corporations and governments in the Amazon region contribute
to and encourage human rights abuses.
And while the violence, harassment, and treatment of environmental defenders represent serious
human rights abuses on their own, the impact of such events extends far beyond the countries
where abuses occur: the destruction of habitat and deforestation that often accompanies these
human rights violations releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, threatens biodiversity, and
impedes local and international efforts to protect ecosystems, sequester carbon, and fight the
climate crisis. Furthermore, the lack of accountability emboldens perpetrators to continue human
rights abuses, pursue additional corrupt dealings, and engage in further destructive climate
actions. A range of actors--including local government officials, military and paramilitary
forces, corporations and their officials, financial institutions, and hired mercenaries--have been
implicated in these instances of corruption and human rights abuses and taking targeted action to
hold them accountable would represent an important step towards protecting environmental
defenders and curtailing destructive climate actions.
Therefore, we request that the Treasury Department and the State Department utilize existing
sanctions authorities under the Global Magnitsky Act as implemented by Executive Order
13818, as well as Section 7031(c) of SFOPs annual appropriations, to protect environmental
defenders and deter corruption as a means of addressing climate change internationally and to
consider these actions as a core part of the Administration's climate change strategy. We ask the
Departments to take steps that include, but are not limited to, the following actions:
● Examining patterns of growing attacks on environmental defenders and identifying
strategic opportunities to use sanctions that include consideration of potential
humanitarian impact or adverse effects on the population to change the behavior of the
most egregious perpetrators;
● Integrating these sanctions-related activities into the Administration's interagency
processes and strategies related to climate change; including development of the plan for
protecting the Amazon rainforest and other critical ecosystems as called for in the
Administration's Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.
● Encouraging partner governments with similar sanctions authorities to take a coordinated,
multilateral approach to designating appropriate targets; and
● Beginning to review credible evidence submitted by civil society organizations of human
rights abuses of environmental defenders and issuing sanctions designations against those
responsible.
Indigenous and local communities are leading the global effort to fight climate change, often at
great personal risk and sacrifice. Thus, doing what we can to defend them from human rights
abuses and destructive climate actions should be at the forefront of American foreign policy
efforts to tackle climate change. We ask the administration to send a clear message that the
United States is committed to protecting indigenous rights, dedicated to preserving climatecritical ecosystems, and determined to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and corruption resulting in destructive climate outcomes. We see targeted sanctions as
a powerful tool in American foreign policy, and their application in this context would represent
a critical step forward in advancing America's international response to the climate crisis.

Sincerely,

Members of Congress

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