Human Rights

In 2023, the organization Global Witness registered the killing of 196 environmental defenders, clarifying that this staggering figure could be even “higher”. This report investigates online gender-based violence faced by women environmental defenders (WEDs) in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Survivors of conflict-related sexual violence can seek redress under several legal frameworks. Knowing about the different legal frameworks is critical for survivors and advocates working alongside them. This fact sheet presents some of them.

Online gender-based violence, specifically targeted at women in politics, directly threatens democracy as it deteriorates and wears out until it becomes more unjust and less participatory.

This report takes a look at metal processing on the basis of six exemplary metals, which are essential to achieve decarbonisation.

Petra Kelly was a co-founder of the German Green Party and known worldwide as a champion of ecology and human rights. She was tireless, fascinating and inspiring. So it's no surprise that her ideas and initiatives live on in today's politics: in the fight against climate change, for gender justice and the global validity of human rights. This year, the Heinrich Böll Foundation celebrates her 75th birthday and commemorates her violent death 30 years ago.

This e-paper is written based on interviews conducted with young activists, journalists, human rights defenders and academics from Afghanistan (all under the age of 35), who have been actively involved in the process of democratisation and committed to liberal values over the past 20 years in Afghanistan; it highlights the twenty years of achievements by Afghan youth and explores their hurdles and challenges under the rule of the Taliban’s de facto regime.

Abortion is one of the most common gynecological procedures. Legal regulations have a major impact on whether access to this essential healthcare service is safe, legal and free of charge.  

Almost 8 billion people will live on earth in 2021. While in the Global North people are encouraged to have children, in the Global South programmes of so-called development aid tend to aim at reducing the birth rate.

Contraception is a powerful tool of self-determination and population control. But access to contraception varies around the world and is influenced by economic, social, and cultural factors.

Young advocates for democracy are campaigning against the surveillance state and the internet "gateway" to control inappropriate websites and the flow of information from the rest of the world to Thailand. The election win of the Future Forward Party (FFP) shows how Thailand's active young generation is moving from the Internet to the ballot box.

The analytical commentaries of this issue discuss the prospects for a just green transition in the Western Balkan countries and their particular contexts of structural injustices in the societies and transition legacies. The fundamental economic and technological changes for a decarbonisation of the widely coal dependent economies in the region need to be accompanied not only by another attitude to nature and biodiversity but also by a new set of social relationships and innovations in governance and civic participation.

The term "environmental racism" emerged in the 1980s in the USA and articulates the racist effects of unequal distribution of environmental goods and risks. In light of the climate crisis, a new generation of people experiencing racism is asking whether and how climate change impacts reinforce the efficacy of environmental racism.

The business of the AIIB is the financing of large infrastructure projects such as power plants, dams and transport routes. Such investments are inherently associated with high environmental and social risks, as well as corruption and high levels of debt. This study provides an overview of the institution's close alignment with China and its transparency and information disclosure rules.

About half the people in the world have the capacity to become pregnant. Yet there is still no contraceptive that is 100 percent effective. This means half of all people are potentially at risk of getting pregnant unintentionally.

China and the EU are currently negotiating a new, far-reaching investment treaty called the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). This scoping paper focuses on the potential risks for the EU from enshrining rights for Chinese investors in Europe in an international investment treaty.

Disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation pollute the information space worldwide and the trend of manipulating facts continues to disrupt public communication and, consequently, democratic processes in societies. The aim of this paper is to investigate the phenomena of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, as well as their impact on the political sphere. In addition, the paper attempts to explain the harmful influence of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation on public debates, democratic processes, and civil society engagement.

Is the delivery of human rights a consequential outcome of liberal democracy? This paper explores the role of human rights in democracy, and specifically whether human rights is a necessary ingredient for its sustenance.