Burnt land in the Colombian Amazon, in an image from February this year. AFP PHOTO / European Union Delegation
The international demand for cocaine, which grew from 10 to 21 million users in the last decade, the exponential increase in the illegal exploitation of gold at $1,700 an ounce, and the insatiable logging of the Amazon forest.
These are just three ingredients that have put environmental defenders, many of them lawyers, in the line of sight of crime in several Latin American countries.
There is a background, beyond this specificity.
A worrying global trend of practices that undermine, limit, restrict or hinder the exercise of the functions of the legal profession.
As UN Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, I presented a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June on the critical situation of attacks on the role of the legal profession in different countries.
Between 2010 and 2020, more than 2,500 lawyers have been killed, detained or kidnapped in different regions of the world.
This covers a wide range from homicides, prosecutions and interference with the independence of the profession.
These affectations hit the whole society and its rights.
A free and accessible legal profession is essential to access justice, monitor public power, protect due process and judicial guarantees.
In the case of fundamental rights, States are obliged to guarantee that those who practice law can do so free from intimidation, obstacles, harassment or interference.
Obligation that is established in various international treaties and instruments, both global and regional.
Among them is the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers adopted by the United Nations 32 years ago (1990).
It establishes, among other things, that States must guarantee that lawyers "can perform all their professional functions without intimidation, obstacles, harassment or undue interference."
This panorama is much more critical when the legal activity is oriented towards the defense of human rights, the fight against corruption and, increasingly, those who legally battle for the protection of the environment against all kinds of predators.
Indeed, in the report that I presented to the UN in June, and which is an official document of the organization, it is noted that international associations of lawyers, such as the respected Council of Bar Associations of Europe (CCBE), have denounced serious situations of harassment of human rights defenders within the legal profession.
Between 2015 and 2020, 1,323 human rights defenders have been murdered, several of them lawyers.
Four environmental defenders are murdered every week in the world.
Latin America is the most affected region, with defenders related to the environment being the main victims.
A Global Witness report reveals that three-quarters of recorded lethal attacks against environmental activists take place in Latin America.
Colombia is listed as the most affected country in the world.
Murdered by drug traffickers who seek to appropriate indigenous lands to plant more coca;
or for illegal gold mining;
or for indiscriminate logging.
All without the States managing to implement the appropriate measures to guarantee the exercise of the legal profession in this environment of violence and attacks that is also one of impunity.
This is our reality.
Such a Dantesque scenario requires, within each country, effective prevention strategies and measures, as well as the prosecution of crime in a scenario where impunity reigns.
At the regional level, there is a fantastic treaty, the Escazú Agreement, the first environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean that entered into force in April of last year.
It should be welcomed that the -new- Senates of Chile and Colombia ratified it recently.
In South America and, particularly, the Amazon basin, the questioned omission of Brazil and Peru to become part of the treaty “shines”.
In the first case, it could be explained by Bolsonaro's policy of standing in profile in the face of brutal deforestation, which accelerated during his government.
In Peru, in part due to the political crisis and the role of an ephemeral foreign minister openly opposed to the Agreement, having collected the most cave-dwelling discourses existing in the market against international law.
In the latter case, better times could undoubtedly come as the Foreign Ministry is once again in better hands.
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