On Thursday, 3 March, the Sisters of Mercy: Mercy Global Action at the UN, the NGO Mining Working Group, Franciscans International, and Food & Water Watch joined the Western Downs and Wider Unconventional Gas Group of Chinchilla, Australia to deliver an oral intervention at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The statement concerned the increasingly urgent and widespread issue of fracking’s impacts on human rights.

Thursday’s statement addressed Mr. John Knox, Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, and Ms. Leilani Farha, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, at an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteurs.

The intervention described that for our coalition of organizations, 'from Australia to the US to Argentina, our communities report violations related to the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment', with clear connections to fracking.

It drew attention to the ongoing Senate Inquiry into Unconventional Gas Mining, in which human rights violations caused by fracking, including “damage to potable water; refusal to offer protection from the hazards of unconventional gas mining; refusal to allow for the proper complaint process and participation; failure to carryout study and testing to monitor the safety of food grown in the area and atmospheric and environmental damage,” have been brought to the attention of the Australian government.

The statement encouraged Special Rapporteur John Knox in particular to further analyze the human and environmental impacts of fracking through a thematic report and to bring this analysis to the ongoing Intergovernmental Working Group on business and human rights. The intervention called on Member States of the United Nations and the Human Rights Council to “critically assess how fracking and related policies impact human rights through broad public debate” and other means. Finally, it called on the government of Australia to monitor and respond to the human rights violations occurring in Chinchilla due to coal seam gas mining.

View the full statement here.

Fracking’s impacts on human rights in Chinchilla are especially palpable for Mercy in the wake of Farmer and Human Rights Activist George Bender’s death. Mercy Global Action Director Denise Boyle, fmdm, and Mercy Global Action Coordinator at the UN Áine O’Connor rsm, visited the communities in the Australian Western Downs in October of 2015 to gain local perspective on the issue and to share information about advocacy work at the international level. The gravity and extent of the realities on the ground in Chinchilla and in other parts of our Mercy world continue to guide Mercy Global Action’s advocacy regarding the human rights impacts of fracking.

Last week’s Human Rights Council statement is part of Mercy Global Action’s larger strategic response to the grave human rights violations caused by fracking reported by our members and partners throughout the world. Other projects in this area include:

•  A Guide to Rights-Based Advocacy: International Human Rights Law and Fracking
•  Participation in and collaboration with organizers of the Permanent People’s Tribunal session on the human rights impacts of fracking
• Coordinating a global response using international spaces for advocacy
• Connecting the dots between fracking and climate change at COP 21

Watch for an introductory video to the guide and a synthesized issue brief coming soon.
Mercy Global Action at the UN will continue to utilize available UN mechanisms to bring the experiences to the table of those on the ground impacted by fracking. We invite you to join us in raising the profile of these concerns and to unite with communities’ efforts locally.

For more information or fracking’s impacts on human rights, download A Guide to Rights-Based Advocacy: International Human Rights Law and Fracking.

Messages to Aine O'Connor rsm - MGA Coordinator at the UN

Images:
Photo # 485261.UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré. Used with permission
iStock. Used under licence