Background

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that focuses on advocating for human rights, including the right to a healthy environment, and holding governments and other entities accountable for human rights abuses. HRW's work in the context of fossil fuels involves investigating and exposing their negative impacts on human rights and health, advocating for a transition to cleaner energy sources, conducting research in affected regions, and engaging in global advocacy efforts to better regulate the industry, end public financing for it, and phase out the use of fossil fuels. HRW’s goal is to protect human rights and promote environmental sustainability in the face of the challenges posed by fossil fuel industries.

HRW is a highly capable research and advocacy organization with a multifaceted approach to reducing dependency on fossil fuels, including a novel focus on exposing the effects of fossil fuels on human health. They had encouraging progress in 2022 and have a significant funding gap for their fossil fuel-related work.

Progress

Our support has enabled the expansion of Human Rights Watch’s capacity to work on fossil fuels, including hiring a new senior researcher on this topic. In the reporting period, HRW produced 21 publications related to the human and environmental costs of fossil fuels in countries such as Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Tanzania, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States. These publications received significant media attention and official responses from the targeted companies and officials. For example, the report “‘Our Trust is Broken’: Loss of Land and Livelihoods for Oil Development in Uganda,” concerning the development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), was featured in more than 300 news stories worldwide.

In addition to media outreach, HRW supported its partners through high-level advocacy meetings with decision-makers across Europe and the US to advance dialogues on the issues at focus. HRW conducted successful advocacy meetings with officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina that resulted in the suspension of the issuance of a permit required for a new 700MW coal-fired power plant, and followed by the adoption of a series of laws on renewable energy that will facilitate a quicker transition away from coal. In the US, HRW supported community leaders in Louisiana by amplifying their landmark lawsuit against the government for building new industrial facilities in predominantly Black communities in St. James Parish, known as a part of the “Cancer Alley” due to a heavy presence of industrial plants, primarily fossil fuel and petrochemical operations. The lawsuit seeks to ban any new fossil fuel, petrochemical, or plastics operations in the community—a first-of-its-kind demand in the US and a model for other communities to follow.

Looking ahead, HRW intends to continue their ongoing advocacy work and expand its research into oil-producing closed countries like the UAE and Iraq.