United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

Indigenous Peoples are no strangers to government-backed resource extraction projects like pipelines and hydroelectric developments. Between the Coastal GasLink Pipeline and Mapuche land defense, Indigenous land defenders have continuously mobilized to protect their ancestral territories from projects threatening their security, survival, and sovereignty. Participation in these movements often makes Indigenous protesters targets of the state, as they are perceived as criminals and surveilled intensively. This United Nations Human Rights Council committee will dive into the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders in its three phases: the tactical use of force during mobilizations themselves, corporate-state relationships incentivizing the poor treatment of defenders, and the extreme levels of surveillance post-protest. Delegates will examine how international human rights frameworks and mechanisms can better protect Indigenous land defenders, while addressing the social and political circumstances that enabled these processes.