Environmental Human Rights Defender’s Guide Against SLAPP Suits

Environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) are often the target of various forms of threats and intimidation.  These threats and intimidation range from simple harassment to physical, mental, and psychological assault, including incarceration or worse – death.

Many have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings, and illegal or warrantless arrests. In fact, the Philippines has notoriously been marked as the worst place for environmental defenders.

Others, meanwhile, have been subjected to abusive lawsuits meant to harass individuals or groups that strive to protect and promote human rights relating to the environment, including water, air, land, flora, and fauna.

 

Abusive lawsuits

 Abusive lawsuits usually arise from the exercise of constitutionally guaranteed rights such as freedom of speech, expression, or the press. Common among these lawsuits are libel, slander, oral defamation, or illegal assembly.

These lawsuits are often filed by proponents of environmentally destructive projects, local governments, and sometimes, even the National Government Agencies (NGAs) that back the projects.

Evidently, fighting for the environment, land rights, and the protection of natural resources is a very risky business in the Philippines. As a consequence of this, EHRDs become exposed to abusive lawsuits that are avoidable.

 

The EHRD Guide

C-HELP identified some of the risks faced by environmental defenders such as security, safety, and physical risks; ethical risks, fiduciary risks, operational risks, legal risks, reputational risks and finally, communication and information risks.

Security risks pertain to risks of being victims of violence and crime, while safety and physical risks involve accidents or sometimes, illness.

Risk of harm caused by unethical behaviors, including sexual misconduct, exploitation, inadequate duty of care, or insufficient consideration of humanitarian principles are associated with ethical risks.

Fiduciary risks, on the other hand, involve corruption, fraud, and diversion.

Operational risks include the inability to achieve objectives, capacity and/or competence gaps, financial, funding constraints, and access constraints.

A more serious risk faced by environmental defenders is reputational risk such as the potential for negative news or publicity to harm an individual or organization’s image and or advocacy perception as these can have negative consequences such as financial impact or loss of funding support, public trust that often require rebuilding a tarnished image.

Environmental human rights defenders are also at risk of communication and information risks that include data breach or loss, and digital risk.

Lastly, legal risks. It involves violating laws or regulations of international or host governments and or human rights issues.

 

Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation

 Even without the threat of physical harm, environmental human rights defenders are at risk of legal action to intimidate, censor, or silence the advocates of environment and human rights.

This legal action is called Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation or SLAPP. SLAPPs are designed to prevent the publication of information that’s in the public interest, such as academic research, journalism, whistleblowing, or campaigning.  It can be civil, criminal, or even administrative actions against individuals, institutions, government agencies, or local government units.

Often, SLAPPs are used by powerful and well-resourced parties who aim to drain the resources of defendants and deter opposition, forcing the defendants to quit and abandon their criticism or opposition by the sheer burden of the cost of legal defense.

SLAPPs are often based on claims of defamation, misuse of private information, or data protection breaches and are a misuse of the legal system.

C-HELP provides legal risk assessment and management to identify, analyze, and take steps to mitigate risks associated with SLAPP, which is particularly useful for individual or nongovernment organizations once they decide to engage in environmental and human rights advocacy, or political activities to protect them from potential reprisals from State authorities or private interests who may be affected by their advocacy or political activities.

In addition, there are also various SLAPP-back strategies which the victims could use as part of the legal strategy against SLAPP suits. Among those identified in the EHRD Guide are the filing of a motion to dismiss, counterclaim, and/or separate lawsuits against the perpetrator of SLAPPs.