A/77/549
affect the lives and very existence of Indigenous Peoples. 29 A number of submissions
highlight the ongoing racially disparate effects of the ecological crisis and its dri vers,
some of them highlighting colonial legacies. 30
17. Highlighting the salience of colonial legacies should not eclipse the role played
by powerful countries in the global South in producing contemporary greenhouse
emissions and fuelling environmental degradation. Brazil, China and India are among
the top global carbon dioxide emitters. Transnational and cross -border activities
within the global South bring their own set of geopolitical and environmental
challenges. For example, the Belt and Road Initiative of China in Africa entails
industrial megaprojects linked both to African debt entrapment and environmental
degradation, 31 and in some places irreparable ecological damage. 32
Race, ethnicity, national origin and “sacrifice zones”
18. The term “sacrifice zones” is derived from a designation used during the cold
war to describe areas irradiated due to production of nuclear weapons. 33 Racially
marginalized and formerly colonized peoples were among those whose communities
were disproportionately “sacrificed” to the demands of nuclear proliferation, as
prominently illustrated by the impacts of nuclear testing on the people of the Marshall
Islands, as well as Indigenous Peoples and ethnic minorities living in territories
controlled by military superpowers. 34
19. According to the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment,
“today, a sacrifice zone can be understood to be a place where residents suffer
devastating physical and mental health consequences and human rights violations as
a result of living in pollution hotspots and heavily contaminated areas”. 35 Climate
change is driving the proliferation of sacrifice zones, 36 which in many places are, in
effect, racial sacrifice zones.
20. In the Amazon and elsewhere in South America, Indigenous environmental
human rights defenders are frequently targeted for persecution for protesting
industrial projects that destroy their homelands. In several cases, environmental
protectors have been threatened or murdered for their advocacy. 37 At the same time,
according to one submission, environmental disruption caused by development mega projects in Brazil, for example, threaten long-time quilombola and Indigenous
communities. 38
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29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
22-24043
See A/HRC/36/46; and A/HRC/4/32.
Submissions from Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights; Heinrich Böll Foundation;
European Network Against Racism; Black Coalition for Rights; Global Justice Clinic; Sabantho
Aderi (Lokono-Arawak); and Gonzalez.
OHCHR, Baseline Study on the Human Rights Impacts and Implications of Mega -Infrastructure
Investment (2017).
Gong Sen, Melissa Leach and Jing Gu, “The Belt and Road Initiative and the SDGs: towards
equitable, sustainable development”, IDS Bulletin, vol. 50, No. 4 (December 2019).
Steve Lerner, Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States
(Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 2010), p. 2.
Jessica Barkas Threet, “Testing the bomb: disparate impacts on Indigenous Peoples in the
American West, the Marshall Islands, and in Kazakhstan”, University of Baltimore Journal of
Environmental Law, vol. 13, No. 1 (2005).
See A/HRC/49/53.
Ibid.
OHCHR, “Colombia: extreme risks for rights defenders who challenge corporate activity”,
4 August 2022; A/HRC/46/35; and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “IACHR and
UN human rights condemn murders of environmental activists and Quilombolas in Brazil”,
24 January 2022.
Submission from the Brazilian Black Coalition for Rights.
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