A/HRC/39/17 too often, such so-called consultations have created divisions and undermined indigenous decision-making institutions. 37. The Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders has warned that the lack of information and transparency and opaque decision-making are not only major flaws in the implementation of large-scale development projects but also lead to the disempowerment and vulnerability of defenders and affected communities and seriously undermine the credibility and legitimacy of both State and non-State actors involved in the projects (A/68/262). 38. Indigenous peoples are increasingly challenging such projects through social mobilization and legal avenues. In retaliation for advocating for the protection of their lands, indigenous peoples are being accused of being obstacles to development and acting against national interests. Indigenous leaders and communities seeking to raise their concerns over the negative impacts of projects on their rights, livelihoods and the environment have been targeted in violent attacks. They have been killed, forcibly displaced, threatened and intimidated and subjected to insidious harassment in the form of criminal charges which are often nebulous, grossly inflated or fictitious. The aim of these attacks, whether violent or legal, is to silence any opposition by indigenous peoples to business interests and to prevent indigenous peoples from exercising their rights. 39. Even when indigenous peoples have managed to successfully challenge projects in court and when injunctions have been ordered, companies still plough ahead with projects in disregard of judicial orders to suspend them. The Special Rapporteur is furthermore deeply concerned that in recent cases, high courts have ordered consultations to take place after the initiation of large-scale projects in an attempt to claim, ex post facto, that international norms have been complied with. This is not in accordance with international standards on consultation and consent (see A/HRC/39/17/Add.3, para. 37). VI. A global crisis unfolding 40. Recent studies by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders (A/71/281) and the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment6 have raised alerts over “a global crisis” of attacks against environmental human rights defenders, highlighting that many of these defenders are members of indigenous communities. 41. In a report on human rights defenders killed worldwide in 2017, the authors document the murders of 312 defenders in 27 countries and indicate that 67 per cent of the persons killed were engaged in the defence of land, environmental and indigenous peoples’ rights; nearly all the killings occurred in the context of megaprojects, extractive industry and big business. About 80 per cent of the killings took place in just four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines.7 Another source documented 200 killings across 24 countries in 2016 of people defending their land, forests and rivers against destructive industries. The authors concluded that almost 40 per cent of those murdered were indigenous and that Latin America accounted for more than 60 per cent of the killings.8 42. The Special Rapporteur has observed a disconcerting escalation of violent attacks through the mandate to issue communications and undertake fact-finding country visits. While the vulnerability of indigenous peoples to attacks while seeking to defend their lands has been a long-standing concern of the mandate, the drastic escalation of such acts in recent years is of grave concern. The Special Rapporteur has recorded a significant and rising number of such attacks in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mexico, Peru and the Philippines, not an exhaustive list. The same countries have been identified by other human rights mechanisms and civil society organizations that 6 7 8 John Knox, Policy Brief: Environmental Human Rights Defenders — A Global Crisis (Versoix, Switzerland, Universal Rights Group, 2017). Front Line Defenders, Annual Report on Human Rights Defenders at Risk in 2017 (Dublin, 2018). Global Witness, Defenders of the Earth: Global Killings of Land and Environmental Defenders in 2016 (London, 2017). 9