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	Protecting individual’s rights against the improper processing of their personal data by UN Office for Human Rights, agencies   Global challenges to international collection of personal data.   Adopting measures to prevent impunity on the internet regarding the processing of personal data is vital to ensure an ethical approach and protect fundamental human rights in the digital age, a UN expert said today.   In a report to the 61st session of the Human Rights Council, Ana Brian Nougreres, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, analysed the current practice of international collection of personal data and expressed concern that the rules on international data transfer do not cover all international collection of personal data and this puts individuals’ right to privacy at risk.   “The global technological context has changed dramatically since the need to protect individual’s rights against the improper processing of their personal data first arose,” the expert said.   “The internet has unleashed a host of challenges to the law, including those relating to the international collection of personal data, since it has not been defined as a legal phenomenon in international documents and lacks a comprehensive and legally binding regime to protect the rights of individuals who may be subject to a privacy violation.”   The guidelines governing international data transfers are not applicable to international data collection because there is no data sender that can be controlled by the local authorities of the country of origin of the data.   “The challenge in international data collection is that billions of people with internet access who, from anywhere in the world, collect data from other people located in countries other than that of the collector,” Brian Nougreres explained.   “Therefore, the international collection of personal data presents challenges that require a coordinated response at the national and international level,” the expert said.   The Special Rapporteur called on States to draft an international treaty that comprehensively addresses the challenges posed by the international collection of personal data to protect individuals’ rights. The expert also encouraged States to modify the scope of application of national and local regulations on personal data processing, so they also cover extraterritorial scope of application regarding the international collection of personal data.   The new report complements the expert’s 2024 General Assembly report which proposed to update GA Resolution 45/95 entitled "Guiding principles for the regulation of computerized personal data files."   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/03/un-expert-highlights-global-challenges-international-collection-personal   Mar. 2026   World must define terrorism to protect human rights: UN expert   States must urgently adopt an international definition of terrorism to protect human rights from terrorism and excessive State responses to it, says a new report by Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.   “For decades, vague and overbroad definitions of terrorism have led to countless human rights violations,” Saul said, presenting his report to the Human Rights Council. “These include unlawful killings, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, unfair trials, privacy breaches, refoulement, and violations of political freedoms.”   “The abuse of counter-terrorism laws has become a tool of choice to suppress critics and civil society, including through transnational repression,” the Special Rapporteur said. “False accusations of terrorism have even led to illegal aggression.” He noted that excessive definitions can counterproductively fuel grievances and reduce cooperation with authorities.   International law requires terrorism offences to be precise so that individuals understand their liability. Offences must be limited to genuinely terrorist conduct.   The Special Rapporteur’s model definition limits terrorism to serious criminal acts that intentionally cause death, serious bodily injury, or hostage-taking, where the conduct: is intended to either (i) provoke a state of terror in the public or a group of persons, or (ii) unduly compel a Government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act; aims to advance a political or ideological purpose; and intentionally causes serious damage to a country or an international organisation.   The definition thus limits terrorism to serious harms to people, not merely property, and differentiates political violence from organized crime for profit.   The model definition also recommends exceptions for:   Acts of protest that do not intentionally cause death or serious bodily injury; Conduct in armed conflict that does not violate international humanitarian law; Humanitarian activities by impartial humanitarian organizations; Activities of State military forces that are consistent with international law; and Acts intended to establish or re-establish democracy, constitutional Government or the rule of law, or protect human rights.   The report warns that States must not commit terrorism and that officials can be criminally liable for it. ”In responding to State terrorism, other Governments must always respect international law,” Saul said.   “Adopting a definition that respects human rights is essential to prevent the abuse of counter-terrorism laws and narratives and ensure countering terrorism is effective and legitimate.”   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/03/world-must-define-terrorism-protect-human-rights-un-expert   Mar. 2026   Concern warrantless surveillance would be a detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States.   90 civil society groups have urged congressional Democrats to “stand firm against White House efforts to extend government surveillance powers” by renewing “without new safeguards” a highly controversial surveillance authorization.   Free Press Action and Demand Progress are leading the call to senior Democratic lawmakers to not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without first enacting privacy reforms.   “Section 702 has been used to conduct millions of warrantless ‘backdoor’ searches for the phone calls, text messages, and emails of people in the United States,” the groups said in a letter to senior Democrats leaders.   The groups which include the ACLU, the Brennan Centre for Justice, Human Rights First, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, Indivisible, National Immigrant Justice Center, Public Citizen, cited recent reporting from Politico stating that Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, supports extending the program that empowers federal agencies to surveil and collect the data of noncitizens abroad without a warrant.   “Supporting warrantless surveillance would be a massive detriment to the privacy and civil rights and liberties of people in the United States,” the letter adds. “These surveillance authorities have long jeopardized privacy, and efforts to continue them without meaningful reforms and sufficient oversight are deeply troubling.”   The groups emphasize the imperative to close the so-called backdoor search loophole—via which domestic law enforcement agencies can access Americans’ communications without a warrant—and the data broker loophole, which lets the government to buy its way around Fourth Amendment proscriptions on warrantless search and seizure by purchasing sensitive information from private vendors.   Earlier this month, more than 70 congressional Democrats demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans’ location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.   “There are terrifying risks to reauthorizing government surveillance powers that have been abused to spy on protesters, immigrants, journalists, and even political candidates under any presidential administration,” said Jenna Ruddock, advocacy director at Free Press Action. “People across the country and on both sides of the aisle agree, and overwhelmingly support urgently needed reforms to FISA.”   “This White House in particular has relentlessly labelled perceived political opponents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ justifying in their minds the relentless surveillance and persecution of those who oppose the administration’s agenda,” Ruddock added. “Congress must insist on these common-sense reforms and put the civil and constitutional rights of Americans above the authoritarian desires of this administration.”   http://www.freepress.net/news/massive-coalition-calls-democratic-leadership-stand-firm-against-stephen-millers-plans
	What are the Rights of Nature? by Inside Climate News, Goldman Prize, agencies   What Are the Rights of Nature? The global movement to secure legal rights for ecosystems and other parts of the natural world, by Katie Surma for Inside Climate News, agencies   “Rights of nature” is a movement aimed at advancing the understanding that ecosystems, wildlife and the Earth are living beings with inherent rights to exist, evolve and regenerate.   Legal rights are the highest form of protection in most governance systems. In the United States, humans and non-humans have enforceable legal rights, like corporations’ right to freedom of speech.   At the same time, most legal systems treat nature as rightless property that humans can own, use and destroy. That means the law views sentient species like elephants and bald eagles, as well as life-supporting ecosystems like forests and coral reefs, no differently than objects like microwaves or cars.   For the people behind the rights of nature movement, that way of thinking is deeply flawed. It’s also scientifically inaccurate.   Humans are part of nature and depend on ecosystems for survival—from the food we eat to the water we drink and air we breathe.   Evolutionary biology shows that humans share a common ancestor with all other life on Earth. Forests, rivers and other biomes provide conditions for human life to thrive. And humans have always shaped the environment and have been shaped by it.   Understanding this interconnectedness is key to understanding that human flourishing ultimately depends on a healthy Earth. Rights of nature activists say most societies have forgotten that basic truth, harming their own wellbeing—and threatening their very survival—as a result.   When did this forgetting happen? Academics have traced the notion that humans are separate from, and superior to, nature back to Renaissance-era thinkers like René Descartes, who compared animals to machines. The idea is also woven into the Bible’s book of Genesis, with God giving man “dominion” over the Earth. Others point to the advent of cities, when masses of people lost regular contact with nature.   Modern legal systems have been shaped by these developments and ideas, thus institutionalizing the belief that nature is an object, or thing, beneath humans.   “Until the rightless thing receives its rights, we cannot see it as anything but a thing for the use of ‘us’—those who are holding rights at the time,” law professor Christopher Stone wrote in the seminal 1972 law review article, “Should Trees Have Standing?” Stone noted that the law has always evolved to extend rights to new groups: moving from white, property-owning men to include women, people of color and children.   In 2006, a rural, conservative Pennsylvania town plagued by industrial pollution enacted the world’s first rights of nature resolution. Since then, scores of countries—including Ecuador, Spain, Bolivia, Colombia, Panama, India, the United States and Uganda—have had court rulings or enacted laws at the national or subnational level recognizing nature’s rights. The advocates behind these laws argue that if nature’s rights are respected, humans will benefit.   How Do Rights of Nature Laws Differ From Environmental Regulations?   In the course of human history, environmental law is a relatively young field. In the United States, it largely developed in the late 1960s in response to mass pollution wrought by industrialization. Rivers caught fire, pervasive smog blanketed cities and chemicals like DDT were sprayed indiscriminately.   Policymakers enacted legislation like the Clean Water Act and Toxic Substances Control Act to regulate human activity and limit impacts of industry on human health. Those laws did curtail pollution. But rights of nature advocates argue that those conventional laws haven’t stopped the severe environmental problems we face today, like climate change, biodiversity loss and mass pollution.   Advocates say conventional environmental laws have a central flaw: They’re designed to permit pollution. They only control how much.   Rights of nature laws start from an entirely different place. Ecosystems, wildlife and Earth itself are treated as living beings with inherent rights deserving of the highest form of legal protection. The central concern of rights of nature laws is to maintain and preserve the integrity of ecosystems, requiring governments to take a preventative, rather than a reactionary, approach.   Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has said this mandates government officials to respect what is known as the “precautionary principle,” or the idea that, absent adequate scientific evidence, it is better to avoid certain risks that could lead to irreversible damage of ecosystems.   How Do These Laws Work in Practice?   The laws do not give nature’s rights absolute primacy over all other rights and interests. No legal right is absolute. A right to free speech ends when that speech is defamatory or incites violence. Judges balance competing rights in the decisions they make every day. Nature’s rights are no different.   Rights of nature jurisprudence is still a young field. Most countries with such laws on the books haven’t had lawsuits attempting to enforce them. It’s also important to note that not all rights of nature laws are the same—there is wide variation in how the laws are written and what rights are recognized.   But Ecuador, which constitutionalized nature’s rights in 2008, has seen dozens of cases. There, Mother Earth, or Pachamama, has a right to “integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes.”   The Ecuadorian Constitution also requires the government to prevent the “extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems, and the permanent alteration of natural cycles.”   Not all cases have been favorable for ecosystems. Ecuador’s economy is still largely dependent on oil revenues and other extractive industries.   But Ecuadorian courts have ruled in favor of mangroves, cloud forests, rivers, endangered frogs and coastal marine ecosystems, thwarting mining operations, industrial fishing and other nature-damaging activities. In some cases, courts have ordered the government to restore damaged ecosystems. Cases decided in favor of nature usually have a compelling reason for why nature’s rights ought to prevail over competing interests, like a high risk of extinction for certain species.   In the cloud forest case, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court explained the importance of protecting a sensitive ecosystem from mining impacts, saying: “The risk in this case is not necessarily related to human beings … but to the extinction of species, the destruction of ecosystems or the permanent alteration of natural cycles.”   In deciding these cases, Ecuadorian courts have depended heavily on scientific experts and evidence. Judges have also looked holistically at the health of ecosystems, rather than at piecemeal levels of pollution—a departure from the way courts tend to evaluate conventional environmental laws.   Scientists have come to the forefront of the movement in other ways. In Panama, for instance, marine biologists were instrumental in the passage of that country’s national rights of nature law.   How Are Rights of Nature Laws Enforced?   Trees and wild animals can’t walk into a courtroom and make their case. But rights of nature laws give ecosystems and species the ability to act in their own capacity under the law with help from people, similar to other non-human entities like corporations, business partnerships, ships and nonprofits.   This is done through a longstanding concept called legal personhood. That legal construct is most commonly used to allow businesses to enter into contracts, sue, be sued, own property and, in the case of corporations, limit the liability of its shareholders.   Each of those nonhuman entities is represented by a human guardian. Similar arrangements are used for minors and incapacitated people in court proceedings.   Who is behind This Movement?   Indigenous peoples have been at the forefront of the movement in several ways. The worldviews of many Indigenous cultures—that humans are part of nature and owe responsibilities to other living beings—are foundational for the movement.   Honoring and preserving those worldviews and related knowledge for centuries has been no small thing. Indigenous communities have faced a long, dark history of colonization and other attempts aimed at eradicating their culture and separating them from their territories. Today, people in many Indigenous communities are still harassed, attacked and sometimes killed for defending water and land.   Indigenous peoples have also been behind many of the laws and court rulings advancing the movement. In New Zealand, Maori people fought for a settlement with the national government, resulting in legal personhood for a river, national park and mountains.   It was Ecuador’s strong Indigenous movements that led to the country becoming the first in the world in 2008 to constitutionally recognize Mother Earth’s rights. Ecuador’s Constitutional Court has also drawn on Indigenous knowledge in deciding rights of nature cases.   Bolivia’s Indigenous movements were behind that country’s 2010 and 2012 laws recognizing the rights of Mother Earth. Enforcement of nature’s rights in Bolivia has proved difficult, however.   Across North America, many Indigenous nations have passed rights of nature laws. And in Peru, a coalition of Indigenous women won rights for the Maranon River ecosystem, a place the oil industry has heavily polluted for decades. The fight for the Maranon River came at great personal cost for Mariluz Canaquiri Murayari, president of Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana, and other women in the organization, who were harassed and threatened for their advocacy.   What are the criticisms of Rights of Nature Laws?   The biggest opposition to the movement has come from industry groups—developers, the industrial agricultural sector and other polluting industries—and politicians aligned with those interests.   Those opponents argue that giving nature a higher level of protection will impede development and lead to an explosion of litigation. In practice, that hasn’t happened. Barriers to pursuing lawsuits, like the high cost of attorney fees, are substantial.   But the laws do threaten the interests of industries and businesses that have made money off extracting from and monetizing the natural world in unsustainable ways.   Some critics of the movement have questioned whether, if nature has rights, it also has duties: Can a river be sued if it floods and harms humans? Rights of nature advocates respond to this by saying that legal rights, duties and liability are always tailored to the entity they are assigned to.   Corporations, for instance, don’t have a right to family. Nature doesn’t have the capacity to act with intent and therefore should not have legal liability for harm it causes, advocates argue.   Another prevalent charge is that the rights of nature movement is an attempt to force human societies to surrender modern comforts and technology. In practice, though, advocates have sought to rebalance human interests with the health of ecosystems by placing better guardrails around human activity, ensuring the integrity and sustainability of Earth is maintained now and into the future. Advocates argue that humanity isn’t harmed by that but benefits instead.   They also say nothing so quickly forces people to surrender modern comforts as a disaster that destroys their homes and communities, and megadisasters are far more common in a warming world.   Is the Rights of Nature just a Legal Movement?   No. Beyond the legal realm, the movement has seeped into mainstream culture, religious discourse, the arts, corporate governance, education and cultural revival.   Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, and papal exhortation Laudate Deum, said humans have a moral duty to protect the Earth. “For ‘we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it,’” Francis wrote in Laudate Deum.   Ecuadorian activists say the country’s constitutional recognition of nature’s rights has made their country more pluralistic by incorporating the worldviews of Indigenous peoples and is changing the way everyday people think about the Earth, their home.   “We now have a whole generation of young people who have grown up only knowing that nature has rights,” Ecuadorian political scientist Natalia Greene told Inside Climate News. “The law has influenced peoples’ understanding of nature and that is very powerful.”   http://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042025/introduction-to-rights-of-nature-movement http://www.garn.org/financialization-of-nature/ http://mothlife.org/ http://www.earthlawcenter.org/ http://www.clientearth.org/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20042026/rights-of-nature-defender-yuvelis-morales-blanco-goldman-prize/ http://www.goldmanprize.org/current-winners/ http://www.goldmanprize.org/issues   http://www.ipbes.net/business-impact http://www.ipbes.net/node/97532 http://ipbes.canto.de/v/IPBES12Media/ http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1y/k1yl72cx8w http://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/time-to-align-economic-practice-with-ecological-reality-the-critical-need-to-include-nature-in-macroeconomic-models/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2026/02/a-business-necessity-align-with-nature-or-risk-collapse-ipbes-report-warns/ http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/biodiversity http://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/biodiversity/ http://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/governments-must-protect-nature-or-pay-a-higher-price-for-borrowing-study-finds/   http://www.ipbes.net/nexus/media-release http://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/ipbes-nexus-report-integrated-solutions-to-address-interconnected-global-crises http://www.carbonbrief.org/ipbes-nexus-report-five-takeaways-for-biodiversity-food-water-health-and-climate/ http://www.iied.org/new-biodiversity-reports-wake-call-for-action http://www.ipbes.net/media_release/Values_Assessment_Published http://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change/media-release http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/new-global-report-on-transformative-change-for-biodiversity/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/12/transformative-change-will-save-a-planet-in-peril-ipbes/ http://sfcs.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/new-hlpe-fsn-note--tackling-climate-change--biodiversity-loss-and-land-degradation-through-the-right-to-food/en Visit the related web page
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