Author: Human Rights Watch

Last week marked three months since Olivier Monodji, editor of Le Pays and a correspondent for Radio France Internationale, and Mahamat Saleh Alhissein, a reporter with state broadcaster Télé Tchad, were arrested in Chad. There are other co-accused in their case. Prosecutors alleged the journalists colluded with the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary group present in Central Africa and the Sahel, and charged them with espionage, conspiracy, and endangering state security.

Part of the evidence in the case are documents that were allegedly translated from French to Arabic by Alhissein and an article by Monodji in Le Pays on the opening of a Russian cultural center.

The journalists appear to have been targeted for their perceived links to the Wagner Group, whose dealings in Chad are a sensitive topic. In 2023, media reported evidence of a plot by the mercenary group against the Chadian government. The group is actively supporting various armed groups in nearly all the surrounding countries, and Human Rights Watch has reported on how Russians thought to be from the Wagner Group have been instrumental in the authoritarian crackdown in the neighboring Central African Republic.

This week, a judge who has been investigating the case for two months reclassified the charges under article 95 of Chad’s Penal Code, which relates to sharing intelligence with agents of a foreign power and carries a sentence of one to five years’ imprisonment, and referred the accused for trial. Their detention was extended however, despite the dismissal of the more serious conspiracy and security charges. Their continued detention goes against international human rights law, which provides that defendants in general should not be held in pretrial detention, and underscores a disturbing trend toward repression. 

In the run-up to the 2024 elections, authorities targeted media houses, civil society, and opposition voices. Authorities have revoked the licenses of media outlets, banned reporting on political rallies, shut down the internet, suspended media platforms, and made legal threats to silence dissent. Succès Masra, the former prime minister and leader of Chad’s main opposition party, has been detained for nearly one month. He is accused of inciting hatred and violence through social media posts. 

Chad has been especially volatile since the death of former President Idriss Déby Itno, father of current President Mahamat Idriss Déby, in 2021, which ushered in a transitional period marked by violence, unrest, and bloodshed. Just months before the 2024 elections, a main political opponent was killed during an attack in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital.

However, none of this context justifies the prolonged detention of the journalists, which would require individualized evidence of necessity and lawful purpose. The Chadian government should uphold its commitment to due process by ensuring the men are released and guaranteed a fair trial. 

This year marks some big numbers for the European Union-China relationship: it is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations and the 40th iteration of the annual human rights dialogue, scheduled in Brussels on June 13. However, the number is closer to zero when assessing the progress that these dialogues have delivered for human rights in China.

Human Rights Watch, in a May 15 submission to the EU, reiterated its regret that the EU continues to hold a human rights dialogue with China. Along with other rights organizations, Human Rights Watch has repeatedly criticized the box-ticking nature of the exercise, in which criticism behind closed doors yields no concrete improvements.

For example, despite raising their cases for years, the EU has been unable to obtain the release of Gui Minhai, a Swedish bookseller whom Beijing arbitrarily arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison, or to receive a sign of life from Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur scholar and Sakharov Prize laureate who was sentenced to life in prison for his peaceful activism and has been denied family visits since 2017.

These cases are emblematic of the EU’s failure to meaningfully address Beijing’s repression, which has reached new peaks under Xi Jinping’s rule, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

Notably, a landmark 2022 report on Xinjiang by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found Beijing’s abusive policies against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims may amount to “international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” The EU and its member states should press the Chinese government to allow unrestricted access to the UN human rights office for a follow-up visit.

Of course, pressuring the Chinese government for human rights improvements is difficult. But by demoting human rights to a lower-level and private dialogue, the EU and its member states risk complicity in Beijing’s attempts to marginalize and delegitimize human rights. Instead, the EU should be incorporating human rights across all areas of engagement with China, particularly at high-level meetings, to break the artificial silos created by separately addressing unfair trade practices, security concerns, foreign interference, and economic security and sovereignty.

EU leaders should more forcefully raise human rights concerns during the upcoming summit and strategic dialogue, and lay out concrete consequences should Beijing fail to rein in its repression. Not doing so will be at the expense of all people in China

(Bogota) – The June 7, 2025, attack against the Colombian congressman and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay is a blow to democracy, Human Rights Watch said today.

A 15-year-old boy shot and severely injured Uribe Turbay during a campaign event in Bogota, the country’s capital. Uribe Turbay, a congressman for the right-wing party Centro Democrático, was speaking to supporters in Bogota in the lead-up to the party’s internal process for selecting its presidential candidate for the May 2026 elections. Uribe Turbay remains in critical condition.

“The attack against Miguel Uribe Turbay is a chilling reminder of the darkest chapters of political violence in Colombia,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Colombian authorities should investigate this heinous crime, avoid incendiary political rhetoric, and strengthen protections for all political candidates.”

Colombia will hold presidential elections in May 2026 to choose the successor to President Gustavo Petro, whose administration was elected on a left-wing platform. These elections come at a time when the country is facing an increased presence of illegal armed groups in many remote areas.

Violence has increased in recent years. Since 2016, homicides have increased by 20.9 percent, and kidnappings by 34.8 percent; mass forced displacements have reportedly quadrupled. Confinements – where communities are unable to move freely because of violent clashes in the area – increased more than tenfold. Colombia is the country with the highest number of human rights defenders killed worldwide, according to Frontline Defenders.

Colombia has a long history of political assassinations, which have been closely linked to waves of violence. Ahead of the 1990 elections, within less than eight months, three presidential candidates were assassinated by drug cartels and paramilitary groups: Luis Carlos Galán, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, and Carlos Pizarro Leongómez. Uribe Turbay’s own mother, the journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped in 1990 by Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord, and killed in 1991 during a failed rescue operation.

In the latest local elections, in 2023, the Electoral Observation Mission documented 176 acts of violence against candidates, including 6 assassinations.

The boy accused of shooting Uribe Turbay was apprehended a few blocks from the attack thanks to the swift response of Uribe Turbay’s bodyguard. The Attorney General’s Office and the police said at a news conference, that the Glock-type firearm used by the shooter was purchased in United States. Authorities are trying to trace how the weapon entered the country.

The Attorney General’s Office announced that its investigators and the police are gathering evidence and other elements that will help build the case and identify and prosecute both the attackers and anyone who may have ordered the attack.

Colombian authorities should urgently investigate, prosecute, and hold accountable all those involved in the attack against Uribe Turbay, Human Rights Watch said. To do so effectively, they should ensure the protection of the suspect and his family. The government and leaders from opposition political parties should abstain from sharing theories about the attack that could compromise the independence and impartiality of the investigation.

The minister of interior had convened state institutions and political parties to a national commission to guarantee security and protection of candidates. Uribe Turbay’s lawyer told media that they repeatedly requested that the National Protection Unit, the state entity in charge of security details, strengthen the candidate’s security details, but that those requests were denied. Political leaders and other potential candidates have called on the government to guarantee protection for all candidates as the campaign proceeds.

Authorities should take effective steps to guarantee the safety of all presidential candidates ahead of the 2026 elections, Human Rights Watch said. This includes reassessing the risk levels and protection plans for every candidate, strengthening intelligence capabilities of security forces, improving coordination between institutions, and ensuring that rapid response mechanisms are in place.

Creating a safe and democratic electoral process will also require commitment to lower inflammatory rhetoric and reject hate speech that fuels polarization. This responsibility lies with the highest levels of the Colombian government, starting with President Gustavo Petro himself, and with all political parties and presidential candidates.

“Ensuring that every candidate can campaign free from fear or violence is essential to safeguarding Colombia’s democracy,” Goebertus said. “Colombia’s political leaders need to defend peaceful political participation and refrain from using hate speech that can incite political violence and put lives at risk.”

(Bangkok) – A Thai civilian court’s conviction of two army instructors for the beating death of a conscript is the first successful prosecution under Thailand’s 2022 prevention of torture law, Human Rights Watch said today. The case highlights the need for the Thai government to punish military commanders’ use of torture and corporal punishment against soldiers under their command.

On May 27, 2025, the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases in Rayong province found two army instructors guilty in the death of Pvt. Worapratch Phadmasakul and sentenced them to 15 and 20 years in prison. Eleven senior conscripts face 10-year prison terms for assisting the crime. These are the first convictions under Thailand’s Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, which took effect on February 22, 2023.

“The court conviction of army instructors for a conscript’s death is a major step in Thailand’s efforts to end torture and inhumane disciplinary measures against soldiers in barracks,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Appropriate sentences will chip away at the Thai military’s entrenched impunity and show that commanders can be held accountable.”

Worapratch, 18, died after being severely beaten during disciplinary punishment on August 2, 2024 at the 3rd Infantry Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment in Chonburi province near Bangkok. Medical reports showed he suffered brain swelling, broken ribs, a punctured lung, fractured collarbone, and spinal injuries.

Worapratch’s family said in a media interview that they planned to appeal the verdict, believing the instructors should receive a harsher sentence, up to life in prison. They also said that military superiors overseeing the instructors should be prosecuted for failing to take necessary measures to prevent the brutal beating of their son. The family plans to file a civil lawsuit against the army to seek compensation for damages.

The armed forces induct about 50,000 personnel – voluntary recruits and by conscription – across Thailand each year. Abuse of conscripts in barracks remains pervasive, despite the Thai military’s repeated statements that corporal punishment is strictly forbidden.

The Thai government and armed forces have long shown an inability to end abuses against conscripts. In addition, Thai military officials implicated in serious abuses have at times brought criminal defamation or cybercrime lawsuits against their accusers in retaliation.

In November 2024, the United Nations Committee against Torture, which monitors state compliance with the Convention Against Torture, expressed concern over torture and ill-treatment, in some cases resulting in death, of conscripts in Thailand. Worapratch’s case is one of the 21 deaths of conscripts reported between 2009 and 2024. Three of these cases, including Worapratch’s, occurred after the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act took effect.

The prevention of torture law carries penalties of up to life in prison, and creates a new path to prosecute military personnel by giving jurisdiction to the civilian Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases.

A superior officer who knows that a person under their command is about to or has committed an offense, but fails to take necessary or reasonable measures within their power to prevent the crime or investigate and prosecute those responsible, is liable for half of the penalty for the offense.

Thai authorities should carry out effective investigations of all deaths of conscripts and prosecute those responsible under the prevention of torture law and in accordance with Thailand’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture, which Thailand ratified in 2007, Human Rights Watch said.

“Thailand needs to take swift action to show that there is no place in its armed forces for those who believe they have unchecked powers to abuse conscripts or anyone else,” Pearson said. “The government and military commanders should act to ensure that Private Worapatch’s death will be the last case of barrack brutality in Thailand.”

A federal court has allowed Jackson, the Blackest major city in the US, to pursue claims that the state of Mississippi is trying to strip away control of its airport for racially discriminatory reasons.

Last week, US District Court Judge Carlton Reeves denied the state’s latest attempt to dismiss Jackson’s lawsuit, clearing the way for a case that could expose how some state governments undermine Black political power through seemingly race-neutral laws.

Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport generates millions in revenue and creates thousands of jobs in the Jackson area. It is one of the city’s largest economic assets and a point of community pride. Local taxpayers and their elected leaders, the majority of whom are Black, have built and operated the airport for decades. The state government and its majority-white legislature appear poised to seize control.

In 2016, Mississippi’s majority-white legislature passed a law that would abolish Jackson’s majority-Black elected airport authority and replace it with an appointed board, selected by state officials who are all white. Jackson sued the state legislature, arguing the state takeover of the airport would violate the equal protection clause of the US Constitution, which prohibits racial discrimination. A federal judge ruled in May that Jackson has legal standing, meaning the city gets to make its case in court.

Mississippi has not elected a Black person to statewide office in more than 130 years, despite Black people making up nearly 38 percent of the state population. Jackson, the state capital, is where Black Mississippians find the greatest opportunities to win election to office.

Mississippi has previously proposed “reforms” that strip political power from Black voters and elected officials. In 2023, the state legislature passed a pair of laws targeting Jackson. The state created appointed courts answerable only to state officials and expanded a state police force with a record of violence. It removed both systems from local accountability, diluting the voices of Black voters. The airport takeover attempt predates the recent laws but is part of the same trend.

In its May 23 ruling, the federal court found Jackson alleges justiciable injuries from what it called the state’s “allegedly racist conduct.” It noted the city has been singled out for treatment to which no other cities in Mississippi are subject. The court wrote, the injuries alleged are “concrete,” not hypothetical.

Jackson is now preparing to argue the 2016 airport takeover law is a form of racial discrimination, even though it is seemingly race-neutral. The city will rely on the US Constitution’s equal protection clause, which the court noted was created in the aftermath of the Civil War to protect newly emancipated Black Americans from discrimination.

• Libya’s fragmented justice sector is marred by serious due process violations and laws that violate international norms. The judiciary is unwilling and unable to meaningfully investigate serious crimes.
• Violations of the magnitude and persistence documented in Libya reflect the chronic shortcomings of Libya’s judicial institutions. Tackling structural institutional dysfunction, including within the judiciary, is a prerequisite to overcoming impunity.
• Libya should pursue comprehensive reform, respect fair trial standards and due process rights, assume control over all detention facilities, release all those held arbitrarily, end military trial of civilians, and arrest and surrender suspects wanted by the International Criminal Court.

(Beirut) – Libya’s fragmented justice sector is suppressing fundamental freedoms and obstructing accountability for abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Libyan authorities should urgently pursue sweeping judicial overhaul, reform repressive legislation, and arrest and surrender suspects on its territory wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The 39-page report, “Injustice By Design: Need for Comprehensive Justice Reform in Libya,” documents how outdated and repressive legislation, lack of fair trial rights, and rampant due process violations urgently need reform. Unsafe conditions for judicial staff, abusive military trials of civilians, and inhumane conditions in prisons compound abuses and entrench impunity. 

“By failing to address long-standing judicial reform needs, Libyan authorities are turning their back on justice and letting impunity prevail,” said Hanan Salah, associate Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Recent deadly militia clashes in the capital, Tripoli, and the lack of adequate justice mechanisms to address abuses and violations should be a wake-up call for urgent reform.”

Libya’s tumultuous political transition remains stalled as two rival entities compete for control of territory and resources amid rising repression and armed confrontations. The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) together with affiliated armed groups and security agencies control most of western Libya, while the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, their affiliated security apparatuses, and an administrative entity control eastern and southern Libya. The Presidential Council operates out of Tripoli and is backed by armed groups. 

Recent violence and the discovery of a new mass grave underscore the need for judicial accountability, Human Rights Watch said. Heavy fighting between armed groups and quasi-state forces in the Libyan capital between May 12-14, 2025, resulted in civilian casualties and the destruction of homes and cars. After the clashes, GNU authorities said they discovered 53 unidentified bodies in a hospital morgue and a previously unknown unmarked grave site containing at least nine unidentified bodies of men and women.

Human Rights Watch found that Libya’s justice sector is marked by fragmentation and deep political polarization. The judiciary is unwilling and unable to conduct meaningful investigations into serious violations and international crimes. 

Key judicial institutions, including the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Judicial Council, the Supreme Court, and the Prosecutor General’s Office, are in deep conflict. A newly established Supreme Constitutional Court in Benghazi may compete with the Supreme Court in Tripoli, risking a constitutional crisis and conflicting rulings. 

Libya’s penal code and related legislation are outdated, do not address international crimes, and require comprehensive reform to bring them in line with its international human rights obligations. Domestic legislation includes repressive and abusive provisions from the era of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, including laws providing for the death penalty, lashings, and amputation of limbs. Many laws issued since 2011 limit freedoms and contravene international law. 

Fair trial and due process rights are not respected in Libya. Military courts in the east and west continue to prosecute civilians under the guise of “terrorism” related crimes. Lawyers face barriers to meeting with clients, a lack of notice around hearing schedules, and a lack of access to court documents. Video hearings are increasingly common and undermine detainees’ rights when used exclusively.

Both Libyans and non-Libyans are routinely held in long-term arbitrary detention. Armed groups and quasi-state forces control detention facilities notorious for inhumane conditions for migrants, asylum seekers, and Libyan nationals alike. They do not always comply with release orders and court summonses of detainees. Torture, ill-treatment, and overcrowding are rampant and well-documented. 

Legal professionals, defendants, and witnesses in Libya have faced attacks, intimidation, and harassment as the authorities do not provide them with adequate physical protection.

The United Nations Security Council referred the situation in Libya to the ICC prosecutor in 2011 and the Office of the Prosecutor opened an investigation into serious international crimes committed in Libya since February 15, 2011. Eight people subject to public ICC arrest warrants remain at large. 

Libyan authorities should cooperate with the ICC, including by promptly arresting and surrendering to the court everyone on Libyan territory subject to ICC arrest warrants, such as Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Osama Elmasry Njeem, both wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

In November 2023, the ICC prosecutor announced that his office planned “to complete investigative activities” in the Libya situation by the end of 2025. On May 12, 2025, the Libyan government submitted a declaration to the ICC accepting the court’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in Libya from 2011 to the end of 2027. The Office of the Prosecutor should reassess the time frame for completion to ensure the adequate delivery of its mandate. The office should also engage with Libyan authorities to strengthen the domestic criminal justice system by addressing structural deficiencies, Human Rights Watch said. 

International law requires states to provide a fair hearing before a legally constituted, competent, independent, and impartial judicial body, a trial without undue delay, and a right to appeal to a higher judicial body. Defendants must be granted full access to a lawyer, adequate time to prepare their defense, and the ability to challenge evidence and arguments against them. 

Detention is subject to strict due process and authorities must promptly charge or release a person, promptly present them before a judge to rule on the legality of detention, and provide regular opportunities to challenge the lawfulness of detention. Trying civilians in military courts is incompatible with the right to a fair trial under international human rights law.

Libyan authorities should repeal all laws that violate international law and Libya’s Constitutional Declaration. They should lay the groundwork for comprehensive legislative reform in consultation with legal scholars and domestic and international civic groups, amend the penal code to criminalize grave international crimes, ensure fair trial standards and due process rights, assume genuine control over all detention facilities, ensure humane treatment of detainees, release all those held in arbitrary detention, and end military trials of civilians. 

“Violations of the magnitude and persistence we are documenting in Libya do not occur in a vacuum, but rather reflect the chronic shortcomings of Libya’s judicial institutions,” Salah said. “Tackling the structural institutional dysfunction, including within the judiciary, is a prerequisite to overcoming impunity.”

Earlier this month, Sharifa Madrakhimova’s passport was tampered with and destroyed, preventing her from traveling abroad to accept an award honoring her work defending human rights in Uzbekistan. Shortly afterward, Abdurakhmon Tashanov, another prominent rights defender, was ordered to pay several thousand dollars in a civil defamation case for an innocuous Facebook post.

While the two cases aren’t connected, each exemplifies the kind of retaliation activists in Uzbekistan can face for doing important and increasingly difficult human rights work.

Tashanov is the head of Ezgulik Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, one of a few registered human rights organizations in Uzbekistan. He uses his popular Facebook page to report on rights violations in the country. 

On February 28, 2025, Tashanov posted a response to two Tashkent State Law University lecturers who had accused him of undermining public trust in Uzbekistan’s judiciary. The lecturers sued, and on May 23, a court ordered Tashanov to pay the plaintiffs 50 million soums (approx. US$4,000) for “discrediting their honor, dignity, and professional reputation,” and to take down the post and issue a public apology.

Madrakhimova, meanwhile, is a rights defender and journalist who monitors and reports on rights issues in Uzbekistan ranging from labor rights to social issues. She is one of five recipients of this year’s Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk and planned to attend the awards ceremony in Dublin.

Madrakhimova sent her passport away as part of the visa process, only to later receive it back in a sealed envelope, its biometric chip destroyed by fire. She tried to secure a new passport before the May 22 ceremony, but to no avail.

This is not the first time Tashanov or Madrakhimova has faced harassment for their human rights activism. Other activists in Uzbekistan are behind bars or locked up in forced psychiatric detention. 

Uzbek authorities should take these incidents seriously. Tashanov should get a fair appeal and authorities should uphold his right to freedom of expression. Authorities should also investigate how Madrakhimova’s passport was destroyed and hold those responsible to account. 

They, like all human rights activists and journalists in Uzbekistan, should be free to carry out their work without fear of harassment or retaliation.

(Beirut) – The de facto Houthi authorities in Yemen should immediately and unconditionally release dozens of staff from the United Nations and Yemeni and international civil society organizations who were arbitrarily detained over the course of the past year, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today. The Houthis’ arbitrary arrests of humanitarian workers have a direct impact on the delivery of lifesaving assistance to people in critical need of aid.

Starting on May 31, 2024, the Houthis carried out a series of raids in areas under their control, arbitrarily detaining 13 UN staff and at least 50 staff from Yemeni and international civil society organizations. Between January 23 and 25, 2025, the Houthis caried out another wave of arrests, arbitrarily detaining an additional eight UN staff members. The arrests prompted the UN to announce in January that it would suspend all official movements into and within areas under Houthi control. 

“It is shocking that most of these UN and civil society staff have now spent almost a year in arbitrary detention for simply doing their work in providing medical and food assistance or promoting human rights, peace, and dialogue,” said Diala Haidar, Yemen researcher at Amnesty International. “They should have never been arrested in the first place.”

Governments with influence on the Houthis and the UN leadership should step up efforts to secure the release of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) and UN staff.

The Houthis have released only 7 people: 1 UN staff member, 5 staff of nongovernmental groups, and 1 staff member of a diplomatic mission. At least 50 others rounded up by the Houthis over the past year remain detained without adequate access to lawyers or their families, and without charge.

On February 11, an aid worker from the World Food Programme died in Houthi custody. His death heightens fears for the safety and well-being of others who remain arbitrarily detained in Houthi-run detention centers, given the Houthis’ track record of torture and other ill-treatment against detainees.

These brutal waves of arrests have also exacerbated an already desperate humanitarian situation in Yemen because many of those arrested were working to provide assistance or protection to those most in need in northern Yemen, the organizations said. The Houthis need to immediately free everyone arbitrarily detained.

On February 10, the UN announced that it had suspended all its activities in Saada in response to the Houthis’ detention of six of its humanitarian workers there in January. 

The Houthis’ arrests are part of a wider ongoing attack on civic space in areas they control. These arrests were also accompanied by a Houthi-led media campaign accusing humanitarian organizations and their staff of “conspiring” against the country’s interests through their projects and warning them of the dangers of “espionage.”

Since 2015, Amnesty International has documented scores of cases in which Houthi authorities appeared to have brought spying charges to persecute political opponents and silence peaceful dissent.

Local and international civil society organizations play a critical role in alleviating Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. Despite drastic funding cuts from donor states, particularly the US, that are putting the health and human rights of millions of people in Yemen at risk, aid workers on the ground are delivering lifesaving assistance and protection services, including in Houthi-controlled territories of Yemen. 

Houthi authorities have targeted human rights and humanitarian workers before. Four Yemeni staff members from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) arrested in 2021 and 2023 remain arbitrarily detained and have been held incommunicado since their arrest. In September 2023, Houthis arrested Hisham al-Hakimi, the safety and security director at Save the Children, and held him incommunicado. He died on October 25, 2023, while arbitrarily detained. 

“The Houthis need to facilitate the work of humanitarian workers and the movement of aid,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “All countries with influence, as well as the United Nations and civil society organizations, should use all the tools at their disposal to urge the release of those arbitrarily detained and to provide support to their family members.” 

In June 2024, the EU adopted a groundbreaking law requiring large companies to respect human rights and the environment throughout their global value chains. It also introduced new plans to limit CO2 emissions.

The law, known as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), signaled a major shift for companies from voluntary standards to being held legally accountable. The law was part of the European Green Deal, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s flagship project to make the EU more sustainable and climate neutral by 2050.

A year later, von der Leyen has made a U-turn. Under the guise of “simplification” she’s advanced a sweeping Omnibus proposal that would strip the CSDDD of its most important elements. This proposal contradicts her earlier promise to “maintain the content” of this law. It would eliminate company liability for harm, scrap the requirement for due diligence across the whole supply chain, and weaken implementation of companies’ climate mitigation plans. Industry lobby groups – who have characterized the EU’s sustainability policies as red tape gone wild – appear to have played a major role in pushing for these changes.

Yet on May 29, the German city of Aachen plans to honor von der Leyen with the prestigious Karlspreis award, partly for the “impetus she has given to the Green Deal”. The timing could not be more ironic: she’s now dismantling one of the Green Deal’s most meaningful achievements.

This rollback couldn’t come at a worse time. Serious human rights abuses – such as life-threatening working conditions, child labor, and toxic pollution – are all too common in global supply chains. That’s why community leaders, human rights groups, trade unions, and businesses spent years advocating in favor of the EU supply chains law.

To live up to the award and the vision of leadership it celebrates, von der Leyen must change course. A German civil society coalition will be in Aachen protesting and calling for just that. Upholding the original EU supply chain law would show von der Leyen hasn’t forgotten the values and goals that brought it to life, and that she’s still committed to leading Europe toward a greener, fairer future.

Last week, the United States Congress passed a sweeping rollback of crucial pollution control standards. The resolution cancels a Biden-era rule guaranteeing continued emissions controls on facilities emitting substantial amounts of seven “super-toxics,” including lead compounds, arsenic, mercury, and benzene. If signed into law by President Donald Trump, this move will likely cause substantial harm to the health of people in vulnerable communities and set back broader progress towards realizing a healthier environment for all.

According to the National Resources Defense Council, these super-toxics are the “most dangerous, persistent, bioaccumulative hazardous air pollutants that the law controls.” Even at extremely low levels, they can cause serious health harms including cancer and developmental disorders. Maternal and reproductive health is particularly at risk, as pregnant people and fetuses are extremely sensitive to these poisons.

The bill allows over 1,800 industrial facilities to dispense with strict emissions controls that had been mandated by rule and ignore currently required air pollution monitoring and reporting.

The bill also undermines decades of work by environmental and public health civil servants in the US government working to implement the Clean Air Act and protect human health. And the damage may not be easily undone, as the Congressional Review Act—the authority Congress is invoking to roll back these rules—prohibits the executive from issuing new rules that are “substantially similar” to any that Congress strikes down using the act.

People across the US are at risk from this bill, but its impacts may be felt mostly by communities already facing the worst effects of air pollution because they live near high-polluting industry. A 2024 Human Rights Watch report on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley showed how the government’s failure to properly regulate air toxics-producing industry causes disproportionate health damage to Black communities. President Trump should not sign this disastrous resolution.