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"Climate change poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities… and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights."
Ms. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights,
United Nations Human Rights Council
Climate change has come to Tibet, and with it, a new and dire human rights crisis. China has begun uprooting and displacing some two million Tibetan nomads from their traditional homes on the vast grasslands of the plateau, blaming Tibet's nomads for a half-century of environmental destruction that has, in fact, been brought about by China's occupation and disastrous resource-exploitation policies across Tibet.
China's uprooting of the nomads, being carried out under the guise of plateau-wide conservation and a hedge against climate change, violates not only the nomads' fundamental human rights to control their own social, cultural and economic development. The policy also violates the nomads' human right to sustainable development, which, in this context, guarantees them the right to decide how best to adapt to climate change, a human right being discussed and articulated amidst the UN climate change negotiations.
This spring, Tibet Justice Center took the lead in a compelling new initiative, called Tibet Third Pole in order to bring the message of Tibet, climate justice, and human rights for Tibet's nomads to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Legal News aboutTibet:
Give Your Voice to Justice for Dhondup Wangchen
Dhondup Wangchen, a
Tibetan filmmaker unjustly detained in March 2008, has been charged with
"inciting separatism." His lawyers are barred from representing him, he
reportedly has been tortured while in detention, and he is in very poor
health. Please send an urgent letter to Wu Aiying, China's Minister of
Justice and Zhang Yeshui, China's Ambassador to the United Nations
calling for Dhondup Wangchen's immediate release.
China's Human Rights Lawyers: Current Challenges and Prospects The US
Congressional Executive Commission on China roundtable on Chinese human
rights lawyers.
Chinese Dissident's Defense Statement
Defense statement in the case of
Tan Zuoren, who is accused of "incitement to overthrow state power"
because of his investigation into shoddy construction in the 2008
Sichuan earthquake. Many of the compelling arguments that they make can
and should be made about Tibetan political prisoners.