Armenia must adopt anti-SLAPP legislation, says Anahit Manasyan

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Anahit Manasyan spoke at a high-level dialogue entitled “Human Rights-Based Action for Biodiversity: Opportunities and Challenges”, held at Armenia’s pavilion in COP17’s Blue Zone.

According to a statement from the Human Rights Defender’s Office, the discussion, organised jointly by the Armenian presidency and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, aimed to explore the relationship between human rights and biodiversity conservation, as well as the opportunities and challenges involved in integrating human rights-based approaches into environmental policies.

In her remarks, Manasyan stressed that, despite progress, Armenia continued to face several challenges in ensuring the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

These concerned both public participation and access to justice in environmental matters, as well as specific issues within the sector. In particular, she addressed building demolition carried out in violation of established standards, which significantly affects air pollution levels, noise exceeding permissible limits, and rights-related and other problems in the mining sector.

Manasyan also highlighted the need for protection mechanisms against strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), stressing that Armenia needed to adopt anti-SLAPP legislation and develop appropriate mechanisms for that purpose.

She also gave examples of how she had raised the issue during the development and implementation of domestic policies and at various international forums.

“For effective human rights protection, it is important that people’s needs, rights and legitimate interests are taken into account in decision-making. The development and implementation of environmental policies must also ensure public participation, access to information and effective protection mechanisms,” Manasyan said.

She noted that public participation in environmental matters requires both access to information and opportunities for people’s views and proposals to be heard and duly considered in decision-making. Various problems persist in this area. The involvement of women, young people and local communities is also important for public participation.

The Human Rights Defender also discussed the low level of public awareness of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, outlining the extensive work her institution had launched and the activities already undertaken.

Other participants in the high-level dialogue included Armenian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Robert Abisoghomonyan; Panama’s Environment Minister Juan Carlos Navarro; Astrid Puentes Riaño, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; and Sefa Tauli, Policy Co-Coordinator of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network.

The Human Rights Defender emphasises the importance of consistently integrating human rights protection principles into environmental policies and ensuring that everyone’s rights and interests are duly considered when decisions on biodiversity conservation are made and implemented.