Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Colombia: Activists under Threat in their Fight for a Just Socio-Ecological Transition

In this paper, we analyze why and how a specific transition process, the implementation of the peace between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP guerrilla group since 2016, paradoxically led to an increase in levels of violence against Environmental Human Rights Defenders (EHRD). EHRD, which, depending on definitions, comprise human rights defenders, social leaders and environmental and indigenous activists, often fight simultaneously for political, cultural, social, economic and environmental rights. In post-conflict settings, they play an important role for building a lasting and more sustainable peace by mending the relationship between people and the natural environment. Colombia, despite the expectation of a more peaceful future following the 2016 peace agreement, is the most dangerous country for EHRD globally. Almost seven years into the agreement, the country has re-entered a new phase of conflict between different pre-existing and new armed groups, criminal gangs and the state. In departments like Putumayo, Nariño, Antioquia, and Cauca, assassinations of EHRD have become commonplace. We seek to understand and interpret this counter-intuitive development through Fraser’s theory of social justice that stresses the need for integrated measures to address economic, political and cultural injustices in parallel. The theory argues that a focus on correcting cultural misrecognition and political misrepresentation of vulnerable groups may, paradoxically, mask or facilitate further injustices, if that focus is not matched by sufficient efforts to address economic maldistribution. We divide our analysis according to two major presidencies and their key peace and justice narratives: the conservative administration of Iván Duque (2018-22) with its focus on ‘peace through legality’, and the ‘total peace’ approach of Gustavo Petro’s left-leaning government (since August 2022). Drawing on data from secondary sources, ethnographic interviews, and analyses of relevant policies and laws, we show that, particularly during the Duque presidency, the fate of EHRD was indeed marked by a considerable imbalance in justice priorities – but also that, despite cultural and political protection efforts by the new Petro administration, this imbalance keeps continuing until present. EHRD, thus, find themselves caught in precarious roles between cultural recognition on the one hand, and economic abandonment on the other. The latter implies new forms of economic maldistribution that have emerged or solidified in Colombia since the signing of the peace agreement. These are driven by new extractvism of energy transition metals (ETMs, especially copper) as well as illicit economies (especially the growing influx of drug cartels in formerly inaccessible areas) and respective global trade flows. The resulting maldistributions materialize in further land grabbing, displacement of local populations, and increased violence against EHRDs. Finally, we call attention to comparative lessons learned and overarching challenges to the effective protection of EHRD, in Colombia and beyond. As long as efforts to address different types of (in-)justice are not balanced and integrated further, such protection efforts will remain insufficient at best. As the Colombian case shows, the lack of holistic programmes that connect domestic and global structures of violence and exploitation (of people and nature) will continuously make it impossible to achieve ‘total peace’.