In 2023 people across the globe took to the streets demanding governments protect their and future generations’ right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Listening to human rights defenders is vital to understanding the risks and harms associated with business activity and to ensuring the transition to green economies is just and benefits workers, environmental defenders and their communities.

Despite this, in 2023 the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (the Resource Centre) recorded 630 instances of attacks against people raising concerns about business-related harms, directly affecting an estimated 20,000 people. See more in our report People power under pressure: Human rights defenders & business in 2023. This is part of a consistent, ongoing pattern of attacks against HRDs protecting our rights and planet globally, with more than 5,300 attacks recorded since January 2015.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Our research is based on publicly available information and because many attacks, especially non-lethal attacks (including death threats, judicial harassment and physical violence), never make it to media sources and there remains a significant gap in government monitoring of attacks, the problem is even more severe than these figures indicate. In addition, an “attack” may be against one person named in public sources or against a large number of unidentified people, such as an instance of charges being filed against 11,000 garment workers protesting for higher wages in Bangladesh. Thus, the number of individual HRDs experiencing attacks is higher than the number of attacks mentioned here. Learn more about our research methodology.

Additional key findings include:

• Latin America and the Caribbean saw the highest number of attacks in 2023: 41% of the global total (258 attacks). Almost a third (30% or 195 attacks) took place in Asia and the Pacific.
• Over three-quarters (78%) of attacks were against people taking action to protect the climate, environmental and land rights.
• Most (86%) attacks recorded in 2023 were non-lethal attacks (death threats, judicial harassment, physical violence and others).
• We recorded 87 killings of defenders speaking out about business-related harms in 2023.
• Attacks were recorded in almost every sector, but the sectors connected with the highest number of attacks – mining (165), agribusiness (117) and oil, gas & coal (112) – are those fuelling the planetary crisis – and which have significant influence over the energy transition. They have consistently been the most dangerous sectors since 2015.
• Many attacks involve collusion between state, private sector and other non-state actors occurring in contexts where there are high levels of impunity. In 2023, direct perpetrators of attacks were largely state actors, with police and the judicial systems being the most common perpetrators, followed by the military/armed forces and state intelligence agencies.

We invited Adani Group, Anglo Asian Mining, BEST Agro International, Enel, First Quantum Minerals, Hamparan Massawit Bangun Persada (HMBP), Hindalco Industries Limited, Minera Panamá, State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd (SIPCOT), Ternium and Vedanta Resources to respond. Adani Group, Hindalco Industries Limited, Ternium and Vedanta Resources responded; their responses are available below. The other companies did not respond.