A REPORT analysing the impact of fracking on human rights has said it is incompatible with human rights law obligations under numerous treaties.

Based on research by the Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR) at NUI Galway, human rights laws require a global ban on fracking.

LAMP

The report – International Human Rights Impacts of Fracking – was prepared with input from Letterbreen and Mullaghdun Partnership (LAMP) and Love Leitrim, two groups which have been fighting for the total ban of fracking.

Based on the ICHR research and its findings that the dangers posed by fracking cannot be mitigated through regulation, the students are campaigning for Ireland to sponsor a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a global ban on fracking.

Currently, there is an application by Tamboran Resources (UK) to frack in Fermanagh.

Diane Little, who has been an ardent activist in the fight to ban fracking, as well as a contributor to the report, was full of praise for its findings.

‘So grateful’

She said: “We are so grateful for the top legal team who studied the evidence closely from a human rights perspective.

“It’s beyond belief that now we have the human rights evidence, the medical evidence, and the climate evidence, [but] our elected representatives fail to move beyond talking about a [fracking] ban to removing the horrific threat we have lived with for 10 years.”

Follow Spain

“They must now move to follow Spain’s example and get a [fracking] ban into the climate bill. There is no movement at all on Sinn Féin’s bill to ban [fracking].

“It never advanced and will not before [the Tamboran] license application is moved forward.

“Given elected representatives have already allowed Fermanagh to be the sacrifice zone for cumulative accessibility in education, health and transport inequalities, it’s morally and ethically appalling to subject this community to further abuse,” she added.

Scientific eveidence

The students’ 56-page report analyses the existing scientific evidence alongside case law and other legal standards emanating from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The students’s report concludes that fracking is incompatible with states’s legal obligations to protect, respect and fulfil basic human rights, including the right to life; the right to health; the right to water; the right to food; the right to housing; the right to access to information; the right to public participation; the right to a safe, clean, and healthy environment; and the rights of marginalized persons and communities.

The report was launched at a webinar on May 24 and, based on the research and findings that the dangers posed by fracking cannot be mitigated through regulation, the students are campaigning for Ireland to sponsor a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a global ban on fracking.