Richard Pearshouse

Amnesty International

Jul 2, 2019

Richard Pearshouse is a human rights practitioner, researcher, and advocate, focusing on the intersection of environment, conflict, and human rights. He is currently Head of Crisis and the Environment at Amnesty International, where he addresses environmental issues and crises in conflict-affected settings around the world. He holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in Australia, and a Master of Arts in Development Studies from the Universitat Jaume I in Spain. Prior to his position at Amnesty International, he worked as the Associate Director of the Environment and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. He has also worked for human rights NGOs in Canada, East Timor, Guatemala and El Salvador.

At Amnesty International, Richard oversees work on  how the environment is impacted by armed conflict (and protections available to prevent these harms) as well as how environmental factors can contribute to conflict. He also works on human rights issues in disaster contexts. One of Richard’s recent research projects investigated attacks by the Islamic State on agricultural infrastructure in Iraq, looking at how Islamic State sabotaged irrigation wells and deliberately targeted farming infrastructure by burning orchards and looting livestock and machinery. The research identified which international legal provisions were violated, and brought attention to the urgent need for the national government and international community to support reconstruction in rural areas. This project is an example of the way human rights advocacy—specifically for the rights of victims of war crimes, as well as the rights to food and water, and the rights to a safe return of internally displaced people, and those dependent on natural resources in these areas—intersects with increased environmental protections during conflict and better recovery efforts afterward.  

Richard’s innovative work also addresses the ways in which human rights frameworks can be applied to complex environmental issues to mitigate the harm from future conflicts. He explains: “Current situations demand that we innovate traditional human rights frameworks in order to capture new dynamics and stay relevant to changes in the world. To give one example: traditional human rights approaches tend to establish  past wrongs and demand redress. That’s crucial, but one of the more interesting challenges is anticipating where crises might develop and employing a rights framework to have a preventative or mitigative impact. In our crisis work we need to be anticipating the acts of violence, the killings, the grave rights abuses, not just calling for justice and demanding accountability after they occur.” One illustration is Amnesty International’s recent engagement on illegal land seizures and logging in the Brazilian Amazon in order to better protect Indigenous communities from conflict and violence. The investigations and advocacy began in the wet season, before the dry season when land seizures and logging intensify.

Coming to environmental peacebuilding through the lens of human rights, Richard stresses the importance of ensuring accountability. He says, “The challenge for us all is to ensure the collective promise of our research is realized on the ground, in concrete ways that makes lives better for people and communities affected by environmental conflicts. I am keen to push firmly for accountability – to ensure that when environmental harms are not reduced, and legal obligations are violated, there is some sort of holding to account for that. Accountability is a key human rights principle, to ensure justice is done, but it’s also a broad tent: accountability can also take place in the court of public opinion, or ensuring that the historical record is precise and accurate, or that there is non-repetition of environmental harms in the future.” By addressing accountability within the goals shared between human rights and environmental law frameworks, Richard’s work contributes to and expands the scope of environmental peacebuilding.