Submission on the Challenges and Threats Facing Climate Defenders To the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association Human Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide input on the challenges and risks facing climate defenders for the upcoming report by the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. While recognizing that climate defenders face threats in countries all over the world, we have chosen in this submission to focus largely on incidents and trends that we have documented in our prior research, namely in Brazil, France, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, and Uganda, including the experiences of Indigenous peoples, women, and children.