The Geneva Declaration is the founding document of the Zero Tolerance Initiative, launched in 2019 by Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant and rural communities, and human rights and environmental defenders. It outlines urgent recommendations for governments, companies, and investors to address the escalating violence against land and environmental defenders—violence that has resulted in the killing of more than 1,700 defenders over the past decade.

 

The Declaration identifies root causes such as systemic corruption, impunity, corporate abuse, militarisation, and the failure of existing protection mechanisms to uphold collective rights. Crucially, it places defenders and communities at the center of the solutions, calling for structural change to end these attacks and ensure accountability across global supply chains.

 

The ZTI network was established to bring the Geneva Declaration to life—to advance its recommendations and work toward ending attacks and killings of defenders linked to global supply chains.

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"We, representatives of indigenous peoples, rural and Afro-descendent organisations and communities, defenders of human rights and the global environment, have gathered in Geneva with the support of our allies and partner organisations to exchange views, share experiences and put forward proposals for actions targeting the causes of the violence we and our communities suffer."