Between Recognition and Omission: Rethinking the Protection Framework for Environmental Defenders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo recently adopted a necessary national legal system on the protection of human rights defenders, which now complements the Protection and Responsibility of Human Rights Defenders law and its ministerial implementing decree of 2024. Provincial protection frameworks were adopted earlier in provincial edicts in South Kivu in 2016 and North Kivu in 2019. The combination of these instruments creates a good prospect for a legal architecture. Nevertheless, a critical gap exists, as none of these laws directly acknowledge or safeguard environmental human rights activists, despite compounding threats related to escalating environmental disputes in the extractive sector, conservation areas, and land control. This study argues that the lack of express consideration of environmental human rights defenders in national and provincial tools cripples the system of protection and renders it incompatible with international norms that enhance the right to defend the environment. To determine the gaps in the Congolese legal texts and environmental governance realities, this study takes into account ecological governance realities on legal norms and recommendations for reforms, such as explicit recognition, customized protective measures, legal framework harmonization, strengthening institutional mandates, and integrating native perspectives.