Märta Elisabeth Rehn is a Finnish former politician and diplomat. She served as the Minister of Defence of Finland during 1990 to 1995 and as an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations during 1998 to 1999. She was also a member of the Finnish Parliament and parliamentary leader of the Swedish People's Party of Finland,and a member of the European Parliament.
The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states,which include:all six states from the South South geopolitical zone,one state (Ondo) from South West geopolitical zone and two states from South East geopolitical zone.
The Ogonis are a people in the Rivers South East senatorial district of Rivers State,in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria. They number just over 2 million and live in a 1,050-square-kilometre (404-square-mile) homeland which they also refer to as Ogoniland. They share common oil-related environmental problems with the Ijaw people of the Niger Delta.
Manfred Nowak is an Austrian human rights lawyer,who served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture from 2004 to 2010. He is Secretary General of the European Inter-University Center for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) in Venice,Italy;Professor of International Human Rights and Scientific Director of the Vienna Master of Arts in Human Rights and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights and a former judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2016,he was appointed Independent Expert leading the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.
The current conflict in the Niger Delta first arose in the early 1990s over tensions between foreign oil corporations and a number of the Niger Delta's minority ethnic groups who feel they are being exploited,particularly the Ogoni and the Ijaw. Ethnic and political unrest continued throughout the 1990s despite the return to democracy and the election of the Obasanjo government in 1999. Struggle for oil wealth and environmental harm over its impacts has fueled violence between ethnic groups,causing the militarization of nearly the entire region by ethnic militia groups,Nigerian military and police forces,notably the Nigerian Mobile Police. The violence has contributed to Nigeria's ongoing energy supply crisis by discouraging foreign investment in new power generation plants in the region.
Environmental issues in the Niger Delta are caused by its petroleum industry. The delta covers 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi) within wetlands of 70,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi) formed primarily by sediment deposition. Home to 20 million people and 40 different ethnic groups,this floodplain makes up 7.5% of Nigeria's total land mass. It is the largest wetland and maintains the third-largest drainage basin in Africa. The Delta's environment can be broken down into four ecological zones:coastal barrier islands,mangrove swamp forests,freshwater swamps,and lowland rainforests. Fishing and farming are the main sources of livelihoods for majority of her residents.
Philip Geoffrey Alston is an Australian international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law,and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. In human rights law,Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades,including United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,summary or arbitrary executions,a position he held from August 2004 to July 2010,and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from 2014-2020.
The Warri Crisis was a series of conflicts in Delta State,Nigeria between 1997 and 2003 between the Itsekiri,the Ijaw,and the Urhobo ethnic groups. Over 200,000 people were displaced by the Warri conflict between 1999 and 2006. Over 700,000 people were displaced during this period by violence in Delta State overall.
Martin Scheinin is an international law scholar who served as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism in 2005–2011. He was selected for this position after serving for eight years (1997–2004) as member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee,the independent expert body monitoring states' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. While on the committee,he was known as a defendant of the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples and opponent of capital punishment,as well as the drafter of the committee's General Comment No. 29 on states of emergency.
Edidi is a town located in the Isin Local Government Area of Kwara State,Nigeria. The Edidi town comprises three villages:Edidi Oja,Edidi Oke-Ona and Edidi Idera. Edidi is located about 400 km (250 mi) northeast of Lagos and about 53 km (33 mi) south of Ilorin.
Pablo de Greiff is a Colombian academic and a human rights activist,who served as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth,justice,reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. In January 2015 he was also asked to be part of UNIIB,a United Nations mission of Independent Experts to address the situation in Burundi. From 2019 to 2020 he was part of a group of experts advising the UN Human Rights Council on its preventive functions. Since 2014 he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice of the School of Law at New York University,where he directs both the Transitional Justice Program and the Prevention Project.
Kingsley Kuku is a Nigerian political and environmental rights activist,the special adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria on Niger Delta Affairs and the chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
François Crépeau,is a Canadian lawyer and Full Professor at the Faculty of Law at McGill University,as well as a former Director of the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.
Onigu Otite was a Nigerian sociologist. He was among the first set of students to attend the first indigenous Nigerian university - University of Nigeria,Nsukka. He wrote several books including The Urhobo People,On the Path of Progress,Ethnic Pluralism and Ethnic Conflicts in Nigeria, and Introduction to Sociology which he co-authored with William Ogionwo. The Urhobo Studies Association USA Chapter regard him as one of the earliest Urhobo scholars to focus attention on the culture and history of the Urhobo People of the Niger Delta.
Ogaga Ifowodo is a Nigerian lawyer,scholar,poet,columnist/public commentator and human rights activist. He was awarded the 1998 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award,given to writers "anywhere in the world who have fought courageously in the face of adversity for the right to freedom of expression.
Obadiah Mailafia born on was a Nigerian development economist and the 2019 Nigeria Presidential election Candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC). He was a former official of the African Development Bank Group and one-time Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). He was also the Chief of Staff of the African,Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP),the 79-nation multilateral development institution based in Brussels,Belgium.
David Aworawo is a Nigerian Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies,and the Head of the Department of History and Strategic Studies,University of Lagos,Nigeria. He specializes in strategic studies,international relations,political history and development studies. He has published widely in the areas of African politics and international relations.
Joy Ngozi Ezeilo is a Nigerian legal scholar. She founded Women Aid Collective (WACOL),Tamar Sexual Assault Referral Centre and the West African Women’s Rights Coalition (WAWORC). Professor Ezeilo is an activist and a scholar. She is the 2019 winner of the National Human Rights Award in Nigeria and recipient of the National Honour of Officer of the Order of Niger (OON) for her activism and contribution to human development. She is currently the Deputy Chairperson of the African Women’s Leadership Network (AWLN) Nigerian chapter and also a Member of the Enugu State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality and Extra-Judicial Killings. She was honored as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2022.
The mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights was established in 1995 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
