Islamabad, March 11, 2026/ Speakers at a panel discussion held here on the sidelines of the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council unanimously urged the international community, especially the United Nations, to recognize the fact that sustainable climate action requires restoring the political capacity of oppressed peoples.
The panel discussion titled “Climate Justice, Human Rights and the Right to Self-Determination: An Intersectional Framework” brought together environmental experts, international human rights defenders and legal scholars from across the world including Altaf Hussain Wani, Chairman, Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR); Ecologist Talha Tufail Bhatti from the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS); Abdul Rahman, Research Associate at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CiSS) AJK; and Advocate Parvez Shah, Secretary General of the All Parties Freedom Conference (APHC). The discussion was moderated by Ghulam Muhammad Safi, APHC Conference Coordinator
Participants at this event discussed how denial of the right to self-determination exacerbates climate vulnerability in disputed territories such as Jammu and Kashmir.
In his opening remarks, Ghulam Muhammad Safi, who moderated the event, framed the conversation around the multi-layered vulnerabilities of people in the occupied territories.
He said the climate crisis does not occur in a vacuum. “When military occupation deprives people of their right to self-determination, it simultaneously strips them of the ability to protect their environments,” he said, adding that climate justice cannot be achieved without addressing structural violence and political domination.
Emphasizing the legal foundations linking environmental sovereignty to human rights, Altaf Hussain Wani, President of KIIR, said, “Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guarantees peoples the right to pursue their economic, social and cultural development freely.
He said that when an area is under military occupation, this right is systematically violated.
Likewise, he noted that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are suffering Indian The occupation cannot determine their political status nor can they decide how to manage their glaciers, forests or water resources in the face of catastrophic climate change.
On this occasion, environmental researcher Talha Tufail Bhatti presented a detailed analysis of the fragility of the Himalayan region.
“Jammu and Kashmir sits at the top of South Asia’s water tower – backing the glaciers that feed the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers 1.5 one billion the people. Instead of climate adaptation, we see militarization accelerating environmental destruction, Bhatti explained.
Submitting his research paper, Abdul Rahman from CiSS AJKHe highlighted the consequences of abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A in 2019.
“The unilateral dismantling of the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir opened the door to extractivism without consent,” Rahman noted. “New mining laws targeting lithium and uranium, industrial policies that favor offshore companies, and the erosion of local ecosystems – all imposed without democratic participation – represent a systematic violation of the principle of free, prior and informed consent.”
Attorney Parvez Shah addressed the legal implications of what participants called “climate apartheid” and “environmental violence.”
Shah said local people facing displacement due to retreating glaciers or erratic rainfall are often treated as security threats rather than as people with rights entitled to climate compensation.
Communications outage in 2019 and still ongoing Internet He noted that the restrictions destroyed early warning systems and silenced Kashmiri voices in the global climate discourse.
Participants urged the international community and UN mechanisms to recognize that sustainable climate solutions require restoring the political capacity of oppressed peoples, and stressed that without dismantling occupations and respecting the right to self-determination, climate action risks becoming “another mechanism of domination” – extracting resources from vulnerable areas while abandoning their populations to environmental collapse.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir must be given autonomy to manage their environment and protect their environmental heritage,” they added.