On June 6, 2025, Knowing & Acting organized a panel dedicated to human rights and the ocean, within the green zone of the official UNOC 3 program, the area open to the public (called La Baleine in Nice), in cooperation with the Metis Arts and Development Fund of the French Development Agency (AFD). The aim was to raise public awareness about human rights and the ocean, what it means and implies and to highlight the mobilizing power of art to have an impact.
For Knowing & Acting, it is essential that a UN conference on the ocean not be held without also giving central importance to respecting the rights of people who depend on the ocean. UNOC 3 was an opportunity to make this intrinsic link between ocean protection, sustainable use of the ocean, SDG 14, and respect for the rights of those who live in and around the ocean clearly evident to the public.
The organizers of the programme at La Baleine and the French Ministry of Culture encouraged synergies between the events offered at La Baleine, which prompted the AFD's Metis Arts and Development Fund and the Ocean and Human Rights platform to organize a joint event.
The panel brought together members of the international Ocean and Human Rights Platform from India and Nigeria, Dr Johnson Jament and Leno Ignatius for BlueGreen Coastal Resources (India, Kerala region), Nnimmo Bassey, its director for the HOMEF Foundation (Nigeria), Tanguy Abittan, project manager at the AFD- Metis Fund for Arts and Development, Ms. Sithabilé Mlotshwa, one of the artists supported by the Metis Fund, and Peter Haugan, Norwegian oceanographer, one of the three Lead Experts of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, former President of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO.
Nathalie Komatitsch, president of Knowing & Acting, moderated the discussion and presented the Ocean and Human Rights Platform, a global network of experts and partners working to enhance respect for human rights in ocean-related activities. The platform was co-created by the internationally renowned think and action tank IHRB – Institute for Human Rights and Business – and the Norwegian human rights foundation, Rafto Foundation for Human Rights. Learn more about the Ocean and Human Rights Platform on IHRB website.
Ocean and Human Rights: What Are We Talking About?
This involves examining respect for human rights in relation to the ocean, which covers two main areas:
1- Respect for the rights of workers at sea and on the sea, which include seafarers and fishermen. This encompasses their labor rights, their working and living conditions, and fundamental human rights. To achieve this, respect for human rights also includes combating illegal fishing activities, human trafficking, etc.
2- Respect for the rights of coastal communities: studying the impacts of various projects or activities on their lands, their fishing grounds where applicable, coastal areas such as mangroves from which they derive their livelihoods, etc.
The Ocean and Human Rights Platform actively works to uphold the rights of seafarers through one of its main programs, which brings together numerous stakeholders and a group of committed businesses.
Due to time constraints, the panel at UNOC 3 focused on respecting the rights of coastal communities and on the perspectives of representatives from impacted communities, partners of the Ocean and Human Rights Platform.
- Dr. Jament Johnson, founder and executive director of the social enterprise “BlueGreen Coastal Resources”, based in Kerala, India, and Leno Ignatius, director of their art project with and for their fishing communities, shared their experiences of port projects and intensive shipping along their coasts. It impacts their ways of life and livelihoods in negative ways, without their consultation or input. Learn more: www.bluegreencoast.org;
- Nnimmo Bassey, director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Nigeria, spoke about the impact of oil drilling in the Niger Delta. Mr Bassey is also a storyteller and he recited one of his poems inspired by the beauty of the nature around us. Beyond Nigeria, HOMEF manages a network of partners across Africa (www.homef.org).
All three spoke about their use of art to convey their messages: painting workshops for fishermen by BlueGreen Coastal Resources, and oral tradition and poems for Nnimmo Bassey.
The Metis Fund uses art as a lever to strengthen the impact of development projects, wherever the French Development Agency (AFD) operates. It targets local artists and local art institutions that wish to co-create a project with the AFD. Artist Sithabilé Mlotshwa presented her actions, exhibitions, and works, which illustrate the effects of colonization on certain communities. In particular, she shared the awareness her thematics gained from the King of the Netherlands after he visited one of her exhibitions. At the occasion of the UNOC conference, the Metis Fund published “The Ocean Manifesto”, an art book bringing together the works of 100 artists and a personal statement from each of them in support of the ocean.
Peter Haugan spoke about the crucial importance of upholding human rights when working, as he does, on the ocean.
Knowing and Acting notes from the discussions in this roundtable, and more broadly throughout the UNOC conference, that it is essential, if we wish to have an impact and drive more action, to engage the emotions of stakeholders, decision-makers, fellow citizens—all of us. We cannot simply rely on rational appeals. Art represents a powerful tool: painting and dance, as seen in the programs presented during the panel, music, as illustrated by the concert organized by the Hugo Panonacle agency at the Nice Opera House during UNOC 3, which left a lasting impression on those who attended.
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