Right Livelihood Awards 2024
➡️ Right Livelihood Award 2024 – Laureates & Ceremony of the Alternative Peace Prize
The Right Livelihood has celebrated and supported some of the world's most courageous and inspiring people for over 40 years. The laureates are honoured for their commitment to solving some of the world's most complex problems. The awards for this year's four laureates took place on October 3 in Stockholm. The annual award presentation is set to take place on December 4 in a dignified atmosphere at a ceremony in the Stockholm Circus in front of an international gathering of peers and patrons.
Every year the RLA selects projects committed to peace, justice, sustainability, and social change.
Who are the 2024 RLA Laureates?
Joan Carling -
Carling is a Filipino human rights activist and environmentalist who has dedicated more than 30 years to defending the land and environmental rights of indigenous peoples. With a special focus on human rights, women’s rights, sustainability, and climate justice, Carling has helped communities resist exploitation by powerful corporate and state interests.
Activists in the Philippines are frequently targeted, disappeared, and murdered – it is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for Indigenous people. Communities have endured decades of systemic marginalisation and arbitrary criminalisation.
Joan Carling RLA 2024 - “for raising Indigenous voices in the face of global ecological breakdown and her leadership in defending people, lands and culture.”
Issa Amro and Youth Against Settlements (Palestine) -
Palestinian activist Issa Amro is the co-founder of grassroots organisation Youth Against Settlements. Amro has been repeatedly detained, tortured, attacked on the streets, evicted from his home, and harassed with criminal charges for his nonviolent resistance to the Israeli Occupation in the West Bank city of Hebron.
A strong advocate for civil disobedience and peaceful defiance, Amro is committed to a future where Palestinians live freely , with dignity, and without constant threats and attacks from Israeli settlers and the military.
Youth Against Settlements (YAS) is a Hebron based Palestinian activist group who use nonviolence to resist the ongoing Israeli occupation. They work to mobilise local communities, gain international support, organise protests, and set up campaigns such as the Open Shuhada Street Campaign.
Issa Amro and YAS RLA 2024 - “for their steadfast non-violent resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation, promoting Palestinian civic action through peaceful means.”
Anabela Lemos and Justiça Ambiental! (Mozambique) -
Mozambican environmental and climate activist Lemos is the Director of Justiça Ambiental! - the Mozambique branch of Friends of the Earth. The aim of the NGO is to ensure that the socio-economic development of the country is managed in a fair, equitable, healthy, and safe way.
Lack of regulation and zealous international commercial interests, have resulted in immense environmental damage and exploitation. Local communities endure streams of human rights violations, widespread displacement, and the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.
JA!’s work through the “Say No to Gas Campaign” drew international attention to the struggles of the southeast African nation. The situation in the country has spiralled since the discovery of one of the world's largest stores of natural gas off the coast of Cabo Delgado.
Backed by Total Energies, the $24 billion project has entirely disregarded the human rights impacts particularly in light of instability in the region. Angry that Mozambicans have been cut off from wealth and opportunity, rebel combatants have responded with violence and brutality.
JA! has worked tirelessly to expose human rights violations and corporate crimes associated with the project, successfully delaying their work, and raising vital international awareness of their malpractices and greed. Activists and journalists are regularly denied access and forcibly silenced - Lemos and her family have been subjected to death threats and violence.
Anabela Lemos and Justiça Ambiental! RLA 2024 - “for empowering communities to stand up for their right to say no to exploitative mega-projects and demand environmental justice.”
Forensic Architecture (UK) -
The British research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London have been instrumental in providing evidence of true barbarities of Israel's onslaught of Gaza. Through architectural techniques and technologies, they investigate state violence and human rights violations around the world in cases where armed conflicts and environmental crimes are particularly deadly and destructive.
Led by outspoken political activist British Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, much of the organisations recent work has focused on Israels war against Gaza. Forensic Architecture work alongside international prosecutors, human rights organisations, and political and environmental justice groups.
Their work was recently called upon in South Africa's high profile ICJ genocide case against Israel. Evidence provided by Forensic Architecture proved that Palestinians were evacuated on mass to areas with no adequate infrastructure and then subjected to attacks by the military in these ‘safe’ zones.
Another high-profile case was the death of Palestinian child Hind Rajab in January 2024. She pleaded over the phone to be rescued by emergency workers after her car was riddled with bullets. Her body was later found alongside six of her family members in the car as they were attempting to flee. The investigation concluded that an Israeli tank fired 335 rounds on the car and would have been able to see that there were civilians and children inside.
Forensic Architecture RLA 2024 - “for pioneering digital forensic methods to ensure justice and accountability for victims and survivors of human and environmental rights violations.”
Author: Norbert Stute, 03.10.24 updated and edited by Rachael Mellor 25.10.24 licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0
For further reading on the 2024 RLA see below ⬇️