In a historic decision, the International Feminist Tribunal convened during the People’s Summit toward COP 30 analyzed nine cases from the Global South revealing how political, economic, social, security and climate crises impact the lives and rights of women and sexual and gender dissidents. The extractivist, racist and patriarchal capitalist model was condemned, and States and corporations will now be taken before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for crimes against humanity and violations of the rights of nature.
The Tribunal was organized by the International Women’s Initiative on Bodies and Territories, the Brazilian Women’s Articulation (AMB), the Women and Climate Change Defense Group (Peru) and the Global Forest Coalition (GFC), as an action developed within the thematic axis “Popular Feminism and the Resistance of Women in Territories”, which mobilized movements, organizations and networks throughout 2024 and 2025.
The hearing, held on November 13 in the Plenary Tent of the Federal University of Pará, examined nine complaints presented by women and dissidents from Palestine, Haiti, Western Sahara, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and the Brazilian state of Pará. Throughout the session, each testimony revealed the breadth of violence that crosses the bodies, lives and territories of women and dissident peoples amid overlapping political, economic, social, security and climate crises.
The cases converged toward a common diagnosis: the extractivist, racist and patriarchal capitalist model continues to deepen inequalities and produce new forms of colonization expressed both in territorial dispossession and in the violation of bodies. The Tribunal concluded that each case presented exposes different expressions of the same system of oppression.
“The cases presented by women from the Global South revealed the intersection of gendered, geopolitical, economic, social, environmental, racial, transphobic and climate violence on their bodies and territories, its impacts and their resistance to an oppressive order against which they wage an articulated struggle for peaceful coexistence, free of discrimination, with justice, in balance with nature and celebrating diversity,” reads a passage of the verdict.
The Tribunal was presided over by Celia Xakriabá, Indigenous leader and Brazilian federal deputy. The panel of judges was composed of Sophie Dowlar, from the World March of Women in Kenya, Uli Arta Siagian, activist from Indonesia, Nazely Vardanyan, from Armenian Forests, and Marisol Garcia, Kichwa Indigenous leader from the Peruvian Amazon. The geopolitical diversity of the magistrates reinforced the international and grassroots character of the judgment.
The situations presented were treated as evidence of a global machinery that combines environmental racism, gender-based violence, militarization, political repression, economic exploitation and environmental destruction. According to the Tribunal, these violations form a continuum that crosses borders and intensifies with the climate crisis, aggravated by the omission and denialism of States with significant political and economic power.
Testimonies reveal the web of violence impacting the Global South
The testimonies exposed the intersection of gender-based violence, territorial invasion, armed conflict, climate crisis, racism, transphobia and environmental destruction. From Pará to Palestine, women and dissidents endure violations, resist them, echo countless cries of pain and hope and continue organizing collectively.
Assalah Abu Khdeir, from Palestine, denounced the genocide imposed by the State of Israel against her people, where women and children are the most affected by hunger, lack of medical care and military violence. She demanded the right to live with peace and autonomy.
From Haiti, Juslene Tyresias, of La Via Campesina, described the escalation of physical, psychological and sexual violence driven by political instability and the activity of armed gangs. Climate change deepens the crisis and forces the displacement of women and girls.
Saharawi activist Chaba Siny demanded the right to self-determination for the people of Western Sahara and denounced Moroccan repression. She stated that there can be no climate justice where there is military occupation and political repression of women.
Olivia Bisa Tirko, Indigenous leader of the Chapra Nation in Peru, accused the State of colluding with corporations responsible for ecocide and violence against environmental defenders. She questioned why three decades of COPs have failed to contain the climate crisis.
From Brazil, Beku Gogti, a Xikrin woman and member of the Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining, described the impacts of river contamination caused by Vale, which affects pregnant women and children in her community.
Cledeneuza Bizerra, a babassu coconut breaker from Pará, denounced the destruction of traditional ways of life and the advance of agribusiness over common-use lands. She reaffirmed that rural women feed the world and that money cannot be eaten.
Venezuelan activist Alejandra Laprea exposed the devastating effects of the economic blockade imposed by the United States, which worsens the lives of women caregivers and increases their vulnerability to violence.
The case of Mapuche leader Julia Chunil, disappeared in 2024 while defending her territory from agribusiness companies, was presented by María José Lubertino, who demanded accountability from the Chilean state for allowing violations of such magnitude to occur.
From the Amazon region of Pará, Melisandra, from Casa Cura, exposed the structural violence targeting trans women. She denounced hatred, transphobia, religious racism and the negligence of the Brazilian state, which leads the world in murders of trans people.
The weight of these testimonies, presented before a packed audience, demonstrated that neocolonialism today often appears as climate-related investment projects that, in practice, dispossess peoples and communities to guarantee profits for corporations. The judges emphasized that the omission of States is part of the problem and deepens rights violations.
Verdict goes beyond recommendations and demands reparations
Upon announcing the decision, the judges stressed that the perpetrators of these crimes are collective actors—States, transnational corporations and economic elites—and that the victims are also collective, directly affecting women, dissidents, Indigenous peoples, Black communities, human rights defenders and territorial organizations.
For this reason, the Tribunal opted for a verdict that, rather than issuing recommendations, establishes guidelines for continuous international action. These include demands for financial justice for the violations suffered, calls for economic reparations for illegal occupations, rape, murder, environmental destruction and cultural and spiritual losses, and the demand for recognition of plurinational States that place women and sexual and gender minorities at the center of decision-making, from the United Nations to climate negotiation tables.
The decision also mandates the analysis of emblematic ongoing cases, such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Rio de Janeiro, all marked by ecocide, genocide, feminicide and multiple forms of structural violence. For the Tribunal, recognizing these violations and holding perpetrators accountable is essential to confront a global scenario in which 158 million women live in poverty, and forced displacement, pesticide impacts and state violence are still not treated as crimes that directly affect the lives and dignity of the most vulnerable populations.
The Tribunal also warned of the renewed forms of neocolonialism that present themselves as climate action investments but, in practice, promote the dispossession of peoples and communities to expand extractive frontiers. According to the judges, this dynamic makes climate justice impossible, as it destroys forests, destabilizes territories and exposes women and feminized bodies to violence ranging from hunger to murder.
In closing, the verdict reaffirmed that defending women is defending life on Earth. By declaring that a planet without women is impossible, the Tribunal positioned feminist struggle as a central axis in the fight for climate justice in the Global South and opened a new phase of international advocacy that will now advance through legal and political bodies across the continent. The decision, forged in Belém, transcends the moment of the hearing and stands as a turning point in the global denunciation of a model that treats bodies and territories as sacrifice zones.
Access the ruling HERE