The 2012 Rafto Prize is awarded to Nigerian Nnimmo Bassey (54) in recognition of his long-term fight for people’s right to life, health, food and water in a world affected by complex and threatening climate change and mass environmental destruction.
The Rafto Foundation wrote that through his rights based work and criticism of prevailing systems, Bassey has shown how human rights can help mitigate the effects of these changes.
Climate justice
Nnimmo Bassey links human rights to the climate by demonstrating how climate change has the greatest effect on the world’s most vulnerable people, the very people who have contributed least to the problem in the first place.
By awarding its annual prize to Nnimmo Bassey, the Rafto Foundation underlines how the challenges we face regarding climate and the environment also have a human rights aspect.
FoEI and ERA
The Rafto Foundation gives also its support to Nnimmo Bassey’s work in the organisations Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) and Environmental Rights Action (ERA).
About the Rafto Foundation
The Rafto Foundation is a non-profit and non-partisan organisation dedicated to the global promotion of human rights.
The main activities of the Foundation are:
- awarding the annual Rafto Prize for human rights work
- following up projects concerning the Rafto laureates
- organising educational projects promoting human rights
The Helsinki Accord
The Rafto Foundation was established in the humanistic tradition of the Helsinki Accord.
Three fundamental human rights
The Rafto Foundation aims to promote the three fundamental human rights of intellectual, political and economic freedom.
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