On October 28, 2017 in Charlottesville’s City Space, citizens will hold a people’s tribunal to present and document the perspectives of impacted people along the proposed routes of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) .

Both routes target rural, poor, African American, Native American, andAppalachian communities from West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina to bear disproportionate burdens of toxic polluting fracked natural gas infrastructure.

**the space is wheelchair accessible**

A people’s tribunal creates a public forum to present evidence for and information about issues critical to a just and civil society, especially when local, state, and federal governments are not responsive to public concerns. Ours is based on the UN Convention on Racism and Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on the Human Rights Impacts of Fracking, which call on member nations to:

“Undertake independent and effective investigation into all cases of environmentally polluting activities and their impacts on the rights of affected communities; bring those responsible to account; and ensure that victims have access to appropriate remedies.”

Lois Gibbs, founder of Center for Health, Environment, and Justice and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, will lead a team of experts to preside as judges of opinion. They will hear testimonies of first-person impacts, environmental science, Virginia Slave and Freedmen, Native American and Appalachian history, and fracked gas economics. Judges’ findings and recommendations will be sent to these human rights committees and will form the basis around which local groups can organize.

Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on the Human Rights Impacts of Fracking (tribunalonfracking.org)

Make a tax-deductible donation to:

Checks to: Highlanders for Responsible Development – ABRA
P.O. Box 685 Monterey, VA 24465
memo: VA People’s Tribunal

Donate online: https://www.abralliance.org/what-you-can-do/donate/

To volunteer or register to attend this event, follow link: https://goo.gl/forms/GlxiLyvYTKkZaewx2

Sign up to give testimony:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe2Hveqh490afSh_hy41fH8nBK5rZYTyzB-7-THVaXrvnm4kQ/viewform

Follow our event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/VA-Peoples-Tribunal-on-Human-Rights-Environmental-Justice-and-Fracked-Gas-346554662423365

Co-sponsors:
Friends of Buckingham County, Virginia, The madwoman project, ARTivism Virginia, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, Concern for the New Generation, Virginia Student Environmental Coalition, Appalachian Voices Bold Alliance POWHR-Protect Our Water Heritage Rights, Yogaville Environmental Solutions – YES Journey the James, Cville Rising, 350 Central Virginia, Preserve Montgomery County VA, Preserve Franklin County, Preserve Giles County, Oil Change International, Virginia Organizing, Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, Cville Indivisible, Friends of Nelson Preserve Roanoke Preserve Bent Mountain Rachel Carson Council