Press Release
Published on January 24, 2025
NEW YORK – Human Rights First announced today that climate rights activist and lawyer Dang Dinh Bach, jailed in Vietnam since June 2021, is the winner of the 2024 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty. The Baldwin Medal will be presented at an event in the United States later this year to someone on Bach’s behalf, unless he is freed from prison and able to travel to receive the award in person.
“For more than three decades, the Baldwin Medal has provided international recognition and support to Human Rights Defenders in all corners of the world, many of whom, like Bach, work at enormous risk to themselves,” said Sue Hendrickson, President and CEO of Human Rights First. “Bach’s legal advocacy to encourage his country away from coal-based energy has earned him a five-year prison sentence on charges of ‘tax evasion.’ His work advising affected communities about environmental harm should be celebrated, not punished, and this is what the Baldwin award will do.”
Bach is the co-founder and former Executive Director of the Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center (LPSD), a public interest law firm advising communities on cases of environmental harm, including industrial pollution, involuntary displacement due to hydropower construction, and pollution from coal plants.
Taken from his home in June 2021, he was held in pretrial detention for seven months, with limited contact with his family or his lawyers, and the LPSD was shut down by authorities following his arrest.
The UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found Bach’s imprisonment to be arbitrary and in “violation of international law,” and called for his immediate release. United Nations Special Procedures experts have noted reports of his being attacked and beaten in prison.
“I’d like to express honor and gratitude for this recognition of Bach’s life and work,” said Tran Phuong Thao, his wife. “The Baldwin Award represents the critical importance of human rights and rule of law in building a just and sustainable world – values my husband has fought for both outside and inside of prison. It is through solidarity and support from the international community that the movement he has helped to build continues to grow and inspire others.”
Bach was chosen for the 2024 Baldwin Medal on the recommendation of an independent jury that was chaired by Lynda Clarizio, Co-Chair of the Board of Human Rights First; and included Filipino human rights lawyer Angelo Guillen, winner of the 2022 Baldwin Award; Kizito Byenkya, the director of campaigns at the Open Society Foundations; Diana Daniels, the independent trustee of the Goldman Sachs Mutual Funds; Sara Duddy, Advocacy Support Worker at The Pat Finucane Centre in Derry; Maria Jose Guembe, President of El Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), in Argentina; and Meg Satterthwaite, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers and Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law.
The Baldwin Medal of Liberty is named in honor of Roger N. Baldwin, principal founder of both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the International League for Human Rights. The award, which was established in 1989, is presented in alternating years by Human Rights First, which awards human rights advocates outside the United States, and the ACLU, which awards advocates in the United States. Past international winners of the Baldwin Medal are listed here.
