My days as a QES fellow at the McGill Centre for Human Rights & Legal Pluralism unfolded between two rhythms: mornings spent in talks on international human rights law, environmental law, and climate litigation, and afternoons immersed in research that would eventually reach the UN. But it was Bernard Duhaime, the UN Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, who reframed everything I thought I understood about this work.
Professor Duhaime joined us virtually and described his work as defending already-established truths against systematic efforts to rewrite them—a transnational strategy he called denialism. I come from Peru, where decades after our Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we face exactly that: voices that deny, minimize, or justify documented violations during our armed conflict, and hearing it articulated as a global pattern gave me a language to name what I was seeing and tools to identify early warning signs of erosion of the right to truth.
This framework became practical weeks later while working with my teammate, Rocío, on research with the Special Rapporteur Astrid Puentes Riaño on the environmental rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada. As we identified potential violations of the right to consultation and territorial rights, a familiar pattern emerged: consultation processes existed formally but were devoid of substance, with Indigenous evidence usually questioned or minimized—environmental denialism operating with the same logic as human rights denialism.
Instead of limiting my ability to contribute in a Canadian context, my Peruvian experience became an asset to understand the pervasiveness of denialism at a global level. I could identify how denialist strategies manifest across different jurisdictions—from Peru's challenges with victims' rights and Indigenous environmental protections to Canada's hollowed-out consultation processes—because I had witnessed them and knew how to recognize some of the early signs.
We presented our findings on some environmental challenges faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada to our supervisors. Subsequently, we sent an official communication with our findings to Special Rapporteur Puentes Riaño, demystifying UN mechanisms and transforming them into practical tools that practitioners can engage with directly. The QES fellowship gave me what I needed most: the research skills, analytical frameworks, and practical understanding of international accountability systems to recognize that defending what has been achieved is fundamental work—and that this work requires people who are willing to stand firm when there are attempts to roll back human rights progress and ready to confront denialism in all its forms.
I am now back in Peru, where I continue witnessing the challenges of denying victims’ rights and Indigenous people’s environmental rights. However, unlike before, I now feel that I have the appropriate language and conceptual framework to better name and analyze what I observe in my day-to-day life as a human rights lawyer and a committed Peruvian citizen. Being back in Peru has confirmed that the QES program has left an indelible imprint on me, inspiring me to continue working on human rights.
Luis Alejandro Pebe Muñoz is a Queen Elizabeth Scholars Program Fellow (2025) at the Transnational Justice Clinic of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill University, Canada. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) and completed complementary studies at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. Professionally, he currently works as a consultant in the Human Rights area at Responde Consulting Firm and previously worked at the Institute of Democracy and Human Rights at PUCP (IDEHPUCP). He also serves as a research assistant for the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (GRIDEH) at PUCP and is part of teaching teams for International Law courses at the university's Faculty of Law. Additionally, he volunteers at the Environmental Law Clinic at the same institution. His main areas of specialization are Public International Law, International Human Rights Law, and Environmental and Climate Law.