A year of resistance: How youth protests shaped the discussion on climate change

A year of resistance: How youth protests shaped the discussion on climate change

...Indigenous activists like Vanessa Gray, Nick Estes, Autumn Peltier, Kanahus Manuel and many others whose work bridges sovereignty and environmental damage have also played an important role. They have helped shift the climate movement toward the framework of climate justice, which acknowledges the intersections of colonialism, racialization, capitalism and climate change.

This moment also builds on environmental justice movements. Young activists like Isra Hirsi, Cricket Cheng, Maya Menezes and others have been building movements where a racial justice lens brings the climate movement into focus.

While these leaders may not have been recognized with Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, their work has significantly reshaped the climate movement. They are helping politicize a new generation of climate activists who understand climate change not as an isolated phenomenon, but one with roots in a capitalist system that is inherently racist, colonial, sexist and ableist.

Indigenous-led resistance

This year has also seen Indigenous-led resistance to climate change and the related oil, gas, fracking, hydro and other natural resource extraction too.

Secwepemc leaders and their allies have built tiny houses to prevent the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from being forced through unceded Secwepemc territory. In Mi'kmaqi and Wolastoqey territory, there’s been resistance to fracking. Across northern Manitoba, Cree and Nishnaabe communities are resisting hydro projects they say will devastate their communities.

In British Columbia, nations have fought the Site C dam, which threatens to flood communities, change watersheds and escalate violence against women through work camps filled with men. Inuit and Cree communities in Labrador have resisted the Muskrat Falls hydro project.

Scientists Want to Make Harming the Environment a War Crime

Scientists Want to Make Harming the Environment a War Crime

Now in a letter published in the scientific journal Nature, a group of scientists is urging the United Nations to make it a war crime to harm the environment during times of conflict. The UN’s International Law Commission is in talks through Aug. 8, and the scientists are calling on attending members to create a framework “to protect the environment in regions of armed conflict.”

“We call on governments to incorporate explicit safeguards for biodiversity, and to use the commission’s recommendations to finally deliver a Fifth Geneva Convention to uphold environmental protection during such confrontations,” the petition reads. 

“Despite calls for a fifth convention two decades ago, military conflict continues to destroy megafauna, push species to extinction, and poison water resources,” the petition continues. “The uncontrolled circulation of arms exacerbates the situation, for instance by driving unsustainable hunting of wildlife.”

A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World | Portside

A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World | Portside

When the Indian government bowed to powerful food companies last year and postponed its decision to put red warning labels on unhealthy packaged food, officials also sought to placate critics of the delay by creating an expert panel to review the proposed labeling system, which would have gone far beyond what other countries have done in the battle to combat soaring obesity rates.

But the man chosen to head the three-person committee, Dr. Boindala Sesikeran, a veteran nutritionist and former adviser to Nestle, only further enraged health advocates.

That’s because Dr. Sesikeran is a trustee of the International Life Sciences Institute, an American nonprofit with an innocuous sounding name that has been quietly infiltrating government health and nutrition bodies around the world.

Created four decades ago by a top Coca-Cola executive, the institute now has branches in 17 countries. It is almost entirely funded by Goliaths of the agribusiness, food and pharmaceutical industries.

The organization, which championed tobacco interests during the 1980s and 1990s in Europe and the United States, has more recently expanded its activities in Asia and Latin America, regions that provide a growing share of food company profits. It has been especially active in China, India and Brazil, the world’s first, second and sixth most populous nations.

In China, the institute shares both staff and office space with the agency responsible for combating the country’s epidemic of obesity-related illness. In Brazil, ILSI representatives occupy seats on a number of food and nutrition panels that were previously reserved for university researchers.

And in India, Dr. Sesikeran’s leadership role on the food labeling committee has raised questions about whether regulators will ultimately be swayed by processed food manufacturers who say the red warning labels would hurt sales.

“What could possibly go wrong?” Amit Srivastava, the coordinator of the advocacy group India Resource Center, asked sarcastically. “To have a covert food lobby group deciding public health policy is wrong and a blatant conflict of interest.”

Women at Queens Park for Climate Action

Pesonal note! Here are 3 generations of my family at the Climate March in Toronto.  Great day, very inspiring.

Protect coastal, island communities now as seas rise, scientists urge

Protect coastal, island communities now as seas rise, scientists urge

 By Laurie Goering.  LONDON, Sept 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) -
Melting of the world's glaciers and warming of its oceans are fuelling rising seas, fiercer storms, worsening water shortages and other risks that could force millions from their homes or leave them hungrier and poorer, scientists warned on Wednesday.Some of the threat could be averted both by rapidly slashing climate-heating emissions and speeding up efforts to adapt to the coming changes, using everything from sea-walls to early warning systems for extreme weather, they said.. But "we may be losing this race" to put protective measures in place in time, warned Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N.-backed panel of climate scientists. Coastal communities, particularly in the tropics and on low-lying islands, as well as people dependent on glacier melt for their water are most at risk, scientists said in a new report outlining how climate change could affect oceans and ice.The report, crafted by more than 100 scientists from 36 countries, said 680 million people live in low-lying coastal zones worldwide, a figure expected to rise to 1 billion by 2050.As sea level rises - driven increasingly by accelerating melting of the world's ice sheets as well as by ocean warming - those people will face more frequent flooding and harsher storms that drive powerful seawater surges inland, the scientists said.Some areas that once flooded only every 100 years or so - particularly on low-lying islands that are home to 65 million people - could face annual flooding by 2050, they warned, unless strong protective measures are put in place."This could create very vexing questions about the habitability of some areas of the world," said Debra Roberts, a South African scientist and a co-author of the report.

From Indonesia to Gabon, countries turn to nature to cut climate risks

From Indonesia to Gabon, countries turn to nature to cut ...

By Laurie Goering

NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - New York City gets its drinking water from a network of more than 20 reservoirs and lakes further north in New York state, some more than 100 miles (161 km) away.

Because the land surrounding the reservoirs is carefully protected and managed, the water piped in is pure enough so that the city is one of the few in the United States that does not need to filter its drinking water, officials say.

Creating more "nature-based solutions" like this - planting coastal mangroves or protecting coral reefs to slow storm surges - is a relatively cheap and effective way to curb rising climate change risks, resilience experts told a meeting in New York.

It could also help address other threats, including accelerating losses of plant and animal species not just from climate change but also expanding agriculture, forest-felling and mining, to meet the needs of a rising human population.

"There is a wealth of evidence ... that if we restore, protect and enhance ecosystems, they will lower human vulnerability to climate change," said Nathalie Seddon, a University of Oxford zoologist.

Especially in poorer countries, such measures can offer "the only affordable solution to climate change", she told the meeting on boosting resilience to climate pressures ahead of a U.N. summit Monday to accelerate action on global warming.

AFRICA FOREST DEAL

In Indonesia, international organizations and the government are working together to protect eroding coastlines by planting mangroves, said Henk Nieboer, director of Ecoshape, a Dutch foundation that promotes efforts to "build with nature".

Once in place, the mangroves provide jobs by improving fishing and act as a barrier to destructive storm surges, he said.

Ecoshape has carefully monitored the benefits of 14 pilot mangrove restoration projects in Indonesia, providing evidence that has now attracted interest from Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and China, he said.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji's attorney general and economic minister, said his Pacific island nation was also planting mangroves to blunt the effects of rising seas, store carbon, protect biodiversity and promote sustainable fisheries.

Restoration projects are possible in many other natural environments, from peat-rich wetlands to grasslands and forests, climate experts said.

Andrew Norton, director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), said efforts to maintain ecosystems can provide "a stunning range" of benefits, from jobs to absorption of climate-changing gases.

But finding the money to fund that work remains a challenge, not least because putting a financial value on the benefits is hard, and investors have yet to see an obvious pay-back.

Nieboer said attracting capital would require the creation of value for ecosystems through measures like a carbon price to monetize avoided or removed carbon emissions.

That is what is happening in Gabon, which will receive $150 million over 10 years for protecting its carbon-absorbing tropical forests in an agreement announced Sunday - the first such deal for an African country.

Under it, Norway will guarantee payment of at least $10 for each tonne of carbon certified as being stored.

Close to 90% of Gabon's land is covered in natural forests, much in reserves created over a decade ago, but like many Central African nations, it is under pressure to allow forest-felling to bring in cash.

"We have to raise the value of the Gabonese rainforests in order to ensure that conservation and sustainable exploitation can be used as tools to improve the living standards of the Gabonese people," its environment minister said in a statement.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Backers of such efforts to put a clearer value on forests and other natural systems warn that doing so brings some risks, including that indigenous people and others living on the land could be pushed off as its value rises.

"Nature-based solutions have to work for social justice as well as climate solutions," said Norton of IIED.

Nicky Batang-ay of Tebtebba, the Philippines-based Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education, noted that "as indigenous people, we've been doing these nature-based solutions from time immemorial".

Oxford's Seddon, who runs the university's Nature-Based Solutions Initiative, said payments and other incentives should protect and expand natural forests rather than support single-species plantations with fewer natural benefits and far less resilience to climate change.

Natural ways of dealing with climate change have seen a "wave of political momentum" in the build-up to the U.N. climate summit, speakers said on Sunday.

U Ohn Win, Myanmar's minister of environmental conservation, said his country - which is highly vulnerable to extreme weather - was looking to reforest 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) over the next 10 years, in part to cut its climate risks.

"Our country has committed to a sustainable development pathway ... with nature-based solutions at its core," he said.

(Reporting by Laurie Goering @lauriegoering; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

ANALYSIS-Hands off our cultural heritage, say world's ...

ANALYSIS-Hands off our cultural heritage, say world's ...

By Umberto Bacchi

TBILISI, Sept 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - From disappearing languages to selfie-taking tourists at sacred sites, preserving native cultural heritage has become a race against the clock, indigenous groups said.

The suicide of an indigenous rights activist protesting against Russia's language policies has highlighted the cultural threats native communities face across the globe as they fight for their land and survival, campaigners and researchers warned.

According to local authorities, a man died last week after setting himself on fire outside the regional parliament in Izhevsk, the capital of the so-called Udmurt Republic in western Russia.

Indigenous groups said the man, whom local media identified as 79-year-old Albert Razin, carried out the act in protest over a recent law that they said favours the study of Russian over native tongues.

Images shared on social media showed Razin holding signs reading "If my language dies tomorrow, then I'm ready to die today" and "Do I have a Fatherland?" as he stood outside the parliament building.

More than 40% of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken around the world are at risk of disappearing, and most of them are indigenous tongues, according to the United Nations.

Sophie Grig, a senior researcher with the British-based indigenous rights group Survival International, said when a language is lost, the entire community that spoke it also risks disappearing.

"(Language) holds the key to the wealth of knowledge a people has about their past, their land, their livelihoods and ways of understanding the world," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation."When it is lost, the tribe's future is imperilled."

Indigenous knowledge and land rights could be crucial in global efforts to curb global warming, according to a special report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

CULTURAL THREATS

The extinction of a community's native languages can also lead to the loss of its claims over the land it occupies, indigenous rights experts say.

And indigenous communities already have a tenuous hold on the land they live and work on.

Up to 2.5 billion people depend on indigenous and community lands, which make up more than half of all land globally, but they legally own just 10%.

Along with fighting for their languages and land, indigenous groups also regularly find themselves defending their culture, language and knowledge against what they see as cultural appropriation by businesses.

Last week, Air New Zealand angered indigenous Maori when it sought to trademark a logo with the phrase "kia ora", which means "good health" and is commonly used to say "hello".

Similarly, Mexican indigenous communities have protested the use of their traditional designs by international fashion labels, while Indians have challenged attempts to patent traditional items such as turmeric and neem.

In Australia, Aboriginal groups are pushing back against public access to heritage sites like mountains and beaches, in an attempt to preserve areas of historical and spiritual importance.

DYING TONGUES

For native communities in Russia, language is one of the main issues of concern, said Rodion Sulyandziga, director of the Russia-based Centre for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North (CSIPN).

Udmurt, which is one of more than 100 tongues spoken across Russia, is spoken by about 400,000 people, according to UNESCO. And it is listed among the dozens of Russian languages that the U.N. cultural agency says are at risk of disappearing.

"Beyond larger populations, such as the Udmurts, (there) are also many small ethnic groups whose languages and cultures may well cease to exist within a generation," said Neil Clarke, head of the Central Asia programme for Minority Rights Group Europe.

That threat is heightened by legislation passed last year that relegated native languages from compulsory to elective school subjects in regions with more than one official tongue, he added."Current policies are encouraging language loss," said Clarke.

 Russian authorities had previously denied the law infringes on indigenous rights, saying it allows children the freedom to decide whether or not they want to learn local languages.

"The law is not aimed at destroying linguistic diversity, but to the contrary, allows people to study their native languages and protects their rights," the government's official newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, wrote last year.Yet, Razin's death has sparked calls for changes in the law.

"Legislative bodies should immediately review the issue of native languages," said Kadi Khalkechev, head of the Karachay People's Congress, which represents the ethnic-Turkic group mainly based in the North Caucasus, in a statement on the Russian social media platform VKontakte.Sulyandziga of CSIPN said the whole world has a stake in preserving native languages."If we lose one language, we lose something fundamental for the whole of humankind," he said.(Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi, Editing by Jumana Farouky and Zoe Tabary. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

World Humanitarian Day, 19 August

World Humanitarian Day, 19 August

2019 WHD campaign: #WomenHumanitarians

On World Humanitarian Day 2019 we honour the work of women in crises throughout the world. We focus on the unsung heroes, who have long been working on the front lines in their own communities in some of the most difficult terrains, from the war-wounded in Afghanistan, to the food insecure in the Sahel, to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods in places such as Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. And we salute the efforts of women aid workers from across the world, who rally to people in need.

Women make up a large number of those who risk their own lives to save others. They are often the first to respond and the last to leave. These women deserve to be celebrated. They are needed today as much as ever to strengthen the global humanitarian response. And world leaders as well as non-state actors must ensure that they – and all humanitarians – are guaranteed the protection afforded to them under international law.

Women humanitarians dedicate their lives to helping people affected by crises. #WomenHumanitarians We want to hear from you

Humanitarians on the frontline of the Burundi refugee crisis in Tanzania | Oxfam Canada

Humanitarians on the frontline of the Burundi refugee crisis in Tanzania | Oxfam Canada

Humanitarian workers are the backbone of life-saving humanitarian responses. Though the role of a humanitarian worker is straightforward — providing life-saving assistance and long-term rehabilitation to communities affected by humanitarian disasters — the situations they operate in are far from it. From natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes and cyclones, to humanitarian emergencies caused by war and drawn-out conflicts, working as a humanitarian requires a special set of skills and a deep well of fortitude.

From 2017 to 2018, Oxfam provided 22.3 million people with life-saving assistance. This is a huge number, but behind it are real people – each one caught up in a crisis marked by a myriad of hardships, including extreme food insecurity, displacement, political violence and outbreaks of deadly disease. Also behind this number are thousands of humanitarians, working hard on a daily basis to provide life-saving assistance.

World Humanitarian Day is held every year to pay tribute to aid workers who risk their lives in humanitarian service around the world. Here, we profile some of Oxfam’s inspiring humanitarians working in Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania, who are delivering life-saving assistance, providing support to refugees to live a life of dignity and promoting women’s rights.

Will Sanctions Undermine 1947 US Treaty with UN? | Inter Press Service

Will Sanctions Undermine 1947 US Treaty with UN? | Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2019 (IPS) - When Yassir Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement by saying “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honourable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”

The Trump administration, which has had an ongoing battle with Iran, has imposed a rash of political and economic sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif — even as Washington, paradoxically, proclaims that the Iranian problem can be resolved only diplomatically while, at the same time, it keeps the negotiator-in-chief away from the US.

The sanctions on Zarif will also prevent him from being a member of the Iranian delegation – and also from addressing the six high-level summit meetings scheduled for late September.

If Zarif is denied a visa, as expected, it will be a violation of the 1947 UN-US headquarters agreement under which Washington was expected to facilitate — not hinder– the smooth functioning of the world body.

While the PLO was not a full-fledged UN member state, Iran is a founding member of the world body.

The Trump administration has already reneged or abandoned several international agreements, including the 2015 Paris Climate Change agreement, the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, and most recently the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia which helped seal the end of the Cold War.

UN report on 1.5C blocked from climate talks after Saudi Arabia disputes science

UN report on 1.5C blocked from climate talks after Saudi Arabia disputes science

A major report on 1.5C has been excluded from formal UN climate negotiations, after Saudi Arabia tried to discredit its scientific underpinnings.

Discussions came to a deadlock at the talks in Bonn after a small group of countries refused to engage in substantive discussions over how the report’s findings could be used to inform policies on increasing the pace and scale of decarbonisation.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lays out the differences between 1.5C and 2C of warming – a matter of survival for many vulnerable countries including small island states which pushed for the findings to lead to more ambitious carbon-cutting policies.

Wealthy countries resist global tax on carbon offsets

At the closing plenary, which took place amid soaring summer temperatures in the former west German capital, a five-paragraph watered-down agreement put an end to formal discussions on the report.

The agreed text expressed “appreciation and gratitude” to the scientific community for the report, which it said “reflects the best available science” and notes “the views expressed on how to strengthen scientific knowledge on global warming of 1.5C”.

It offers no way forward for the report to be considered further in formal negotiations.

In the final meeting of the talks, diplomats came together to express their disappointment. Franz Perrez, lead negotiator for Switzerland, wore a t-shirt with the message “science is not negotiable” and urged countries to use the report to inform their policies and “make the right decisions”.

A diplomat from Costa Rica said the IPCC report on 1.5C represented “a great triumph of science” and that “the quality of the work and the robustness of the conclusions are a tremendous achievement”.

“We recognise that many messages of the special report are difficult to accept,” she said, adding: “On climate change, listening to the science is not a choice but a duty. If we are asking the world to change, we also, as representatives, need to be willing to change.”

The meeting’s chair Paul Watkinson said science remained “at the heart” of UN Climate Change’s science stream and that it is “essential for all our collective and individual activities”.

Carlos Fuller, lead negotiator for the alliance of small island states (Aosis), told Climate Home News he was disappointed there would be no other formal opportunities for countries to delve into the science.

“When anyone is trying to discredit the science it is worrying, especially in the middle of a heatwave. We are the ones suffering if others reject the science,” he said.

Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls National Inquiry report: Genocide

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) has come to the conclusion that Canada has committed genocide against its Indigenous peoples. This is buttressed by a dense and sophisticated 46-page supplementary legal analys is appended to the report.

International lawyers hardly have a monopoly over what is or ought to be characterized as genocide — the issue is also the subject of debate among historians, social scientists and the general public. Nonetheless, genocide as a legal term was the creation of international law. The recognition that it happened is legally significant.

The supplementary legal analysis is careful to emphasize that it cannot be the last word on the matter, but it does come up with a series of strong arguments that draw upon international law.

The United Nations’ Genocide Convention must be interpreted in the light of evolving customary international law: states can be liable for genocide as well as individuals; one can commit genocide through omissions as well as actions; responsibility can be incurred for ongoing and disparate acts; members of a group can be killed in a variety of ways.

In my opinion, some international lawyers who might otherwise be sympathetic to the plight of Indigenous groups in Canada could nonetheless hesitate to label what happened as genocide.

They may emphasize, for example, the non-applicability of the Genocide Convention for much of the period during which it was allegedly violated in Canada. They may argue that only physical and biological killing of the group is covered by the convention. Or they may point out that Indigenous groups were purportedly not covered by the provisions of the Genocide Convention. They may opine that simply because something is not classified as genocide doesn’t mean it’s not despicable or worthy of condemnation.

Such hesitations are understandable, but they miss the larger point.

The attempt to grapple with genocide in Canada by the MMIWG commission is about more than simply applying international law to the facts. It’s also about decolonizing the international law of genocide itself; that is, imagining what international law could be if it had not itself been implicated historically in colonization.

Just as it draws on the authority of international law, the MMIWG report is also a subtle indictment of it.

International law defined genocide narrowly after the Second World War and largely reflected the unique experience of the Holocaust. Colonial massacres before then — such as the genocide of the Herero in southern Africa — or even at the time, like the Sétif massacre in Algeria, were not considered genocide or crimes against humanity.

The focus on individual criminal responsibility in the last two decades may have further reinforced a sense that genocide is committed by a few “bad apples.”

A determination of genocide in Canada, therefore, is partly despite the UN genocide convention’s failure to include Indigenous or gendered groups as protected minorities, its emphasis on massacres and its insistence on individual intent.

The convention makes it structurally difficult to conceptualize genocide as being anything other than the sort of industrial killing or large-scale massacre illustrated by the Holocaust and the Rwandan genociderespectively.

But if we accept that international law — which, by the way, historically sanctified colonization — is not a sacred source of authority but part of a particular, historically and geographically situated tradition, then we can begin to imagine how we might rethink genocide.

The MMIWG report suggests, in particular, that we ought to think of “colonial genocide” as different from “Holocaust genocide.” It is a genocide happening everywhere and all the time. It is a genocide that is at least as much the result of a slow war of cultural attrition than it is the product of massacres. The intent is present but it is structural. Responsibility is not only singular, not the work of a few bad apples, but collective.

Paradoxically, then, the challenge is not only to denounce a genocide but to denounce the limitations of the international law on genocide.

It is to question the authority to define “genocide” and to foreground victims’ experience in defining it. It is to insist that colonial genocide is genocide too. It is to recognize what happened in Canada over several centuries for what it is, despite the law’s best efforts to beat around the bush.

To decolonize genocide, then, is to decolonize how we comprehend genocide and to reimagine what international law could stand for.

There has been much debate since the MMIWG report’s release about what its legal consequences will be. The Organization of American States has asked Canada to agree to the creation of a panel to further investigate the allegation of genocide.

Open letter signed by 101 experts supporting Bill C-262 – CPIJ

Open letter signed by 101 experts supporting Bill C-262 – CPIJ

On May 30, 2018, the House of Commons passed Bill C-262. Indigenous peoples and individuals, leaders, and human rights experts hailed this historic event as a victory for the human rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada. We are 101 experts and academics who research and work in the fields of Indigenous, human rights, constitutional law and/or international law. We are glad that Bill C-262 has finally been referred to Committee, 11 months after its adoption by the House of Commons. We urge you to proceed swiftly so that it can be passed and become part of Canadian law before the current session of Parliament ends.

Worldwide, Indigenous peoples are amongst the world’s most disadvantaged and victimized peoples. They share common problems related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples and suffer widespread discrimination at various levels.  On September 13, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly held a historic vote to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada, as you are aware, was initially opposed to the Declaration; it based its arguments on extraordinary and erroneous claims, for which no credible legal rationale has been provided. We are concerned that similar misguided claims or apprehensions continue to be used by some Senators to justify opposition and slow the progress of the bill in the Senate.

Bill C-262’s full title is: “An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”.  It is a basic, bottom-line piece of legislation that does not create new rights. It establishes a process for the government, in full partnership with Indigenous peoples, to achieve implementation of the Declaration in Canadian law. It does so in three ways.

• First, Bill C-262 affirms the Declaration as a universal international human rights instrument with application in Canadian law. This is consistent with the fact that the UN Declaration already has legal effect in Canada and can be used by Canadian courts and tribunals to interpret Canadian laws.
• Second, the Bill requires the government to work with Indigenous peoples to review existing laws and bring forward reforms to ensure their consistency with the Declaration.
• Third, Bill C-262 creates a legislative framework for the federal government to collaborate with Indigenous peoples to establish a national action plan for the implementation of the Declaration.

Honourable Senators, the recognition of the human rights of Indigenous peoples works to strengthen human rights for everyone. The provisions in the UN Declaration were developed based on existing standards in international law. Many are already legally binding on Canada, either because they are part of customary international law, or because they are necessary to fulfil obligations under the human rights treaties that Canada has ratified.

The UN Declaration does not create a hierarchy of competing human rights claims. It is absolutely false, as some have claimed, that it gives Indigenous peoples a veto over, for example, development projects. It requires States to consult and cooperate in good faith with indigenous peoples in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them. Respect for free, prior and informed consent is an essential standard in international law and can already be used by Canadian courts and tribunals as a source of interpretation of Canadian laws, including the Constitution, where Indigenous rights are at stake. The UN Declaration provides for comprehensive balancing provisions. It reaffirms what international and Canadian law already acknowledge: the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all must be respected, but limitations may be necessary in a democratic society. Limitations are possible if they are non-discriminatory and strictly necessary for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others. Bill C-262 only reinforces this essential attribute of human rights law.

The UN Declaration offers a framework to enhance harmonious and cooperative relations between the State and Indigenous peoples, “in accordance with the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality, non-discrimination, good governance and good faith”. These are the core principles and values of not only Canada’s Constitution, but also the international system that Canada has championed.

The Declaration is a universal human rights instrument. It is also a consensus instrument that has been reaffirmed seven times by the UN General Assembly. No State in the world formally objects to it. Bill C-262 provides a much-needed framework to ensure that Canada works in cooperation with Indigenous peoples to see it fully and effectively implemented.Honourable Senators, you have the power and privilege to make a crucial step in Canada’s pathway to reconciliation, but also to reaffirm Canada’s true commitment to human rights for all. We urge you to proceed swiftly with Bill-C-262.

Intersecting Human Rights Issues Central to UN Discussion of Surrogacy | Human Rights Watch

Intersecting Human Rights Issues Central to UN Discussion of Surrogacy | Human Rights Watch: Medical advances have produced important progress in assisted reproduction, and law makers are struggling to keep up. One advance is the increasing use of surrogacy – where a person able to carry a fetus to term does so in order for someone else to be the parent of the resulting child – and the ability through in vitro fertilization for a surrogate to carry a baby who is not her biological relative.
The United Nations is currently considering how to address surrogacy. The process has profound implications for children born through surrogacy, but also for people who have acted or wish to act as surrogates, and those who seek to become parents through surrogacy. In formulating policy, the UN should carefully consider the rights of all of these stakeholders, Human Rights Watch and the International Women’s Health Coalition said in a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Sale of Children.
Surrogacy has given new hope to many people who wished to become parents but faced barriers, including LGBT people and people experiencing infertility. But surrogacy also raises complex legal and ethical issues. In some countries, lack of regulation can lead to exploitation, including by unscrup

Not one single country set to achieve gender equality by 2030 | Global development | The Guardian

Not one single country set to achieve gender equality by 2030 | Global development | The Guardian: No country in the world is on track to achieve gender equality by 2030, according to the first index to measure progress against a set of internationally agreed targets.

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said the index, launched on Monday, “should serve as a wake-up call to the world”.

Even the Nordic states, which score highly in the index, would need to take huge strides to fulfil gender commitments in the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), which 193 countries signed up to in 2015. The goals are considered the blueprint for global efforts to end poverty and inequality and halt the climate crisis. The deadline to meet them is 2030.

The inaugural SDG Gender Index, developed by the Equal Measures 2030 partnership, found that 2.8 billion women and girls currently live in countries that are not doing enough to improve women’s lives.

We Can’t Halt Extinctions Unless We Protect Water

We Can’t Halt Extinctions Unless We Protect Water | Inter Press Service: COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 31 2019 (IPS) - Global biodiversity loss has reached critical levels. One million species of plants and animals are now estimated to be at risk of extinction. The window for action is closing, and the world needs to urgently take note.

Countries would do well to consider this: our ability to preserve species hinges to a great extent on the actions we take to protect freshwater ecosystems. Safeguarding water for the environment is critical for biodiversity and for people.

Freshwater ecosystems are major biodiversity hotspots. We derive much value from them, even though we may not realise it. Wetlands purify drinking water; fish is one of the most traded food commodities on the planet; and floodplains can provide vital buffers that lessen the impacts of flooding.

The people who depend most on the services provided by aquatic ecosystems are generally the poorest and most marginalized in developing countries and consequently those hardest hit by biodiversity loss.

However, all of us, both rich and poor, depend on healthy ecosystems, so degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity pose an enormous threat for everyone. About 35 per cent of the world’s biodiversity-rich wetlands, for example, have been lost or seriously degraded since 1970. The annual value of the benefits these wetlands (freshwater and coastal) provide is estimated at a staggering USD 36.2 trillion; nearly double the benefits derived from all the world’s forests.

Sustainable management of aquatic ecosystems (and of water resources in general) must aim to ensure that ecosystems continue providing these services.

A key approach for reversing this trend centres on ensuring that water continues to flow in a way that will sustain aquatic ecosystems, thereby supporting populations, economies, sustainable livelihoods, and well-being.

An Escalating War on Reproductive Rights |

An Escalating War on Reproductive Rights | Inter Press Service: UNITED NATIONS, Jun 3 2019 (IPS) - Abortion has long been a contentious issue across the world, and the debate is only heating up, prompting women to stand up and speak out for their reproductive rights.
In response to increasingly restrictive policies, civil society is taking action to help protect abortion rights.

“The failure of states to guarantee reproductive rights is a clear violation of human rights,” said President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) Nancy Northup

Human Rights Watch’s Senior Researcher Margaret Wurth echoed similar sentiments, stating: “No rape survivor should be forced into motherhood without the chance to consider a safe and legal abortion.”

Watch Out: Your Money Is Being Used to Destroy the World! | Inter Press Service

Watch Out: Your Money Is Being Used to Destroy the World! | Inter Press Service

MADRID, Jun 3 2019 (IPS) - Perhaps the most direct way to introduce this tough issue is what the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, stated just one week ahead of the 5 June World Environment Day, which focuses this year on air pollution, caused chiefly by the use of fossil fuels both in transport, industry and even household cooking, heating, etc.

“Subsidising fossil fuels means spending taxpayers’ money to “boost hurricanes, to spread droughts, to melt glaciers, to bleach corals: to destroy the world,” the UN chief warned, adding that “We need to tax pollution, not people.” “End subsidies for fossil fuels.”

 A corporation that knows much about money –the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that, globally, subsidies remained large at 4.7 trillion dollars (6.3 percent of global GDP) in 2015 and were projected at 5.2 trillion dollars (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017.

Its 2 May 2019 Working Paper Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large, updates estimates of fossil fuel subsidies, defined as fuel consumption times the gap between existing and efficient prices (i.e., prices warranted by supply costs, environmental costs, and revenue considerations), for 191 countries.

“The largest subsidisers in 2015 were China (1.4 trillion dollars), United States (649 billions), Russia (551 billions), European Union (289 billions), and India (209 billion dollars),” it reports.

And it adds that “about three quarters of global subsidies are due to domestic factors—energy pricing reform thus remains largely in countries own national interest—while coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies.”

Inside The FP2020 Reference Group – Family Planning 2020

Inside The FP2020 Reference Group – Family Planning 2020 – Medium
This particular meeting had special significance, because it was our first opportunity to hear feedback from the broader family planning community captured through the post-2020 global consultation, including results from the recent survey circulated among our partners about the future vision for this movement. Our agenda also included planning for the impending results of the ECHO trial (Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes), and championing the incorporation of family planning within the growing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) movement and benefits packages.Perhaps the most memorable portion of the ECHO discussion were presentations by two African sexual, reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocates, Yvette Raphael from APHA South Africa and Jhpiego’s Angela Mutunga from Kenya. They reminded us the risks women face in their sexual and reproductive lives are deeply personal. Yvette rightly pointed out that, “No woman just has HIV. Or just needs family planning. There is just one woman with many needs.”

Looking beyond the ECHO trial, A similar discussion took place around how to integrate family planning into the UHC and primary health care frameworks. WHO’s Ian Askew reminded us that family planning has an advantage because it’s embedded within two of the Sustainable Development Goals, unlike other global health issues. As we all know, there are life-threatening consequences if family planning is not included in UHC schemes; there is no development without girls and women. And we must elevate the economic benefit argument so that family planning is included in the list of interventions driven by real value.