Dr. Joan E. Russow, Co-ordinator, Global Compliance Research Project,
1230 St. Patrick St.Victoria, B.C. V8S 4Y4, Canada.
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1996 PETITION
CALLING FOR
AN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF COMPLIANCE
RECOGNIZING that for fifty years since the formation of the United Nations, member states have undertaken obligations reflected in the Charter, treaties, conventions, and covenants; and have created expectations reflected in declarations, conference commitments and resolutions.
REMINDED of the General Assembly resolution establishing a decade of International Law from 1990 –1999.
The United States and France have intimidated Caribbean countries into delaying an official request for a probe into the murky circumstances under which Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from power in February, according to diplomatic sources here. The two veto-wielding permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council have signalled to Caribbean nations that they do not want a U.N. probe of Aristide's ouster. Any attempts to bring the issue or even introduce a resolution before the Security Council will either be blocked or vetoed by both countries, council sources told IPS.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has been caught in the middle of the dispute, says he is unable to act unless he has a formal request to do so either by the Security Council or the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM), of which Haiti is a member. ''We have read news reports that CARICOM wants a U.N. investigation. But unless we receive an official request either from CARICOM or from the Security Council, we cannot act on it,'' U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told IPS.
Aristide left Haiti in the midst of a violent uprising Feb. 29. Now in Jamaica, the country's first democratically elected leader maintains he was forced to resign under pressure from Washington, with strong backing from France. Both countries have dismissed the charge. ''I don't think any purpose would be served by an inquiry,'' U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters during a 24-hour visit to Haiti last week. ''We were on the verge of a bloodbath and President Aristide found himself in great danger,'' he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a group photo last week with fellow APEC leaders in Da Nang, Vietnam. (Photo: EPA)
New Zealand's progressive new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern strongly rejected President Donald Trump's assessment of her recent rise to power, according to her account of their first in-person meeting at the East Asia Summit last week.
After Trump said Ardern's win had "upset" many New Zealanders, the Labor Party leader remarked that "nobody marched" in response to her victory, as millions did all over the globe when Trump was inaugurated in January.
Ardern offered a full account of her meeting with Trump to New Zealand's Newsroom:
I was waiting to walk out to be introduced at the East Asia Summit gala dinner, where we all paraded and while we were waiting, Trump in jest patted the person next to him on the shoulder, pointed at me and said, 'This lady caused a lot of upset in her country,' talking about the election.
I said, 'Well, you know, only maybe 40 per cent,' then he said it again and I said, 'You know,' laughing, 'no one marched when I was elected.'
Greenpeace activists hold banners during a protest next to Statoil’s Songa Enabler oil rig in the Barents sea, Norway, July 2017. Photograph: Will Rose/Greenpeace/Reuters
The Norwegian government is being sued by climate activists over a decision to open up areas of the Arctic Ocean for oil exploration, a move they say endangers the lives of existing and future generations.
The plaintiffs, led by environmental organisations Greenpeace and Youth and Nature, will on Tuesday claim that the Norwegian government has violated a constitutional environmental law which guarantees citizens’ rights to a healthy environment.
The law, known as Section 112, states: “Everyone has the right to an environment that safeguards their health and to nature where production ability and diversity are preserved. Natural resources must be managed from a long-term and versatile consideration which also upholds this right for future generations.”
“We have for years tried to stop the expansion of Norway’s oil extraction, from both local and global considerations,” said Truls Gulowsen, head of Greenpeace Norway. “As far as granting concessions for the Arctic is concerned, not only have our objections been ignored and overrun, but the state has also paid no heed to the guidelines from their own appointed advisers, such as the polar institute and the environment agency, who both recommended that the majority of concessions in this area be turned down.”
This article was published by AlterNet on November 13, 2017. If you would like to reprint it, please credit the original publisher. If this email was forwarded to you, subscribe to CEPR's email lists here.
On November 3, President Maduro of Venezuela proposed a meeting with creditors, for November 13 in Caracas, to discuss a restructuring of Venezuelan public debt. On November 8, the Trump administration reacted by warning US bondholders that attending this meeting could put them in violation of US economic sanctions against Venezuela. Such a violation can be penalized by 30 years in prison and up to $10 million dollars in fines for businesses.
SURREY, United Kingdom, Oct 13 2017 (IPS) - According to the United Nations estimates almost 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger (1 in every 9 persons on the planet) and a higher number (1 in 3) suffer from malnutrition. 1 in every 5 persons (1.4 billion people) have no access to electricity worldwide (living with energy poverty) whilst 1 in 10 people do not have access to clean water. With climate change, this situation is worsening across many parts of the world.
Food, Energy and Water (FEW) are linked inextricably and are important requirements for national security and economic development of nations.
This article was published by The Hillon August 28, 2017. If anyone wishes to reprint it, please let us know by replying to this message. If this email was forwarded to you, subscribe to CEPR's email lists here.
The Trump administration announced new, unprecedented sanctions against Venezuela on Friday that are designed to cut off financing to Venezuela. The Trump team pretends that the sanctions are only directed at the government. But as any economist knows, this is clearly false. By starving the economy of foreign exchange, this action will harm the private sector, most Venezuelans, the poor, and the vulnerable.
These sanctions will deepen the severe depression that Venezuela’s economy has been in for more than three and a half years, which has already shrunk income per person by more than a third. They will worsen the shortages of food and essential medicines. They will exacerbate the country’s balance of payments crisis, and therefore feed the spiral of inflation (600 percent over the past year) and depreciation of the currency (on the black market) that has been accelerating since late 2012.
And they will further polarize an already divided country. Opposition leaders who support the sanctions, or are associated with them because of their longstanding ties to the US, will be seen as treasonous ― much as Republicans in the Trump administration, including Trump himself, are portrayed by those who believe they collaborated with the Russian government to win the 2016 election.
Trump’s sanctions are also illegal under both US and international law. They violate the charter of the Organization of American States (Chapter 4, Article 19) and other international treaties that the US has signed. To comply with US law, the president also has to lie and say that Americans are suffering from a “national emergency” due to an “unusual and extraordinary threat to national security” posed by Venezuela. This is obviously ridiculous.
The sanctions do their damage primarily by prohibiting Venezuela from borrowing or selling assets in the US financial system. They also prohibit CITGO, the US-based fuel industry company that is owned by the Venezuelan government, from sending dividends or profits back to Venezuela. In addition, if Venezuela wanted to do a debt restructuring, so as to reduce debt service during the current crisis, it would be unable to do this because it wouldn’t be able to issue new bonds. Basically, Trump’s executive order will cut off most sources of potential financing, other than from Russia or China. This would cause imports, which have already fallen by more than 75 percent over the past five years, to fall further. This means more shortages and further economic decline, since much of Venezuela’s domestic production is dependent on imports.
The executive order carries an exemption for oil imports from Venezuela.
Why would Trump do something that even his right-wing allies in Latin America, and most of the Venezuelan opposition did not support when Trump threatened to do this last month? As with many apparently irrational decisions by this president, it’s not that easy to know for sure. But it seems that the strategy is to further destroy the economy to the point where people will rise up and overthrow the government, or perhaps to provoke a military coup.
In the last few weeks, the violent street protests have died down. Most of the opposition leaders have agreed to participate in the long-delayed October regional elections. This is a positive development for those who would like to see a peaceful resolution of the conflict. But for regime-change extremists like Marco Rubio, whom Trump seems to be listening to on Venezuela, peace is bad news, especially for the media strategy of “if it bleeds, it leads.” They may see exacerbating the economic crisis and suffering to their advantage, hoping to bring people back into the streets and away from the negotiations that will be necessary to settle the conflict.
Finally, we cannot discount the possibility that Trump has also issued this order as yet another distraction from his bad political fortunes at home. Distraction has been his modus operandi since his presidential campaign last year. In this case it is particularly dangerous because he has also threatened military action against Venezuela, and US sanctions of this magnitude have often been followed by military attacks.
As Trump’s disgraced presidency continues to putrefy, the urge to rescue it with war will certainly grow. Venezuela is not the best target for public relations purposes because the “security threat” is a tough sell. But Trump and his advisers may see it as less risky than some of the alternatives, such as North Korea, Iran, or Syria.
Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine is Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Albert K. Barume is chairman of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples
Women from Nepal's indigenous tribe. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS
GENEVA / NEW YORK, Aug 7 2017 (IPS) - The world’s indigenous peoples still face huge challenges a decade after the adoption of an historic declaration on their rights, a group of United Nations experts and specialist bodies has warned. Speaking ahead of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on 9 August, the group says States must put words into action to end discrimination, exclusion and lack of protection illustrated by the worsening murder rate of human rights defenders.
The joint statement from the Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples reads as follows:
creating-better-world - Green Left Weekly/July 18, 2017
"Social justice isn't copyrighted," British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn told Naomi Klein in an on Thursday Common Dreams said that Klein, a left-wing writer and activist whose new book is No Is Not Enough, spoke to the socialist Labour leader about discuss [sic] Labour's stunning results in last month's elections,the Trump administration, Bernie Sanders, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Grenfell Tower and much more.
Despite attacks from his own party establishment and hostility from all the corporate media, Corbyn led Labour to win the reatest rise in proproption of vote for Labour in any election since the end of World War II (with Labour winning almost 10% more than in the 2015 elections).
This column was written for Tribune News Services, in response to the question, "Should the United States support regime change in Venezuela?" It was distributed by the Tribune Content Agency on July 19, 2017, and published by the Sacramento Bee and other newspapers.
The question of what role Washington should play in Venezuela’s crisis is a simple one, given its recent history. The answer is the same as it would be with regard to the role we would want the Russian government to play in US politics and elections: none at all.
