11/14/2019 Case filed by the Gambia against Myanmar before the ICJ for the genocide of Rohingya MuslimsRead NowAn arsenal of international laws has failed to confront the impunity of Myanmar’s government and its security forces for their deadly purge of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee a campaign of rape, arson, and killing.
However, in a last-ditch effort to impose an international ruling against Myanmar, the Gambia, a small West African country, took an unprecedented step in the realm of international justice by filing a suit on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation in the International Court of Justice seeking justice for Rohingya’s. This channel is important in the case of Myanmar since Article 9 of the UN Genocide Convention confers jurisdiction on the ICJ to determine the responsibility of governments for the crime of genocide, including their failure to prevent or punish perpetrators. The Gambia, ipso facto by being a member of the United Nations, is a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice and has a prerogative under the Genocide Convention to prevent and suppress acts of genocide by reaching out to the Principal Judicial Organ of the United Nations and seek justice for the victims. It has also requested the ICJ to issue an urgent temporary injunction ordering Myanmar to halt all actions that could aggravate or expand the existing situation. As both Myanmar and Gambia are parties to the Genocide Convention as well as members of the United Nations, they are therefore bound by the Statute of the Court, including Article 36(1), which provides that the Court’s jurisdiction “comprises … all matters specially provided for … in treaties and conventions in force” and that the Gambia has, in particular, made clear to Myanmar that its actions constitute a clear violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention. To substantiate its stand, the Gambia in its application before the court has referred to independent investigations conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, corroborated by international human rights organizations and other credible sources, which point towards serious genocidal intent in the conduct of Myanmar’s security forces. An alternative solution to the situation could have been the UN Security Council exercising its powers under the Rome Statute making a referral of the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. Unfortunately, the referral is unlikely as China and Russia are not State Parties to the Rome Statute and consistently oppose the possible jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over a non-State Party. Earlier, International Criminal Court, specifically set up to deal with genocide and other atrocities, did set itself up to at least partly take up the case against Myanmar; when it ruled that it could prosecute for “deportation” and associated crimes against Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh which is a court member because it cannot directly assume jurisdiction over the crimes committed on the territory of Myanmar as it not a party to the Rome Statute. It is not clear how Myanmar, which has always denied accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide, and argues that it was defending itself against an insurgency, will respond to the case.
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Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. Over half of the tropical forests worldwide have been destroyed since the 1960s, and every second, more than one hectare of tropical forest is destroyed or drastically degraded. The recent and widespread deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is a glaring example of the growing problem of forest degradation. Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is at its highest rate in a decade, according to new satellite data. This comes after President Jair Bolsonaro has loosened environmental regulations, cut enforcement budgets, and supported further deforestation in the region. Amazon is a crucial carbon sink. This means responding to deforestation in Brazil has become a matter of international responsibility.
With climate breakdown already causing conflict and undermining human security, it’s hard to argue the UN should not get involved. So, what can the UN do to prevent deforestation? Brazil has related obligations as one of the 195 signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, which set global targets to reduce greenhouse gas emission and keep global warming below 2℃, or ideally at 1.5℃. Article 5 of the Agreement says that parties “should take action” to preserve forests due to their role as carbon sinks. As part of the Paris Agreement, Brazil pledged to protect the Amazon through the restoration of 12 million hectares of forest by 2030. It might sound drastic, but if international peace and security are under threat, the UN Security Council could intervene under Article 42 which authorizes the use of force to halt those actions causing the menace. Force has been used in the past, for instance, to create corridors of protection for people in war-zones. Extending this idea, a UN force could be directed to provide a perimeter of protection around the Amazon and halt all deforestation activities. Under Article 41 of the UN Charter, the Security Council can impose sanctions to maintain or restore international peace and security. These sanctions are intended as non-military steps in order to coerce uncooperative governments or individuals. 10/20/2019 Legal modalities of Greta Thunberg's climate change strike before the United Nations.Read NowSwedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and 15 other young people from around the world have filed a human rights complaint against five countries for continuing to promote fossil fuels and failing to reduce carbon emissions. The group has asked the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to recognize climate change as a children’s rights crisis and wants it to push those five countries—Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey—to accelerate their action on climate change.
The petition was filed in New York on Monday to the CRC during the United Nations’ Climate Summit. The CRC monitors the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that protects the human rights of children around the globe. It was signed by every country in the world, except the United States. Of those countries that signed, 45 of them agreed to allow children to petition the UN directly about treaty violations. Therefore, as a result of which, some of the world's other top greenhouse gas emitters are notably not named in the complaint. The United States -- which has contributed more global warming-inducing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than any other country -- cannot be held in violation because it has not ratified the part of the treaty that allows children to seek justice for potential violations, and China, which currently emits more greenhouse gases than any other country, has also not signed onto that portion of the treaty. The young people, who range in age from 8 to 17, say that Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey have the highest greenhouse gas emissions among those 45 countries. They are each on a path that will result in planetary warming of between 3 and 4 degrees Celsius. They say none of the five will meet targets intended needed to keep the planet from heating to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, as agreed to under the Paris Agreement. Petitioners say that they are already suffering from climate change-related impacts, including wildfires, floods, mental anxiety, drought, and threats to their traditional ways of life, such as reindeer herding or fishing. The CRC, which is made up of 18 independent child rights experts, primarily has two functions. First, it oversees the implementation of the convention by receiving reports every five years from participating countries outlining the steps taken to fulfill their obligations. Information is also gathered from NGOs and other sources to identify areas of concern. But the second, relatively new, the function of the committee permits an individual, or group of individuals, submit a communication arguing their rights have been violated. This “Optional Protocol” – adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2011 – is what Greta Thunberg and the 15 other children are using. However, there are several procedural and legal hurdles that must be cleared before the committee can address the substance of the issue. First, it must be determined if the communication is admissible, which includes whether the petitioners have exhausted the legal options in their home countries for addressing their concerns. But while Thunberg and her co-petitioners have not brought any actions in state or federal courts it may be the committee allows the matter to proceed anyway, since taking such action may have been “unreasonably prolonged or unlikely to bring effective relief”. Second, the committee must rule on the jurisdiction, as the obligations of the CRC only apply to each child within a country’s jurisdiction. Some of the petitioners meet this requirement by virtue of their nationality or residence, but the communication makes a broader claim: any child is within the jurisdiction of a country when its polluting activity impacts the rights of children, within or outside that country’s territory. This is a very significant claim: essentially, that carbon pollution leading to climate change violates the rights of children worldwide. Only once these hurdles are cleared will the committee investigate the substance of the complaints, proceed to a hearing, and make recommendations to any country responsible for the violation. The World Trade Organisation ("WTO") is an international organization set up to liberalize the economies of the world. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely, as possible.
Recently, Chinese Taipei has initiated a trade dispute against India to the WTO over tariffs imposed on technology. Chinese Taipei has claimed that India has imposed tariffs on imports of certain Information and Communications Technology ("ICT") goods. Chinese Taipei believes that this imposition constitutes a less favorable treatment to Chinese Taipei than provided in the schedule of commitment that was agreed by India. Chinese Taipei has requested ‘dispute consultations’ with India at the WTO forum on the duties imposed by India. Chinese Taipei has stated that India has violated its schedule of commitments because it imposed bound rates ranging from 7.5% to 20%. Bound rates are the legally bound commitments on customs duty rates, which act as ceilings on the tariffs that countries can set on each other. India's bound to rates for particular sectors is zero and the imposition of these duties is against the bound duties that it initially agreed to. Meanwhile, India has counter-argued that such a provision was non-existent in the IT Agreement between the countries, that it consented to. In the background, the European Union had also moved the WTO against India in April and Japan in May. Other countries such as Canada, Thailand, the US, and Singapore have all moved the WTO against India at various times, challenging the measures that India had instituted with respect to its economic mandates. The majority of these disputes however are still in the consultation phase. Recently, a report released by the United Nations stated that the United States, Britain, and France (“Coalition”) may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there, and called for a ban on arms transfers to warring sides of Yemen. The report has also accused the Coalition of killing civilians in airstrikes and deliberately denying them food during the times of famine.
The Coalition has dismissed this report as subjective and biased. A statement published by Saudi state news agency claimed the presence of inaccurate assumptions in the report that makes it devoid of objectivity and impartiality.Rejecting the assertion that it had not provided information to the panel, the Coalition has agreed to provide a comprehensive and detailed legal response later in time. The Coalition has also assured its commitment to international humanitarian law and international human rights law in its military operations. The Yemeni Civil War has its roots in the Arab Spring which overthrew its longtime authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh and restored his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, to power in 2011. Mr. Hadi’s rule brought instability and resulted in the Houthi movement, which champions Yemen's Zaidi Shia Muslim minority. Taking advantage of the new president's weakness, the rebels took over Sanaa in 2014-15 and forced Mr. Hadi to flee abroad. The Saudi-led group of Sunni Muslim states intervened the following year to restore the ousted government leading to a conflict that has since killed thousands of people. The US and China have been in a trade war that has now started to impact corporates and consumers alike while putting a strain on the global economy. Recently, the US imposed tariffs on US$250 billion worth of Chinese products and has further threatened tariffs on US$325 billion worth products more. In retaliation, China has set tariffs on US$110 billion worth of US goods and is threatening qualitative measures that would affect US businesses operating in China.
Chinese tech giant Huawei is also playing a major role in this trade war. Apprehensions exist that China is using Huawei as a proxy so it can spy on the US and scoop up useful data. Meanwhile, Huawei has stated it is an independent corporation and gives nothing to China, apart from relevant taxes. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently stated that "The threat of having Chinese telecom systems inside of American networks or inside of networks around the world present a national security risk. Our mission is to find a way to reduce that risk, to take that risk down as much as we possibly can". Following which Huawei has been put on a U.S. blacklist called the Entity List which restrains American firms selling the company products. The US ban is prompting China and Huawei to stimulate their efforts in becoming self-sufficient in advanced technologies. The trade war is also impacting technology innovation, as tariffs have escalated expenses and lessened revenues of tech companies. The future of Huawei is indecisive, till both the countries resolve their conflicts and come to an amicable solution, in another way this trade war could turn into a digital cold war and it would impact the global economy. Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) of China, has found itself amidst difficulties. The disruptions began when the Hong Kong government was set to pass an extradition bill, allowing China to extradite criminals from Hong Kong. History demonstrates the distinction in frameworks between the two nations - citizens of Hong Kong are more independent than those in China. The passing of the bill would thus jeopardize Hong Kong's existing autonomy since critics of Beijing based in SAR would be susceptible to be tried in China, known for its human rights violations towards prisoners.
The protesters contended the above and put forward five key demands including withdrawal of the bill and establishment of an independent inquiry into the police’s handling of protests. The legislature defended the bill, expressing that it would keep hoodlums from escaping to other jurisdictions, and further argued that the bill won't have any significant bearing on free speech issues. The government later, however, used disproportional power to check the developing dissent. In mid-June, the protest escalated, and the government employed police force to curb it. Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong, stated that the bill is dead, but the protesters believed it to be a façade. The demonstrators demanded that Lam step down, but China stood firm with her. Nonconformists in July constrained authorities to close the air terminal and warned travelers that Hong Kong is no longer safe for them. President Trump denied any involvement of the US in these protests. The US issued a travel warning for those going to Hong Kong, advising visitors to avoid areas where protests could break out. Hong Kong is therefore in a critical situation, and there is no telling how much further it will escalate. Recently South Korean Trade Minister, Sung Yun-mo has announced the decision to remove Japan from a list of trusted trading partners and place it in the newly created restrictive trade list citing Tokyo's violations of "the basic principles of the international export control regime". This is being touted as a tit-for-tat move for the same done by Japan earlier this month.
It has been a long-running dispute between the two countries that was escalated last year after a South Korean court ordered Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean workers for forced labor during World War II. Japan, on the other hand, considers this issue to be resolved since 1965 when the two countries normalized their diplomatic ties. Recently Japan placed restrictions on the export of some chemicals to South Korea citing security reasons. These chemicals are vital for the production of semiconductors and therefore crucial to tech manufacturing companies. Japan claims that these chemicals are being illegally transported to North Korea where they could be used in making weapons while experts see these sanctions as a retaliatory action against the court's ruling. Earlier this month, Japan also removed South Korea from its index of trusted trade partners. The few attempts made by the US, to alleviate tension between the two of its close allies, have not been successful. In financial terms, South Korea is Japan's third-largest trading partner buying about $54 billion worth of Japanese goods, including industrial machines, chemicals, and cars. This move by South Korea will make it difficult for companies to obtain permits to the export of certain materials to Japan. Though the South Korean minister has not specified the materials that will be affected, this is likely to further hamper the global supply chain for big tech companies. Since both the countries are hubs of tech manufacture, these repeated sanctions have induced fear of risk over the global electronic market. After months of negotiations between the United States and the Taliban, both sides have signaled that they are nearing an initial peace deal for Afghanistan. The conflict has stretched for nearly 18 years, taking the lives of tens of thousands of Afghans and more than 3,500 American and coalition forces, and costing hundreds of billions of dollars. About 14,000 US troops and around 17,000 troops from 39 NATO allies and partner countries are in Afghanistan in a non-combative
role. Khalilzad, an Afghan-US diplomat who served as US ambassador to the United Nations (2007-2009), Iraq (2005-2007) and Afghanistan (2003-2005), is representing Washington in the Doha talks. The Taliban is represented by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the chief of the group's political office in Doha, and co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was released in October last year from a Pakistani prison. The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has been a sticking point in the meetings between the two sides in Doha. The Taliban insists it will not commit to anything until the US announces a withdrawal timeline and wants the troops out of the country within months. The Taliban has long refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which has repeatedly invited the group for talks with no success. Since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, the group maintains that the country has been occupied by foreign forces. It says the Kabul government has no real power and considers it a "puppet regime". The group says any engagement with the government would grant it legitimacy. Climate change has been one of the most compelling issues of recent times. While we discuss climate change regularly, its effect towards migration has not received much attention.
Climate change precipitates migration and over the years has uprooted millions of people. However, the people who migrate due to adverse climatic conditions do not get the protection that is offered to refugees. The definition of refugees in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees only includes those people who flee in fear of persecution. Therefore, under the existing law, only refugees get protection whereas migrants are left at the mercy of the whims of the receiving country. A glimmer of hope came in the form of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (‘GCM’) adopted by the General Assembly, which provides 23 objectives to tackle migration through shared responsibility. Its effectiveness, however, is questionable considering that it does not bind countries through obligations. In Australia, for example, there have recently been reports of a likely onslaught of migrants due to the crises brought about by natural forces. Despite the government granting refugee status to most of the people in their centres, reports suggest that they incarcerate the migrants and on various occasions, send back boats containing helpless people. They spend more resources for the elimination of migrants as opposed to giving them any sanctuary. This response raises the troubling question of what is to become of all the helpless people who have no place to turn to as official statistics related to climate migration reveal that it is likely to increase manifold in the coming years. |