The Global Community has had work on human rights aspects and issues ever since 1985. A short list of our previous work on the human rights aspects and issues. 
For more recent work on the human rights aspects and issuesread the following table.
| Month/year |
Theme and Author |
Read contents |
| November 14, 2007 |
Palm oil: Cooking the Climate Once you pop, you can't stop
by Greenpeace Canada http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/
Indonesia — If, as you read this, you're tucking into a KitKat or dipping into a tube of Pringles, you might be interested
to know that these products contain palm oil that is linked to the destruction of forests and peatlands in Indonesia. As our new report "How the palm oil industry
is cooking the climate" shows, it's a recipe for disaster. The manufacturers of these products - Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever - are sourcing their palm oil from suppliers who aren't picky about where they site their
plantations. As the volunteers at the Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra have seen, this includes tearing up areas of pristine forest then draining and burning the
peatlands. Indonesia's peatlands act as huge carbon stores so replacing them with plantations them not only threatens the amazing biodiversity, including the rare Sumatran tiger,
it also releases huge volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They only cover 0.1 per cent of the land on Earth, but thanks in part to the activities of the palm
oil industry they contribute 4 per cent to global emissions. If expansion of the palm oil industry continues unabated, that figure can only rise.
What's to be done? The Indonesian government should urgently introduce a moratorium on forest and peatland destruction, which will provide a chance to develop long-term
solutions and prevent further emissions from deforestation. And our eyes are fixed firmly on the UN climate meeting in Bali next month, where the next phase of the Kyoto
Protocol will be discussed. With deforestation accounting for up to a fifth of global emissions, including financing for forest protection as a core part of the plan to
tackle climate change is essential. | Read  |
| November 27, 2007 |
UNDP wants climate justice through trade
by ASHOK B SHARMA
published by Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture and by Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) for the first time in its human development report has analysed the impact of climate
change. The Human Development Report 2007-08 – Fighting climate change : Human solidarity in a divided world is released at a time when the climate change agenda is
slowly gaining its entry in the WTO negotiations and the discussions on the review of the work under Kyoto Protocol is slated to take place in Bali in Indonesia in
December, this year.
The report documented the impact of climate change across the world also projected the likely scenario for the future. Making out a case for alternative sources of
energy and fuels like bio-fuels, the UNDP report said that global trade has a major role to play. It said :International trade could play a much larger role in
the expanding Markets for alternative fuels. Brazil is more efficient than either the European Union or the United States in producing ethanol, Moreover, sugar-based
ethanol is more efficient in cutting carbon emissions. The problem is that imports of Brazilian ethanol are restricted by high import tariffs. Removing these tariffs
would generate gains not just for Brazil, but for climate change mitigation.
Negotiations on emissions limits for the post-2012 Kyoto Protocol commitment period can – and must – frame the global carbon budget.
Saying so it noted most developed countries like Canada fell short of the targets. Though the European Union and UK have both embraced their targets, they are likely to
fall far short of the goals set unless they move rapidly to put climate mitigation at the center of energy policy reform. Two major OECD countries like US and Australia
are not bound by Kyoto Protocol.
The report suggested two ways to mitigate climate change, one is to directly tax carbon dioxide emission and the other is cap-and-trade. Under cap-and-trade system,
the government sets an overall emissions cap and issues tradable allowances that grant business the right to emit a set amount. Those who can reduce emissions more cheaply
are able to sell allowances. One potential disadvantage of cap-and-trade is energy price instability while the potential advantage is environmental certainty, it noted.
While the transition to climate protecting energy and life styles will have short-term costs, there may be economic benefits beyond what what is to be achieved by
stabilizing temperatures. These benefits are likely to be realized through Keynesian and Schumpeterian mechanisms with new incentives for massive investment stimulating
overall demand and creative destruction leading to innovation and productivity jumps in a wide array of sectors, the foreward to the report said.
While government leadership is going to be essential in correcting the huge externality that is climate change, Markets and prices will have to be put to work so that
private sector decisions can lead more naturally to optimal investment and production decisions.
| Read
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| November 21, 2007 |
Why Israel Has No "Right To Exist" As A Jewish State
by Oren Ben-Dor , Countercurrents.org, okbendor@yahoo.com
A recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish
state is a recognition of the Jews special entitlement, as eternal victims,
to have a Jewish state. Such a test of supreme stake for Jews is the
supreme criterion not only for racist policy making by the legislature but
also for a racist constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court.The
idea of a state that is first and foremost for the sake of Jews trumps
even that basic law of Human Freedom and Dignity to which the Israeli
Supreme Court pays so much lip service. Such constitutional
interpretation would have to make the egalitarian principle equality of
citizenship compatible with, and thus subservient to, the need to
maintain the Jewish majority and character of the state. This of course
constitutes a serious compromise of equality, translated into many
individual manifestations of oppression and domination of those victims
of such compromise--non-Jews-Arabs citizens of Israel.
The demand is that
Palestinians recognise Israel's entitlement to constitutionally entrench a
system of racist basic laws and policies, differential immigration criteria
for Jews and non-Jews, differential ownership and settlements rights,
differential capital investments, differential investment in education,
formal rules and informal conventions that differentiate the potential
stakes of political participation, lame-duck academic freedom and
debate.
The Jewish state could only come into being in May 1948 by ethnically
cleansing most of the indigenous population -- 750000 of them.
The fate of the descendants of those 750000 Palestinians
who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 would
continue to be discriminated under a two-state solutions.
The judaisation of the state could only be effectively implemented by
constantly internally displacing the population of many villages within the
Israel state. The Right of Return of Palestinians means that Israel acknowledges and
apologises for what it did in 1948. It does mean that Palestinian
memory of the 1948 catastrophe, the Nakbah, is publicly revived in the
Geography and collective memory of the polity. It does mean that
Palestinians descendants would be allowed to come back to their
villages. If this is not possible because there is a Jewish settlement there,
they should be given the choice to found an alternative settlement
nearby. This may mean some painful compulsory state purchase of
agricultural lands that should be handed back to those who return. In
cases when this is impossible they ought to be allowed the choice to
settle in another place in the larger area or if not possible in another area
in Palestine. It is clear that part of the realisation
of that right of return would not only be a just the actual return, but also
the assurance of equal stake and citizenship of all, Jews and
non-Jews-Arabs after the return. A return would make the egalitarian
claim by those who return even more difficult to conceal than currently
with regard to Israel Arab second class citizens. What unites Israelis
and many world Jews behind the call for the recognition of the right of a
Jewish state to exist is their aversion for the possibility of living, as a
minority, under conditions of equality of stake to all. But if Jews enjoys
this equality in Canada why can not they support such equality in
Palestine through giving full effect to the right of Return of Palestinians? |
Read |
| September 27, 2007 |
Full Text Of Ahmadinejad's Remarks At Columbia University
by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Countercurrents.org
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed students and
professors at the US Columbia University during his short sojourn
in New York before his address at the 62nd meeting of the UN
General Assembly.
His remarks at Columbia University were almost entirely
boycotted by western and specially US media; while he spoke of
such crucial issues as Iran's nuclear program and the Holocaust
which have always been at the center of western media's attention,
almost the only point the US press mentioned about Ahmadinejad's
address at Columbia university pertained to a few seconds of his
answer to a question about the rights of homosexuals in Iran.
The following is the full text of President Ahmadinejad's speech at
Columbia University.
|
Read  |
| September 26, 2007 |
Earth Calls for Radical Social Change and Spiritual Transformation
by Dr. Glen Barry
The population bomb has burst, the climate and biosphere are
in tatters, and tyrannical, militaristic governments rule; yet
there remains a path to global ecological sustainability
Earth Meanders
http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/
Dr. Barry is founder and President of Ecological Internet; provider of the largest, most used environmental portals on the Internet including the Climate Ark at
http://www.climateark.org/ and
http://EcoEarth.Info/ .
Earth Meanders is a series of ecological essays that are written in his personal capacity. |
Read |
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