United Nations

On September 21, 2009,
the Second Circuit made an important decision on a case known as
Connecticut vs American Electric Power.
Without going into too much detail, this was a case where several groups like the Audubon society were trying to stop coal plant emissions because it was harming the value of their land trusts. The lower court ruled as other courts have, that Climate Change was part of the political realm, not the courts.
However, the appellate court overturned this decision on the grounds that the Energy company were causing a public nuisance, and nuisance cases have been heard by courts for decades.

Cross-posted from an article by Sue Sturgis on Facing South

The Obama administration released the first-ever U.S. report to the U.N. Human Rights Council this week.

Prepared as part of the ongoing U.N. Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process that involved consultations with civil society groups nationwide, the report [pdf] acknowledges that the U.S. human rights record is less than perfect. However, it fails to address a number of pressing human rights issues facing the nation -- including the problems experienced by U.S. residents displaced by domestic disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

"While this report demonstrates the Obama administration's willingness to recommit to engagement on international human rights, the administration must now prove that it is prepared to not only talk the talk, but also walk the walk," said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program.

Cross-posted from an article by Sue Sturgis on Facing South

President Obama plans to be in New Orleans on Aug. 29 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina -- a prime opportunity to put disaster recovery issues back atop the national agenda.

The United States Senate is starting the debate on the Kerry Boxer Bill to address Climate Change.
This bill, addresses many issues such as funding Alternative Energy sources (including billions for 'clean coal'), increasing US security, and creating jobs.
But this legislation is missing a key element : language addressing Climate Change and human rights.
For Environmental Refugees both within the United States and internationally, Climate Change means losing their homes, land and culture. And because people displaced by Climate Change have no legal status, they have no recourse for their losses.

When will the time come that Climate Change talks will start considering Human Rights over Business rights?
There is a growing group of people in our world who are in a legal limbo,
Environmental Refugees.
Even though there are hundreds to thousands of people currently being displaced by Climate Change, they do not have a defined status as a group, hence they are not really 'refugees.'
And according to current predictions by Oxfam International, by 2050 there will be 75 million Environmental Refugees displaced due to Climate Change. Other models are predicting up to 250 million people.

The new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad must be deaf, dumb and blind. He ran the United States Embassy in Iraq for two years and never noticed the U.N. was there the whole time? Now he is announcing that the U.S. welcomes the presence of the U.N. in Iraq. I attended a few meetings with the U.N. members in Iraq, and the fact is, as far as I could tell, we didn’t want anything to do with them. The Bush Administration duplicity and pretence is showing here.