On September 23 2022, eight indigenous Australian Torres Strait Islanders and six of their children became the first claimants in international legal history to successfully assert, in front of the UN Human Rights Committee, the failure of a national government to protect human rights from the consequences of government-engendered climate change…
Tag Archives: environment
The voices of women must not be ignored at COP26
Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash By Louise Palmer From the 31st of October to the 12th of November 2021, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, will be held in Glasgow. The general mood as this event approaches is one of uncertainty and urgency. There is a growingContinue reading “The voices of women must not be ignored at COP26”
The Ethical Expense of Contemporary Smartphone Infatuation
Part of acknowledging one’s position of privilege in society is undertaking more ethical approaches to consumption. This is a complicated task under the conditions of late capitalism, but particularly in the 2010’s when considering the ubiquity of smartphone ownership. By 2020, it is projected that smartphone ownership worldwide will rise to 2.87 billion. While thereContinue reading “The Ethical Expense of Contemporary Smartphone Infatuation”
Human Rights and Business: The Corporate Accountability Paradox
Imagine if, one day, your local water supply suddenly started turning an acidic yellow colour. This is currently the case in the rivers near Zambia’s Copperbelt region. Fish are dying and the people are suffering. In 2015, toxic contamination from the London-based mining giant Vedanta Resources’ copper refinery reached such severe levels that the peopleContinue reading “Human Rights and Business: The Corporate Accountability Paradox”
Green Authoritarianism? Human Rights and Environmental Reform in China
In February 2017 local officials in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, struggled to disperse protests against the construction of an aluminium plant in the city. Dismissing promises that it would increase employment in the city, residents were angry at the prospect of another polluting industrial project in their backyards. Similar demonstrations were seen against planned industrial developmentContinue reading “Green Authoritarianism? Human Rights and Environmental Reform in China”
Cuba: A Model for Sustainable Agriculture
In 2006, the World Wildlife Fund identified Cuba as the only country in the world to achieve sustainable development. This was largely due to the great success of its agricultural sector. The Cuban state for the past quarter of a century has encouraged local production by small scale farmers, using sustainable strategies without chemical pesticides.Continue reading “Cuba: A Model for Sustainable Agriculture”
The Case Against the Dakota Access Pipeline
The marginalisation of Indigenous American peoples has been practically commonplace in society since Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of America in 1492. In today’s America, where political correctness supposedly runs rampant and discourse on the subject of cultural appropriation seems to be at the forefront of every other media controversy, one should be hard pressed to find examplesContinue reading “The Case Against the Dakota Access Pipeline”
Peace Parks: Nonviolence and Conservation
Recently there have been multiple studies on the correlation between climate change and conflict, notably with the Syrian civil war. A study published in PNAS quantitatively connected climate change in the Fertile Crescent, most specifically the jarring drought, with human conflict. Articles have begun to warn about the dangers of shifting blame for human violenceContinue reading “Peace Parks: Nonviolence and Conservation”
A Different Take on Climate Change: Socio-economic Impacts
A lot of discussions on climate change that we receive in the media focus on its effect on the natural environment—the melting of glaziers, coral bleaching, more extreme weather patterns, just to name a few. Not enough attention is given to the extremely important point that climate change is more detrimental to the poor thanContinue reading “A Different Take on Climate Change: Socio-economic Impacts”
Protocol Magazine 