Odo Tevi, Permanent Representative of Vanuatu to the UN, speaks at the General Assembly. Credit : UN WEB TV

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 2026 (IPS)

Member states this week (May 20) deliberated over a draft resolution on states’ obligations in respect of climate change following the advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The General Assembly agreed to take measures to uphold the ICJ’s advisory opinion for member states to meet their existing obligations to climate justice under international law and multilateral frameworks.

The draft resolution (A/80/L.65) passed with 141 votes in favor, 8 votes against, and 28 abstentions. It was brought forward by the Republic of Vanuatu, along with the Core Group of States leading the UN General Assembly resolution responding to the ICJ advisory opinion. The resolution was introduced after a long period of consultations between member states. It outlines member states’ obligations to ensure the protection of the climate system by calling for multilateral cooperation to address what the ICJ has called an “existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”

“This day will be remembered. It will be remembered as the moment the United Nations received the considered judgment of its highest court of its defining challenge of our time and decided what to do with it. Vanuatu and the Core Group believe this Assembly should meet that moment with unity, with seriousness, and with respect for the law and one another,” said Odo Tevi, Permanent Representative of Vanuatu to the UN.

Voting Record of Resolution A-80-L.65. Credit: UN TV

When introducing the draft resolution to the Assembly, Tevi remarked that the ICJ opinion “confirms that the protection of the climate system is a matter of legal obligation, not political discretion.” It would not replace or challenge existing agreements such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Agreement, but rather reinforce them as the primary legislations and forums for the world’s response to climate change.

Amendments to the resolution were brought forward by a small group of member states, which included Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria. Those that argued for the amendments posited that the current resolution required further legal clarity, particularly as it related to the measures required to support developing countries in mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, there were concerns that the amendments weakened the language around the actions and responsibilities of member states, and tabling them so late into the provision would risk undermining the careful negotiations. Ultimately though, the amendments did not pass and the resolution was adopted without them.

In their remarks following the vote, member states welcomed the adoption of the resolution in light of recognizing climate change as a defining existential issue of the modern age, commending Vanuatu for its leadership in pushing for the resolution.

Speaking on behalf of the Pacific Small-Island Developing States (SIDS), Filipo Tarakinikini, Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN, welcomed the resolution, remarking that it was an “affirmation of survival” for island nations that have been uniquely threatened by climate change, experiencing lasting damages to their homes and their connection to heritage.

“We do not come to this hall asking for mercy. We come demanding justice. Justice that is today grounded in the authoritative voice of the world’s highest court. The Pacific will not disappear, and neither will our resolve,” said Tarakinikini.

Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France, said that this General Assembly decision was welcome in light of an “international context marred by many crises.”

“[France] will continue to defend ambitious climate action, multilateralism, respect for international law, and a science-based approach for sustainable development and for future generations,” Bonnafont said.

James Larsen, Permanent Representative of Australia, hoped that this resolution would “galvanize practical efforts” to protect the climate system and that the case for multilateralism has “never been stronger.” With Australia set to host COP31 later this year, Larsen remarked his country would continue working together with member states to accelerate climate action.

Among those that abstained from voting or were against the resolution are states accused of being major carbon emitters, including G77 members like India and Saudi Arabia. Both the United States of America and the Russian Federation voted against the resolution.

Prior to the vote, the United States expressed that their opposition was based on their “serious legal and policy concerns” about the resolution. The U.S. delegate noted that the resolution called for states to fulfill alleged obligations based on a non-binding ruling from the ICJ, and opposed the resolution’s “inappropriate political demands” to address climate issues.

The Russian Federation’s delegate argued after that member states’ climate obligations, such as the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, were more of a political obligation rather than normative and that the resolution was an effort to circumvent existing climate agreements.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the adoption of the resolution, commending the leadership of Pacific Island countries, SIDs and the students and activists whose “moral clarity helped bring the world to this moment.”

“The world’s highest court has spoken. Today, the General Assembly has answered,” said Guterres. “This is a powerful affirmation of international law, climate justice, science, and the responsibility of states to protect people from the escalating climate crisis… Those least responsible for climate change are paying the highest price. That injustice must end.”

Reacting to the debate, Yamide Dagnet, NRDC’s Senior Vice President, International, said, “Climate justice prevails! The world sent a loud signal that multilateralism and science matter and can deliver for the people and the planet.”

While congratulating the Small Island States, the youths and frontline communities who refused to stand down for their energy, tenacity and leadership, she noted,  “There will be a lot of noise about the difficulty in enforcing this resolution, but the reality is that it represents a watershed moment for polluter accountability. Moving forward, regulators and courts have an additional tool in their arsenal to force nations and companies to look at how they can put people over pollution and better protect the world’s most impacted communities and countries with dignity.”

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu, Jotham Napat, said the country expressed profound gratitude to 141 Member States that voted in favor of the UNGA resolution welcoming the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ on climate change and to the 90 States that stood together as co-sponsors of this historic initiative.

“This outcome is a powerful affirmation that the international community remains committed to the rule of law, multilateral cooperation, and climate justice at a time when these principles are being tested,” Napat said while acknowledging that the resolution was the first step in a new journey.

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Aung San Suu Kyi, Union Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, attends the opening of Myanmar's first round of oral observations at the International Court of Justice in 2019. She has since been jailed by the generals she defended at the ICJ. UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek

By Guy Dinmore
YANGON, Myanmar, and CHIANGMAI, Thailand , Jan 16 2026 (IPS)

Held incommunicado in grim prison conditions for nearly five years, Aung San Suu Kyi quite possibly does not even know that this week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened a landmark case charging Myanmar with committing genocide against its Rohingya minority a decade ago.

If news did filter through from the world outside her cell, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and ousted leader of Myanmar’s elected government would surely be reflecting on how it was that the generals she steadfastly defended in The Hague in preliminary hearings in 2019 are now her jailers.

The case before the ICJ, brought by Gambia, levels charges of genocide against Myanmar dating to the offensive in 2016-17 by military forces and Buddhist militia against the mostly Moslem Rohingya minority. Thousands were killed, villages torched and women raped, culminating in over 700,000 refugees forced across the border into Bangladesh.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation was already badly tarnished in the west even before she went to The Hague. In 2017 Oxford University’s St Hugh’s College, her alma mater, had removed her portrait from public view, and in 2018 Amnesty International joined numerous institutions and cities revoking awards they had bestowed, dismayed that she had not even used her moral authority as head of government to condemn the violence. Her 1991 Nobel prize remained intact—there were no rules to revoke it.

Separately, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last November requested an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing for alleged crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya.

To add salt to those wounds, her leading of Myanmar’s legal team to the ICJ may in fact have sealed her fate with the generals rather than preserve their difficult power-sharing arrangement.

“At that point her credibility was shattered and she lost the West,” commented a veteran analyst in Yangon. “It was at that point that the military decided to move against her and started plotting their coup,” he said, explaining how Senior General Min Aung Hlaing calculated that the international community would not rally behind her.

Aung San Suu Kyi turned 80 in prison last June and this week marks a total of some 20 years she has spent behind bars or under house arrest since her return to Myanmar from Britain in 1988. She has not seen her lawyers for two years and is serving sentences amounting to 27 years following an array of charges, including corruption, that her followers dismiss as fabricated.

Largely forgotten or deemed as irrelevant outside her country, in Myanmar “Mother Suu” remains widely popular, even revered—at least among the Buddhist Bamar majority—and her fate still has a bearing on the course of the country’s future.

Although the junta’s staging of phased elections, now underway in areas it controls, is dismissed by many in Myanmar as a total sham, people dare to hope that General Min Aung Hlaing, possibly the next president, might release Aung San Suu Kyi and the deposed president Win Myint, among other political prisoners. The expectation is that the military’s proxy party might make some form of gesture after the nominally civilian government takes office in April.

Very few signs remain of Aung San Suu Kyi in junta-controlled areas. This poster hung in a Yangon cafe in 2024 but is no longer there. Credit: Guy Dinmore/IPS

But resistance fighters and members of the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) operating in areas beyond junta control remain skeptical.

“The release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remains tightly constrained by the current balance of power. For Min Aung Hlaing, her freedom would fundamentally undermine the regime’s authority, giving him strong incentives to keep her isolated as long as the military remains ‘in control,’” David Gum Awng, NUG deputy foreign minister, told IPS outside Myanmar.

The “credible pathway forward,” he said, is to seize the capital Nay Pyi Taw, where Aung San Suu Kyi is believed to be incarcerated, and dismantle the military regime while reaching a broad political agreement or coalition among resistance forces.

“This would demand tremendous collective effort, large-scale coordination, and a much stronger political and military alliance and pact,” he added, referring to the NUG’s struggle to forge agreements among disparate ethnic armed groups that have been resisting successive military regimes and sometimes fighting between themselves for decades.

A former military captain, who defected to join civilian resistance groups outside Myanmar, told IPS that he liked “Mother Suu” and that his whole family had voted for her National League for Democracy in the 2020 elections when her government was re-elected by a landslide only for the generals to annul the results in their 2021 coup.

“But now it’s very hard for her to be a leader. We don’t see any changes happening. Ming Aung Hlaing will detain her for as long as possible. I worked with him and know his personality and based on that, he won’t release her. He is a vindictive man,” the former soldier said.

For the younger generation who paid a heavy price in mass street protests crushed by the military in early 2021 and then fled to join resistance forces springing up across the country, it seems time to move on from the era of Aung San Suu Kyi.

“It is time for a new leader. She is old. Gen Z will not listen to her,” was the comment of one hotel worker who also praised her legacy.

The NUG and the new generation are starting to acknowledge the historic abuses and wrongs committed by successive Myanmar leaders against the mostly stateless Rohingya community.

Some are following news of the ICJ hearings this week and openly say Aung San Suu Kyi’s role in 2019 in defending the military against charges of genocide was morally wrong and that she had ended up weakening her own position.

“She’s not there to defend them now,” commented one young man who was forced to flee Myanmar as the military hunted down his father, a prominent activist.

People who have known her for years seem to disagree over what really motivated Aung San Suu Kyi in taking that fateful step in The Hague.

Was it pride in defending her country as the daughter of Aung San, independence hero and founder of the modern military? Or did she wrongly calculate it was her only way forward while trying to introduce political and economic reforms that would curb the power of the generals?  Or was she simply like one of them—a Buddhist nationalist of the Bamar majority who remained skeptical about real federalism and saw the Rohingya as migrants who did not “belong” in Myanmar and were a threat to its dominant religion?

In a country where one powerful force remains committed to a past that is rejected by a large majority of its people, such questions over the shape of Myanmar’s future remain highly relevant, as does the fate of one woman.

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Qatar filed a case with the International Court of Justice under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination against the United Arab Emirates. The hearings were held by video link. Courtesy: International Court of Justice

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 3 2020 (IPS)

Qatar officials reiterated their claim on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) be held responsible for their “discrimination” against Qatari citizens, as the third day of public hearings proceeded at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nation’s highest court. But foreign policy experts caution that the case is not good for stability in the Persian Gulf region.

The case, filed under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), deals with, among other things, the expulsion of Qatari citizens from the UAE because of their nationality.

“In 2017, the UAE began ‘unprecedented discriminatory measures’ that target Qatar based on their national origin,” Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, legal advisor to Qatar’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dean of the College of Law at Qatar University, said at the hearing.

Qatar claims the discrimination began following a 2017 boycott by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt. The countries had reportedly cut diplomatic ties with Qatar  because of its alleged support of terrorist groups.

“The UAE has engaged in the violations of the human rights of Qatari people,” Al-Khulaifi added later.

Michael Stephens, a scholar with the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), told IPS: “Whilst it was understandable Qatar and the UAE had some very big differences over regional politics, the way in which this has been handled has been highly damaging and has really not produced any of the sort of results that the UAE initially hoped for.”

He said that the dispute might be posing a challenge in the Persian Gulf region overall.

“It’s not good because they’re playing out their rivalries in weaker countries, like Libya and Somalia, and polarising politics in those areas,” he said. “I don’t think this is good for the stability of the Gulf.”

He added that this might further undermine the negotiations over the nuclear deal, and “has emboldened actors to play the Gulf states against one another, who are smart and “can take money from both sides”.

• In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal with world powers to limit operations on its nuclear industry, among other things. It was reported that since January Iran has begun reducing its commitments to the deal.

“In general, it has made the Gulf look divided and weak,” Stephens said.

Lubna Qassim Mohammed Yousuf Bastaki, one of the speakers for the UAE, said Qatar’s case, “masquerading” as  discrimination, “concerns UAE measures that were addressed to Qatari nationals on the sole basis of their nationality, as nationality was both the focus and the effect of the UAE measures”.

At the start of proceedings this week the UAE argued that the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the matter as the dispute was based on nationality and not race and thereby did not relate to the CERD.

Bastaki argued that Qatar was invited “based on our commonalities as one people” to join the new union of the Arab emirates. “The fact that we have a  common origin which traversed the new national boundaries was understood,” she said.

She also said under the UAE law, Qataris are among the few who have the ability to become UAE nationals easily.

“This well illustrates the artificiality of the supposed racial distinctions which Qatar is now seeking to conjure up,” she said. 

Bastaki is not the only person to express her concern about the specific allegations of discrimination based on nationality.

“The Qataris have a much stronger argument, I think in that they sense that their nationals have been mistreated, but they’ve also made this slightly odd claim that this is about racism, when they are basically from the same background,” Stephens of FPRI told IPS. “Certainly the ruling families come from the same background.”

“So, claiming ‘racism’ is a difficult one that would only be possible if you had a Qatari from an Iranian origin, or a different background,” he added.

Stephens said that the UAE has certainly at times acted discriminatingly towards those who showed support for Qatar, citing the arrest of a British fan who was supporting Qatar during a football match. Last January, Ali Issa Ahmad was held by UAE police for two weeks after he supported Qatar in a football tournament held in the UAE.

“But the Qatari football team was allowed to play in the tournament and actually won,” Stephens said. “So it’s not a complete shutdown.”

Stephens said he can’t gauge the outcome of the rulings; he said Qatar’s position appears to be “strengthening” with more international arbitrators getting involved.

Stephens said the UAE’s claims that they were acting against people who supported terrorism, is a “very, very difficult claim to make: how would they prove that? How would they show just a normal Qatari walking around in Dubai or Abu Dhabi was supporting terrorism, by virtue of the fact that they’re Qatari?”

The hearings will continue till Friday.

The International Court of Justice instructed Thursday that Myanmar halt all measures that contribute to the genocide of the Rohingya community. More than 910,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to and settled in neighbouring Bangladesh. Pictured here are Rohingya children at Cox’s Bazar, a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 2020 (IPS)

In a groundbreaking and much anticipated ruling delivered on Thursday, the International Court of Justice demanded that Myanmar halt all measures that contribute to the genocide of the Rohingya community. 

The order was lauded by international bodies and organisations who have been involved with and/or closely following the case since the Gambia filed a lawsuit against Myanmar for human rights violations against the Rohingya community. 

The United Nations Secretary General has said he “welcomes” the order and “will promptly transmit the notice of the provisional measures ordered by the Court to the Security Council,” according to a statement from the the Spokesman for the Secretary-General. 

The order states Myanmar “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts” of genocide or harming the Rohingya; that its military not be involved in committing or being complicit in genocide of the community; and that Myanmar “shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts”. 

Following the order, Adam Combs, Regional Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told IPS that this measure “marks an important turning point for the Rohingya people as it means there is now the prospect for their rights to be recognised after years of discrimination, segregation, citizenship barriers and movement restrictions”.

While more than 910,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to and settled in neighbouring Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands of the persecuted community still remain in Myanmar; they remain in grave threat of discrimination and violence and it is for them that the provisional measures remain crucial. 

As Combs points out, upwards of 100,000 internally displaced Rohingya remain in camps with poor living conditions and with a lack of access to proper services and healthcare. 

“They remain reliant on humanitarian aid, year after year,” he told IPS. “In Northern Rakhine, we are still lacking access to parts of Northern Rakhine where the conditions for the Rohingya communities are likely to be dire and where there will be high levels of humanitarian need.”

“This ruling, especially in its unanimity, is a huge victory for the Rohingya, international justice, and The Gambia,” L. Grant Shubin, Deputy Legal Director at the Global Justice Center (GJC), told IPS on Thursday. 

“Especially after Myanmar threw the weight of its Nobel laureate leader behind a spurious defence, its heartening that the Court could unanimously acknowledge the genocidal danger facing the Rohingya still in Rakhine state,” he added. 

One of the key asks in the lawsuit was the “provisional measures” that would require, with “extreme urgency”, the halt of any conduct and activities by Myanmar that was perpetuating harm over the Rohingya community. 

As Shubin of GJC points out, the ruling was unanimous, which implies that these obligations were supported even by “the ad hoc Judge appointed by Myanmar.”

“The measure requiring Myanmar to report on the measures its taken to comply with the order is an extremely important opportunity for the international community, and the U.N. Security Council specifically, to fulfil their own obligations to prevent genocide,” he added. 

“This is the first step on a path to justice for the Rohingya,” said Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, according to a statement from GJC. 

Combs of NRC reiterated the need for “a concerted effort and renewed engagement by the Myanmar Government” that would ensure a safe livelihood for Rohingyas in Myanmar, and for them to receive their basic rights “in line with the principle of non-discrimination.” 

The ruling requires Myanmar to submit a report on all the measures it takes in four months.

A lawsuit by the Marshall Islands accusing the United States of failing to begin negotiations for nuclear disarmament has been thrown out of an American court.

The Marshall Islands is currently pursuing actions against India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom in the International Court of Justice, for failing to negotiate nuclear disarmament as required in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.“By side-stepping the case on jurisdictional grounds, the U.S. is essentially saying they will do what they want, when they want, and it’s not up to the rest of the world whether they keep their obligations.” -- David Krieger

Action against the U.S. had been filed in a federal court in California, as the United States does not recognise the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonating daily for 12 years.

Despite documented health effects still plaguing Marshallese islanders, U.S. Federal Court judge Jeffrey White dismissed the motion on Feb. 3, saying the harm caused by the U.S. flouting the NPT was “speculative.”

White also said the Marshall Islands lacked standing to bring the case, and that the court’s ruling was bound by the “political question doctrine” – that is, White ruled the question was a political one, not a legal one, and he therefore could not rule for the Marshalls.

Krieger, whose Nuclear Age Peace Foundation supports Marshall Islands in its legal cases, called the decision “absurd.”

“I think it was an error in his decision. There were very good grounds to say the Marshall Islands had standing, and this shouldn’t have been considered a political question,” he told IPS.

“The Marshall Islands know very well what it means to have nuclear bombs dropped on a country. They’ve suffered greatly, it’s definitely not speculative.”

The foundation of the multiple cases brought by the Marshall Islands was that the U.S., and other nuclear powers, had not negotiated in good faith to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. White ruled it was “speculative” that the failure of the U.S. to negotiate nuclear non-proliferation was harmful.

Krieger said the Marshalls would appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. He said the decision set a troubling precedent regarding U.S. adherence to international agreements.

“The U.S. does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ, and in this case, the judge is saying another country does not have standing [in an American court]. In essence, it means any country that enters into a treaty with the U.S. should think twice,” he said.

“Another country will be subject to the same decision of the court. Where does that leave a country who believes the U.S. is not acting in accordance with a treaty?

“By side-stepping the case on jurisdictional grounds, the U.S. is essentially saying they will do what they want, when they want, and it’s not up to the rest of the world whether they keep their obligations.”

Krieger said that the judge’s comments about the “speculative” nature of the case meant essentially that a nuclear accident or war would have to break out before such a case for damages could be heard.

“It’s saying a state must wait until some kind of nuclear event, before damages won’t be speculative,” he said. “It’s absurd that the claim that the U.S. has not fulfilled its obligations to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race, is called ‘speculative’ by the judge.”

Marshall Islands had intended to pursue all nine nuclear powers – the U.S., China, Russia, Pakistan, India, the U.K., France, North Korea and Israel – in the ICJ on their failure to negotiate for nuclear non-proliferation.

The Marshall Islands is still pursuing cases in the ICJ against Pakistan, India and the U.K., but John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, said the other cases had stalled as those nations did not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

“The other six states, the Marshall Islands invited and urged them to come before the court voluntarily, which is a perfectly normal procedure, but none of them have done so,” Burroughs told IPS.

Burroughs, also a member of the international team in the ICJ, said China had explicitly said it would not appear before the court.

“Any of those countries could still agree to accept the court’s jurisdiction,” he said.

He said preliminary briefs had been filed in the India and Pakistan cases, with responses due by mid-2015. A brief will be served on the U.K. case in March.

Burroughs said he doubted the decision in U.S. federal court would impact the cases in The Hague.

“I don’t see the decision having any effect at all,” he said.

Edited By Kitty Stapp

“Never was there a greater need than now for all the religions to combine, to pull their wisdom and to give the benefit of that combined, huge repository of wisdom to international law and to the world.”

The words are those of Christopher Weeramantry, former judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its vice-president from 1997 to 2000, who was addressing a session on faiths united against nuclear weapons at the civil society forum organised by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on Dec. 6 and 7 in the Austrian capital.

Former ICJ judge Christopher Weeramantry. Credit: Henning Blatt, Wikimedia

Weeramantry strongly criticised the argument of those who claim that nuclear weapons have saved the world from another world war in the last 50 years.

He pointed to the ever-present danger represented by these weapons and said that on many occasions it had been luck that had prevented catastrophic nuclear accidents or the breaking out of a devastating nuclear war.

Noting that nuclear weapons “offend every single principle of religion,” Weeramantry was joined on the panel by a number of different religious leaders, including Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi and peace activist, as well as Akemi Bailey-Haynie, national women’s leader of the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International-USA.

Although there often seems to be a gap between the positions of different faith communities concerning different issues, all panellists were very clear in pushing the moral imperative and declaring the similar values that are inherent to all religions.“The atom bomb mentality is immoral, unethical, addictive and only evil can come from it” – Mahatma Gandhi

According to Mustafa Ceric, it “is not the question of whether you believe, it is the question of whether we are going to wait and see the destruction of our planet.”

Ceric also stressed that the goals and values of humanity are defined by common moral and ethical standards and that the role of religious communities today is greater than ever. Faced with fear and mistrust in society, he said, they also have the responsibility to care for peace and security in the world.

Akemi Bailey-Haynie continued with an emotional statement from first-hand experience – her own mother was a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing in 1945.

“When nuclear weapons are considered a deterrent or viable option in warfare, it seems from a mind-set that fundamentally denies that all people possess infinite potential. No one has the right to take away a precious life of another human being.”

Akemi Bailey-Haynie, national women’s leader of the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International-USA. Credit: SGI

For Bailey-Haynie, nuclear weapons serve no purpose other than mass destruction. They have devastating effects on human beings and the environment, and the possibility of nuclear accidents or potential terrorism cannot be ruled out, she said, adding that dialogue between people of different or opposing opinions is the beginning to achieve change regarding this issue.

“As a second generation survivor, I deeply feel the sorrow, as well as the outrage, born of not being able to yet live in a time when the most inhumane of weapons, nuclear weapons, have been banned,“ she concluded.

Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate and former Anglican Bishop, sent a video message to participants to express his deep solidarity and support for ICAN’s civil society forum initiative.

He argued that the best way to honour the victims of the incidents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to negotiate a total ban on nuclear weapons to ensure that nothing comparable could ever happen again.

Two of the session’s speakers, Ela Gandhi and Mustafa Ceric, also attended the Dec. 8-9 Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

There, Ela Gandhi delivered a speech in the spirit of her grandfather who, she said, would have joined the movement to abolish nuclear weapons if still alive.

As Gandhi had dedicated his life to teaching humanity that there is a non-violent way of dealing with conflict, he even condemned nuclear weapons himself in 1946 when he said: “The atom bomb mentality is immoral, unethical, addictive and only evil can come from it.”

Pointing out that the mere existence of nuclear weapons leads to similar armament of rival countries, Ela Gandhi warned that these nuclear arsenals could destroy a chance for future generations to survive and have a prosperous life.

The Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was the scene of intense and often emotional discussions among official representatives from over 160 countries, victims and civil society participants. Notably, both the United States and the United Kingdom were officially represented for the first time at a conference where their nuclear arsenals were subject to debate and criticism.

Religion played an important role at the conference, where many lobbying groups had religious backgrounds, and the opening ceremony was addressed by Pope Francis.

“I am convinced that the desire for peace and fraternity, planted deep in the human heart, will bear fruit in concrete ways to ensure that nuclear weapons are banned once and for all, to the benefit of our common home,” aid Pope Francis, expressing his hope that “a world without nuclear weapons is truly possibly.”

In a statement on behalf of faith communities to the final session, Kimiaki Kawai, Program Director for Peace Affairs at Soka Gakkai International (SGI), said: “The elimination of nuclear weapons is not only a moral imperative; it is the ultimate measure of our worth as a species, as human beings.”

He said that “acceptance of the continued existence of nuclear weapons stifles our capacity to think more broadly and more compassionately about who we are as human beings, and what our potential is. Humanity must find alternative ways of dealing with conflict.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Mushroom cloud over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands from Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear test ever conducted by the United States. Credit: United States Department of Energy [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

By Julia Rainer
VIENNA, Dec 9 2014 (IPS)

Ahead of the Dec. 8-9 Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, activists from all over the world came together in the Austrian capital to participate in a civil society forum organised by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on Dec. 6 and 7.

One pressing issue discussed was the Marshall Islands’ lawsuit against the United States and eight other nuclear-weapon nations that was filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in April 2014, denouncing the over 60 nuclear tests that were conducted on the small island state’s territory between 1946 and 1958.“The Marshall Islands is a small, gutsy country. It is not a country that will be bullied, nor is it one that will give up. It knows what is at stake with nuclear weapons and is fighting in the courtroom for humanity’s survival” – David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF)

The location was chosen not only because it was an isolated part of the world but also because at the time it was also a Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands governed by the United States. Self-government was achieved in 1979, and full sovereignty in 1986.

The people of the Marshall Islands were neither informed nor asked for their consent and for a long period did not realise the harm that the testing would bring to the local communities.

The consequences were severe, ranging from displacement of people to islands that were strongly radiated and cannot be resettled for thousands of years, besides birth abnormalities and cancer. The states responsible denied the harm of the practice and refuse to provide for adequate amount of health care.

Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first United States‘ test of a nuclear bomb in 1954 and was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Addressing the ICAN forum, Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum explained that his country had decided to approach the ICJ to take a stand for a world free of nuclear weapons.

De Brum said that the Marshall Islands was not seeking compensation, because the United States had already provided millions of dollars to the islands, but wants to hold states accountable for their actions in violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and international customary law.

The NPT, which entered into force in 1970, commits nuclear-weapon states to nuclear disarmament and the peaceful use of nuclear power. The nine countries currently holding nuclear arsenals are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, who talked about “stopping the madness and banning nuclear weapons once and for all”, with Daniela Varano, ICAN Campaign Communications Coordinator. Credit: ICAN

Although a certain degree of disarmament has been taken place since the end of the Cold War, these nine nations together still possess some 17,000 nuclear weapons and globally spend 100 billion dollars a year on nuclear forces.

The Marshall Islands case, which has received worldwide attention and support from many different organisations, is often referred to as “David vs. Goliath”. One eminent supporter is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), whose president, David Krieger, said: “The Marshall Islands is a small, gutsy country. It is not a country that will be bullied, nor is it one that will give up.”

“It knows what is at stake with nuclear weapons,” he continued, “and is fighting in the courtroom for humanity’s survival. The people of the Marshall Islands deserve our support and appreciation for taking this fight into the U.S. Federal Court and to the International Court of Justice, the highest court in the world.”

Another strong supporter of the case is Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Buddhist organisation that advocates for peace, culture and education and has a network of 12 million people all over the world. The youth movement of SGI even launched a “Nuclear Zero” petition and obtained five million signatures throughout Japan in its demand for a world free of nuclear weapons.

The campaign was encouraged by the upcoming 70^th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2015 as well as the holding of the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

Addressing the ICAN, de Brum urged participants to support the cause of the Marshall Islands. “For a long time,” he said, “the Marshallese people did not have a voice strong enough or loud enough for the world to hear what happened to them and they desperately don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”

He went on to say that when the opportunity arose to file a lawsuit in order to stop “the madness of nuclear weapons”, the Marshall Islands decided to take that step, declaring in its lawsuit: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”.

De Brum recognised that many had discouraged his country from taking that step because it would look ridiculous or did not make sense for a nation of 70.000 people to take on the most powerful nations in the world on such a highly debated issue.

However, he said, “there is not a single citizen on the Marshall Islands that has not had an encounter with one or another effect of the testing period … because we have experienced directly the effects of nuclear weapons we felt that we had the mandate to do what we have done.”

The Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons is the third in a series of such conferences – the first was held in Oslo, Norway, in March 2013 and the second in Nayarit, Mexico, in February 2014.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

A Patriot interceptor missile is launched from Omelek Island Oct. 25, 2012 during a U.S. Missile Defense Agency integrated flight test. Credit: U.S. Navy

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2014 (IPS)

The tiny Pacific nation state of Marshall Islands – which depends heavily on the United States for its economic survival, uses the U.S. dollar as its currency and predictably votes with Washington on all controversial political issues at the United Nations – is challenging the world’s nuclear powers before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, is being described as a potential battle between a puny David and a mighty Goliath: a country with a population of a little over 68,000 people defying the world’s nine nuclear powers with over 3.5 billion people."The United States should defend the case and widen the opportunity for the Court to resolve the wide divide of opinion regarding the state of compliance with the disarmament obligations." -- John Burroughs

John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and the U.N. Office of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), told IPS the Marshall Islands and its legal team strongly encourage other states to support the case, by making statements, and by filing their own parallel cases if they qualify, or by intervening in the case.

Burroughs, who is a member of that team, said the ICJ, in its 1996 advisory opinion, held unanimously that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.

And these cases brought by the Marshall Islands nearly 18 years after the ICJ advisory opinion “will put to the test the claims of the nine states possessing nuclear arsenals that they are in compliance with international law regarding nuclear disarmament and cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date.”

The nine nuclear states include the five permanent members (P5) of the U.N. Security Council, namely the United States, the UK, France, China and Russia, plus India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

Burroughs said three of the respondent states – the UK, India, and Pakistan – have accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court, as has the Marshall Islands.

For the other six states, he said, the Marshall Islands is calling on them to accept the Court’s jurisdiction in these particular cases.

“This is a normal procedure but the six states could choose not to do so,” said Burroughs.

Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests, triggering health and environmental problems which still plague the island nation.

Tony de Brum, the foreign minister of Marshall Islands, was quoted as saying, “Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities.”

The continued existence of nuclear weapons and the terrible risk they pose to the world threaten us all, he added.

The suit also says the five original nuclear weapon states (P5) are continuously breaching their legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Article VI of the NPT requires states to pursue negotiations in good faith on cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and nuclear disarmament.

India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are not parties to the treaty.

But the lawsuit contends that all nine nuclear-armed nations are still violating customary international law.

Far from dismantling their weapons, the nuclear weapons states are accused of planning to spend over one trillion dollars on modernising their arsenals in the next decade.

David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which is strongly supportive of the law suit, said, “The Marshall Islands is saying enough is enough.”

He said it is taking a bold and courageous stand on behalf of all humanity, “and we at the foundation are proud to stand by their side.”

In a statement released Thursday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said, “The failure of these nuclear-armed countries to uphold important commitments and respect the law makes the world a more dangerous place.

“We must ask why these leaders continue to break their promises and put their citizens and the world at risk of horrific devastation. This is one of the most fundamental moral and legal questions of our time,” he added.

Burroughs told IPS the United States maintains that it is committed both to the international rule of law and to the eventual achievement of a world free of nuclear weapons.

“The United States should defend the case and widen the opportunity for the Court to resolve the wide divide of opinion regarding the state of compliance with the disarmament obligations,” he added.

The other five states which have not accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court are being asked to do likewise.

As to the case against the UK, a key issue is whether the UK has breached the nuclear disarmament obligation by opposing General Assembly efforts to launch multilateral negotiations on the global elimination of nuclear weapons, said Burroughs.

For India and Pakistan, because they are not parties to the NPT, the case will resolve the question of whether the obligations of nuclear disarmament are customary in nature, binding on all states.

He said it will also address whether the actions of India and Pakistan in building up, improving and diversifying their nuclear arsenals are contrary to the obligation of cessation of the nuclear arms race and the fundamental legal principle of good faith.

Workmen clear a road blocked by a landslide in Trinidad. Compensation for loss and damage from climate change has become a major demand of developing countries. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Mar 24 2014 (IPS)

Can Caribbean governments take legal action against other countries that they believe are warming the planet with devastating consequences?

A former regional diplomat argues the answer is yes. Ronald Sanders, who is also a senior research fellow at London University, says such legal action would require all Small Island Developing States (SIDS) acting together."There is a moral case to be raised at the United Nations...It would require great leadership, great courage and great unity." -- Ronald Sanders

He believes the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) would be amenable to hearing their arguments, although the court’s requirement that all parties to a dispute agree to its jurisdiction would be a major stumbling block.

“It is most unlikely that the countries that are warming the planet, which incidentally now include India and China, not just the United States, Canada and the European Union…[that] they would agree to jurisdiction,” Sanders told IPS.

“The alternative, if countries wanted to press the issue of compensation for the destruction caused by climate change, is that they would have to go to the United Nations General Assembly.”

Sanders said that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries could “as a group put forward a resolution stating the case that they do believe, and there is evidence to support it, that climate change and global warming is having a material effect… on the integrity of their countries.

“We’re seeing coastal areas vanishing and we know that if sea level rise continues large parts of existing islands will disappear and some of them may even be submerged, so the evidence is there.”

Sanders pointed to the damaging effects of flooding and landslides in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, and Dominica as 2013 came to an end.

The prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, described the flooding and landslides as “unprecedented” and gave a preliminary estimate of damage in his country alone to be in excess of 60 million dollars.

“People who live in the Caribbean know from their own experience that climate change is real,” Sanders said.

“They know it from days and nights that are hotter than in the past, from more frequent and more intense hurricanes or freak years like the last one when there were none, from long periods of dry weather followed by unseasonal heavy rainfall and flooding, and from the recognisable erosion of coastal areas and reefs.”

For the first time in several years, Antigua’s main water source, Potworks Reservoir, has run out of water as drought continues. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

At the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw last November, developing countries fought hard for the creation of a third pillar of a new climate treaty to be finalised in 2015. After two weeks and 36 straight hours of negotiations, they finally won the International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (IMLD), to go with the mitigation (emissions reduction) and adaptation pillars.

The details of that mechanism will be hammered out at climate talks in Bonn this June, and finally in Paris the following year. As chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Nauru will be present at a meeting in New Delhi next week of the BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) to try and build a common platform for the international talks.

“It isn’t just the Caribbean, of course,” Sanders said. “A number of other countries in the world – the Pacific countries – are facing an even more pressing danger than we are at the moment. There are countries in Africa that are facing this problem, and countries in Asia,” he told IPS.

“Now if they all join together, there is a moral case to be raised at the United Nations and maybe that is the place at which we would more effectively press it if we acted together. It would require great leadership, great courage and great unity,” he added.

Pointing to the OECD countries, Sir Ronald said they act together, consult with each other and come up with a programme which they then say is what the international standard must be and the developing countries must accept it.

“Why do the developing countries not understand that we could reverse that process? We can stand up together and say look, this is what we are demanding and the developed countries would then have to listen to what the developing countries are saying,” Sir Ronald said.

Following their recent 25th inter-sessional meeting in St. Vincent, Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller praised the increased focus that CARICOM leaders have placed on the issue of climate change, especially in light of the freak storm last year that devastated St. Lucia, Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

At that meeting, heads of government agreed on the establishment of a task force on climate change and SIDS to provide guidance to Caribbean climate change negotiators, their ministers and political leaders in order to ensure the strategic positioning of the region in the negotiations.

In Antigua, where drought has persisted for months, water catchments are quickly drying up. The water manager at the state-owned Antigua Public utilities Authority (APUA), Ivan Rodrigues, blames climate change.

“We know that the climate is changing and what we need to do is to cater for it and deal with it,” he told IPS.

But he is not sold on the idea of international legal action against the large industrialised countries.

“I think what will cause [a reversal of their practices] is consumer activism,” he said. “The argument may not be strong enough for a court of law to actually penalise a government.”

But Sanders firmly believes an opinion from the International Court of Justice would make a huge difference.

“We could get an opinion. If the United Nations General Assembly were to accept a resolution that, say, we want an opinion from the International Court of Jurists on this matter, I think we could get an opinion that would be favourable to a case for the Caribbean and other countries that are affected by climate change,” he told IPS.

“If there was a case where countries, governments and large companies knew that if they continue these harmful practices, action would be taken against them, of course they would change their position because at the end of the day they want to be profitable and successful. They don’t want to be having to fight court cases and losing them and then having to pay compensation,” he added.

Juan González (left), a Peruvian, and Luis Monsalve, a Chilean, made friends in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago in spite of the maritime border dispute settled by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Feb 3 2014 (IPS)

Juan González and Luis Monsalve come from different backgrounds, but have much in common. González, a 40-year-old Peruvian migrant who has lived for the past eight years in Santiago, and Monsalve, a 63-year-old Chilean, agree that border conflicts never benefit ordinary people.

They both awaited with interest the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which on Monday Jan. 27 took a balanced view of both countries’ legal arguments, but ultimately handed over to Lima thousands of square kilometres of ocean previously controlled by Santiago.“There were differences of opinion between the Peruvians and ourselves, but the atmosphere was never charged with hate.” -- Chilean, Luis Monsalve

In Santiago’s Plaza de Armas, where both men work, mobile television crews, journalists and photographers were present that day to observe the reactions of Chileans and Peruvians to the verdict that settled one of Latin America’s pending border disputes.

“We got a piece of sea that is more important to the high-up authorities, because we ordinary Chileans and Peruvians aren’t given a single fish,” González, a vendor of Peruvian food on one side of the Plaza, told IPS on Wednesday Jan. 29.

For Monsalve, who has a small kiosk on the square, the dispute is “a far-off issue” because “our real problems centre on how to feed our families.”

The Plaza de Armas is the geographical centre of the city and the starting point for measuring distances on all Chile’s highways. It is a favourite place for a stroll for many of the 103,624 Peruvian residents who are the main immigrant community in this country.

The ICJ set new bilateral maritime borders and granted Peru some 22,000 square kilometres of what had been a Chilean exclusive economic zone for the previous 60 years.

Chile wanted the maritime boundary to run parallel to the equator for 200 nautical miles (the limit of its territorial waters), while Peru argued the border should be perpendicular to the coast. The newly delineated border runs along the parallel for 80 nautical miles and then extends to the southwest at an equal distance from both coasts.

The ICJ’s decision is regarded as an equitable compromise by both governments.

The waters that were in dispute are fishing grounds for 1,300 artisanal fishers of anchovy, mainly used to make fish meal, but are controlled by a fishing conglomerate owned by Grupo Angelini, the third-largest economic group in the country.

“The ICJ has safeguarded the fishing rights of artisanal fishers, but also those of the large fishing industry, which operates out to about 60 nautical miles” from the coast, economist Claudio Lara told IPS.

“The interests of Chilean fishing, especially the industry, have been protected by the decision,” said Lara, who is in charge of teaching Master’s degrees in economics at the Latin American Postgraduate School at ARCIS University.

Peru declared it had won a victory in the court case that it brought before the ICJ in 2008, while Chile downplayed the loss of some territorial waters by pointing out that the court in The Hague had recognised the 80 nautical miles of existing maritime border.

While ICJ presiding judge Peter Tomka in The Hague read the verdict, which cannot be appealed, dozens of Peruvian migrants and Chilean citizens discussed its ramifications in the Plaza de Armas.

Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), in which Lima lost the provinces of Arica and Iquique, and Bolivia lost Antofagasta.

Peru was left without the coastal waters that it went to The Hague to claim back, while Bolivia was left without an outlet to the Pacific, which is a dispute yet to be solved.

During the War of the Pacific, Chilean soldiers sacked different areas of Peru, including Lima, looting valuable works of art and books, raping women and burning homes.

However, 130 years later, Chile and Peru have a great deal in common: they are members of the Pacific Alliance together with Colombia and Mexico, and they both belong to several regional and international organisations.

Chilean investments in Peru amounted to 13.6 billion dollars between 1990 and 2013, and Peruvian investments in Chile were eight billion dollars in that period, according to the ProChile (government export promotion) office in Lima.

Hundreds of thousands of people from both countries travel freely across the border zone from Arica in Chile to Tacna in Peru.

Chilean citizens go to clinics and hospitals in Tacna, where health care is cheaper and the staff are friendlier, they say. According to the mayor of Arica, Salvador Urrutia, some 5,000 people a day cross the border, and three times that number on weekends.

Political scientist Francisca Quiroga, a professor at the Chilean government’s Diplomatic Academy, said that beyond the positions taken by states, “today it is citizens who are on the move, creating greater social mobility, and so different points of view come into play, not just that of the nation-state.”

Nowadays, invoking an external enemy is in contradiction with the new forms of conflict resolution proposed by the citizenry, she said.

González, the Peruvian, said the court decision was a good one. “It’s for the best, this way we will not keep fighting,” he said.

“If they had given Peru more, Chileans would have been worse off, and things could have become more serious,” he said.

“Everything was calm and normal,” said Monsalve, the Chilean. “There were differences of opinion between the Peruvians and ourselves, but the atmosphere was never charged with hate.”

They agree that relations between Chileans and Peruvians are cordial. They mingle on the Plaza de Armas, where stalls selling Peruvian fruit and food have been set up.

Quiroga said that citizens have developed other ways of relating to one another, even though states in the region maintain rather rigid positions on sovereignty.

She cited as an example the Union of South American Nations, which “in its founding charter maintains a very restrictive sovereignty principle, on the basis of non intervention in the internal affairs and defence of each nation.”

Chile and Peru both took their political and legal viewpoints to the ICJ, without economic relations being affected, she said.

Lara said that Chileans have invested over eight billion dollars in Peru since the border dispute went to court in 2008.

On Wednesday Jan. 29, at a bilateral meeting held in the framework of the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Havana, presidents Sebastián Piñera of Chile and Ollanta Humala of Peru agreed to implement the ICJ verdict gradually, in a climate of neighbourly cordiality.

In Santiago, González and Monsalve met and talked for the first time, although they work only half a block away from each other. Juan has invited Luis over to his place to eat one day soon, and says he is looking forward to welcoming him.

The secrecy surrounding a friendly settlement in a case that Ecuador brought against Colombia in the International Court of Justice for damage caused by anti-drug spraying along the border has further angered those affected by the fumigation.

Ecuador dropped the lawsuit filed in 2008 in The Hague-based Court, as a result of the agreement signed Sept. 9, a copy of which was obtained by IPS.

The settlement stipulates that Colombia is to pay 15 million dollars in compensation, to be invested in areas in Ecuador affected by the aerial spraying of coca crops with the glyphosate herbicide near the country’s border.

But how and when the investments will be made has not yet been clarified.

The Colombian government also pledged not to carry out aerial spraying over the next year within 10 km of the border with Ecuador, between the southwest Colombian provinces of Putumayo and Nariño and the northern Ecuadorean provinces of Sucumbíos, Carchi and Esmeraldas.“[I]f a single drop of glyphosate falls we will protest because we are prepared to carry this through to the end…” -- Daniel Alarcón, head of FORCCOFES

But that 10-km strip could be narrowed to five and eventually two km within two years, according to the conditions explained in appendix 1 of the settlement agreement.

The appendix states that after the first year, once the scientific analyses are studied, the binational technical group will assess whether Ecuadorean territory was affected by the spraying. If it was not, the exclusion zone will be reduced to five km wide for one year, and after that, to two km.

That is the main concern of peasant farmers who say their health, crops and livestock have been affected by glyphosate spraying.

Reducing the width of the exclusion zone to two km “is unfair, but the agreement has already been signed, and since it was between governments, we were left high and dry; but we will continue the struggle,” Daniel Alarcón, the head of the Federation of Peasant Organisations in the Ecuadorian Border Zone of Sucumbios (FORCCOFES), told IPS.

The settlement does not provide a real solution because “they will continue spraying near us,” he said.

“It will affect us – we hope only minimally – but if a single drop of glyphosate falls we will protest because we are prepared to carry this through to the end, to get reparations for the damage caused.”

Alarcón was referring to the health problems and deterioration in the quality of life that tens of thousands of people have suffered as a result of Colombia’s spraying near the Ecuadorean border between 2000 and 2007 with the aim of eradicating coca crops.

According to a survey conducted by Forccofes, some 15,000 families live in the border area in question, and the 10,000 families living along the San Miguel river have been affected the most by the spraying.

“The effects are still being felt; the land has not returned to normal production levels,” said Alarcón, who lives in 5 de Agosto, a community in the border district of General Farfán. “Cancer was almost unheard of here before, and now people are continuously dying of cancer because of the glyphosate, which has contaminated the water sources.”

The agreement between the two countries refers to the chemical composition of the herbicide that figures in the environmental management plan authorised by Colombia’s environment ministry in resolution 1054, from 2003.

According to the settlement, the mixture – which according to the government is used throughout the national territory – contains 44 percent glyphosate, one percent Cosmoflux, and 55 percent water.

But the label for the Monsanto corporation’s Roundup glyphosate herbicide recommends a concentration of 1.6 to 7.7 percent glyphosate, with an absolute upper limit of 29 percent.

There are no studies on the impact of Cosmoflux.

An econometric study carried out this year by two professors at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, on the health effects of aerial spraying, found that it had “a very significant” impact in terms of the likelihood of miscarriage. It also found a correlation between aerial spraying and skin problems.

Uruguayan political analyst Laura Gil, who disseminated the terms of the settlement in Colombia on Oct. 1, told IPS that it was “unacceptable for Ecuadoreans to receive more [safety] guarantees than Colombians.”

She added, however, that “agreements like this strengthen relations. It’s better to try to settle things through negotiations, rather than through a legal sentence, even though the International Court of Justice is a mechanism for the peaceful settlement of conflicts.

“But it is not acceptable for it to be done through secret diplomatic negotiations,” she added, pointing out that the content of the binational agreement did not go through the Colombian Congress.

“It’s obvious why not: because the legislators would demand a halt to the spraying.

Amira Armenta, an expert with the Transnational Institute’s Drugs and Democracy programme, wrote in a Sept. 12 article that the settlement would not really change anything because Colombia would continue spraying in border provinces.

According to the latest study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Nariño and Putumayo are the provinces with the highest density of coca cultivation – 22 percent and 13 percent, respectively, of the country’s total coca cultivation in late 2012.

“In the last decade, Nariño has suffered from the highest levels of spraying in the country, and in spite of that it continues to boast the title of biggest producer,” Armenta writes.

The settlement also states that before spraying in a border area, the Colombian government will give the Ecuadorean government 10 days notice, indicating the exact locations and dates of the fumigation.

“This is much more than what could have been achieved in a legal ruling, because it is very difficult for an international court to require a country to assume a commitment of this nature since the country can claim that it affects its sovereignty,” Ecuador’s foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, said about the agreement. “But it is possible to achieve when it is a friendly settlement.”

Ecuador and Colombia also agreed to sign a special expedited protocol for addressing complaints from Ecuadorean citizens in border areas. But the protocol, to be adopted “within 15 days” after the settlement was signed Sept. 9, has not yet been announced.

With reporting by Constanza Vieira in Bogotá.

There are only 100 Iriomote wildcats left in Japan. Credit: Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF)

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

Efforts to protect the critically endangered Iriomote wildcat, a spotted, shy, feral creature native to the tiny Iriomote Island that forms part of the Okinawa Prefecture in southern Japan, are becoming a highly respected model of conservation here, where the government’s uneven track record in protecting imperiled species has frustrated wildlife activists for decades.

A unique collaboration between diverse stakeholders including government agencies, non-governmental organisations and local groups is helping to preserve the dwindling wildcat population, now numbering just about 100 animals, down from an estimated 300 about a decade ago, experts say.

Iriomote cats have long roamed the forests on this hilly, semi-tropical island, but infrastructure development and expanding farms and sugarcane plantations have encroached on the creature’s natural habitat, while speeding cars on huge roads that now snake through their territory have resulted in untimely deaths of the protected species.

The two-year-old conservation effort has made significant inroads into protecting the cats by pooling a wide range of skills, public resources and native knowledge.

Specific initiatives include wildlife awareness projects targeted at the local population, comprised primarily of subsistence farming and fishing communities; the building of tunnels that serve as safe passageways for animals attempting to cross the roads; and popular tours for visitors to observe the animals in the wild.

“The steady decline of Iriomote wildcat numbers is [due to] rapid economic development on the island,” explained Kumi Togawa of the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund, an NGO that works to curb the illegal wildlife trade, and reduce domestic demand for wildlife and related products.

She told IPS that recent surveys conducted among the 2,500 islanders of Iriomote indicate rising awareness and respect for conservation work.

“The consensus among the people here is that if they do not protect the species that are native to their land, they will soon loose a key aspect of their cultural identity,” said Togawa.

Susumu Murata, a volunteer conservationist who patrols the streets at night in his car to prevent speeding vehicles from crushing the nocturnal animal, says the natives have “locked hands with the government and conservation experts to work for one purpose – to save the Iriomote cat from extinction.”

During the past two spring seasons, Murata has single-handedly rescued at least 10 kittens and moved them to safety, far away from the deadly roads.

Education campaigns seeking to transform the Iriomote cat into a local icon have been particularly rewarding, as schoolchildren take on the struggle and begin to influence the adults.

The Okinawan archipelago boasts a high level of biodiversity and is home to some of Japan’s rarest wildlife, which the country is finally recognising as part of its national heritage that must be protected at all costs.

This past March Japan took the unprecedented step of listing the hitherto neglected Ryukyu black-breasted leaf turtle in Appendix II of the internationally binding Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).

Endemic to the Ryukyu Islands, a cluster of volcanic islands in southwest Japan, the creature was classified as a “national monument” of Japan back in the 1970s, which amounted to a nationwide ban on the sale, capture or transfer of the turtle without the explicit consent of the commissioner for cultural affairs.

This did not, however, prevent foreigners from trading the animal, which has recently made appearances in mainland China, Hong Kong and on various websites online, prompting Japan to submit a proposal to CITES, the first time this nation of 127.8 million people has done so.

“The proposal to list the Ryukyu black-breasted leaf turtle is a small but significant step for Japan,” said Kahori Kanari, senior programme officer with the wildlife-monitoring network TRAFFIC, who recently co-authored a report supplying evidence of the emergence of an illegal Asian trade of this species.

Another positive indicator of Japan’s move towards a new conservation model is the recently unveiled National Biodiversity Strategy for 2012-2020, outlining national targets that run parallel to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets agreed upon at the October 2010 meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, including fostering community support to protect the environment.

Marisa Aramaki, wildlife trade officer at Japan’s Environment Agency, told IPS, “We are working hard to strengthen domestic laws to protect biodiversity after decades of destruction.”

The loss of the Japanese otter is a case in point. The animals have not been spotted in the rivers, their natural habitat, for over 10 years, resulting in the species being officially recognised as extinct in 2012.

Aramaki says the primary reason is the pollution of Japanese rivers from mining and other industrial projects. She called the loss of the otter a “bitter reminder” of the need to work with local communities to find lasting protection mechanisms for endangered wildlife.

A whale of a problem

While conservationists are pleased at the changes taking place, they are also painfully aware that sporadic breakthroughs do not mean they are nearing the end of their long struggle.

The most recent reminder that the future of wildlife conservation is far from rosy came on Jul. 17, as public hearings at the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) drew to a close on the case between Australia and Japan, regarding the latter’s whaling practices in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.

The case, filed by the Australian government last month, referred to what Japan calls “scientific whaling expeditions” during which it catches up to 1,000 minke whales per month for “research purposes”.

Western animal rights groups have long been crying foul over this practice, accusing Japan of using research as a façade for commercial whaling activity. The fact that whale meat is sold on the domestic market shortly after the so-called research has been conducted bolsters these claims.

Tohoku University Professor Atsushi Ishii, an expert on the Japanese whaling industry, told IPS, “The fight to protect the environment here is constantly up against powerful economic and political interests.”

Research indicates that Japan forks out 10 million dollars in subsidies for each whale hunt, a hefty sum that the government defends as not only necessary for gathering scientific data but also as an important national tradition worth preserving.

Japan’s catches of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a key ingredient in many of the country’s highly prized sushi dishes, have also run into international conflict with conservationists who have lobbied hard and won conditions to control overfishing, which is resulting in depleted fish stocks.

Bluefin populations have dwindled down to just 17 percent of their 1975 levels, with Japan consuming 80 percent of the global catch. Here again, activists clash with business interests: prime cuts of bluefin sell for about 14 dollars per piece in upscale restaurants, while an auction in Tokyo this past January saw the record-breaking sale of a single 489-pound bluefin tuna for 1.8 million dollars.

The same goes for conservationists who come up against the fantastically profitable mining industry, which is poised to hit 3.59 billion dollars by 2017.

Until Japan is able to reconcile these contradictions, environmentalists face a long battle to win concessions and protections for Japan’s endangered wildlife.