Greta Thunberg's Human Rights Complaint

We will come to human rights and climate change later in the course, and will discuss the relationship between them. But today, in the midst of the U.N. Climate Change Summit, Great Thunberg and a group of other teenagers filed a complaint against five countries under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, alleging that their failure to adequately address the climate change crisis violated the complainants' rights under the convention. Take a look at both the Convention and the Optional Protocol to assess the likely nature of the complaint. 

Here is Thunberg's passionate and angry speech at the United Nations Climate Summit today:

Current Human Rights Issues in the News

The New York Times reported last week that the United Nations Human Rights Council, the primary U.N. human rights body, will undertake investigations of suspected extra-judicial killings in the Philippines. There have long been allegations that President Duterte's "war on drugs" has involved the killing of thousands of people by law enforcement. The article recounts the fierce opposition The Philippines waged against the resolution passed to initiate the investigation.

In another story that relates to both another Asian country, and the operation of the Human Rights Council, The New York Times reported that the Independent Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar just submitted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, concluding that systematic persecution of the 660,000 Rohingyas is ongoing and that Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi could be subject to prosecution for crimes against humanity.

Finally, Foreign Policy last week provided some details on the "religious freedoms" meeting at the U.N. General Assembly, and efforts of the Trump Administration to facilitate cooperation among conservative governments to limit women's sexual and reproductive rights at a U.N. Universal Health Care Summit that will occur at the same time this week. As the piece explains, this is a continuation of efforts that began at a conference convened by the World Health Organization last summer. The effort pits the United States against its traditional allies, who argue that these efforts will have severe negative consequences for women around the world.

The United Nations General Assembly Kicks Off

As you will have heard, the United Nations General Assembly begins its 2019 session this week, with speeches from the leaders or foreign ministers of most state parties. Here is a quick review in The New York Times of what is expected this coming week. One of the high profile functions of the week is to be a Climate Change Summit beginning Monday, but The Guardian reports that President Trump will not attend, and will instead address a meeting on "religious freedoms." Here is a more detailed report on the specific national security issues that will be discussed at the UN this coming week.

International Law This Week!

As mentioned in class, there are many issues and incidents in the news this week that raise international law issues. We already discussed the air strikes on Saudi oil fields, though that issue continues to dominate the news. You can read legal analysis of the issues on the international law blogs listed in the right margin here.

Next up is discussion of announcements last week of a further tightening of American asylum rules. Asylum is the term used in municipal (domestic) law for the granting of refugee status - an issue that is governed by international human rights law, and in particular the 1951 International Refugee Convention. An article in The New York Times last week examined the new American policy, as compared to the policies of other countries, and under one heading specifically asked the question: "Does the Trump Plan Violate International Law?" You may be interested in keeping this question in mind when we get to human rights later in the course.

Another item, which I referred to in our last class, involves a hearing in Spain in response to a request by the United States to extradite the former head of Venezuelan intelligence services, to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking among other things. Extradition is typically governed by bilateral treaties - the reason bad guys in movies frequently talk about escaping to Brazil, and the reason Edward Snowden is in Russia, is that those countries do not have extradition treaties with the United States. Extradition treaties typically require that the crime for which the accused is sought in the other country, would also be a crime in the state being asked to extradite him - and there are typically exceptions for political crimes or conduct that is politically motivated. Here, The New York Times reported this week that the Spanish court denied the American extradition request because the court believed the request itself was politically motivated. We will also soon look at questions about the effort of some countries to apply their law extra-terrestrially. What would be the justification for the United States to exercise criminal jurisdiction over a Venezuelan for crimes committed outside of the United States?

Finally, next week is not only the week in which national leaders descend on New York City to attend the UN General Assembly, but Monday, September 23 is also the beginning of a UN Climate Summit. Here is a short essay in The Guardian assessing the summit given that the US will be largely absent. We will spend the last week of the course examining climate change law - it will be the defining crisis of our times, and the collective action problems that characterize our response is the greatest challenge for the international community.

Human Rights Committee Affirms a Duty to Protect Against Environmental Harm

We are not yet at human rights, but there is an interesting blog post this week that discusses a recent case before the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC). You will recall that the HRC is the institutional body that implements the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The case came from Paraguay, alleging that the government failed to protect the applicants from pesticides and other environmental harms from neighboring industrial farms.

The case, analyzed in the blog post, involves interesting interpretation of not only the ICCPR, but the application of jurisprudence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights, in establishing a clear and direct relationship between human rights and the environment, and affirming a positive obligation on states to protect their residents from environmental harm.

After reading the blog post (unfortunately, the HRC decision itself is not yet available in English), take a look at the specific provisions of the ICCPR, and consider whether you think that the HRC's apparent interpretation is supportable. Remember to apply the principles we have been discussing - particularly Articles 31 and 32 of the VCLT - in considering this question.

We will discuss this relationship between human rights and the environment in our examination of both human rights and climate change. You may all be aware of a fascinating case here in the United States, Juliana v. The United States, in which a Federal District Court in Oregon held that there is a fundamental right in the due process clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments to "an environment that can sustain human life," and allowed an action to proceed against the federal government for a violation of this right through its action and inaction contributing to climate change. The decision is on appeal at the 9th Circuit.

Welcome to Public International Law - 2019!

Welcome to the blog for the Public International Law Course of 2019! I will be posting links to topics in the news that relate to the issues that we are examining in the course, along with commentary and questions for you to consider. And I will encourage you to add your own comments, views, questions, and the like in the "comments" section below each post.