United Nations

UN Official Voices Concern over US Climate Action

May 02, 2016

UN General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft has stated that it is important to the future of the recently signed UN climate deal that the next US President not be a climate change "denier" and that the next appointee to the US Supreme Court uphold President Barack Obama's executive action implementing the agreement.
World Bank, France Fund West African Climate Program

May 02, 2016

The World Bank has announced that it is cooperating with the Government of France to finance the establishment of a West Africa coastal observatory, which will seek to improve the resilience of the West African coast against the impacts of global warming.
Panel Seeks Ambitious Global Carbon Tax

April 29, 2016

The World Bank has announced that leaders from governments and international organizations on a Carbon Pricing Panel have issued a "vision statement" in which they call for an ambitious, globally connected system of carbon taxation that would cover 50 percent of the world's carbon emissions by the year 2030 in order to counter climate change.
Ambassador: UN Israel-Palestine Resolution Is No Path to Peace

April 29, 2016

Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, writes that UN and US officials should deny calls for a UN Security Council resolution that outlines a final agreement between Israel and Palestine, as he argues that such a resolution is not an effective substitute for direct negotiations and will not lead to peace.
UN Agents: Australia Must Provide Support to Deaf Jurors

April 29, 2016

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has found that Australian authorities violated international human rights law by failing to provide deaf people sign-language interpretation or real-time captioning to permit them to participate on juries, concluding that the government's rationale of protecting the confidentiality of deliberations was insufficient.
UN Committee Links Migrant Deaths to EU Restrictions

April 29, 2016

A UN Committee on the protection of the rights of migrants has published a press release linking the recent deaths of approximately 500 migrants from African countries in the Mediterranean Sea to the lack of safe migratory routes and calling on EU countries to reverse measures that "restrict and criminalize" the ability of migrants to cross their borders.
UN Agent Fears Narrowing "Civil Society" Space in UK

April 28, 2016

UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Maina Kiai has issued a report following his monitoring visit to the UK on his apprehension that the country, through laws ranging from those countering "extremist" groups to those decreasing government money in lobbying, is seeking to narrow the operational space for civil society.
UN Agent: Climate Commitments Fail to Uphold Human Rights

April 28, 2016

While praising the inclusion of language in the recent UN climate deal linking climate change and human rights, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment John Knox warns that current commitments to reduce greenhouse gases under the deal will fail to sufficiently reduce global warming and therefore do not uphold the human rights obligations of the states.
UN Observer: India Must Implement Right to Housing

April 28, 2016

The Times of India reports that, after a monitoring visit to India, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing Leilani Farha called for the country to develop national housing legislation based on international human rights law, including by focusing on rights to "security of tenure" and "living in dignity."
Governments Sign UN Climate Agreement

April 28, 2016

At a signing ceremony at UN headquarters in New York last week, 175 governments signed an agreement to limit the greenhouse gas emissions in their countries by certain defined amounts and to report on a periodic basis to a UN body regarding their progress in reducing these emissions in an effort to counter global warming.