United Nations

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.
Experts: US Congress Must Halt UNFCCC Funding

April 27, 2016

Brett Schaefer and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation write that legislators must not allow the Obama Administration to "circumvent" US law by funding the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ("UNFCCC") following the accession of the Palestinian Authority to the UNFCCC treaty.
UN Official: States Must Go Beyond Climate Commitments

April 27, 2016

Indicating that the current commitments of governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient, UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Robert Glasser has called on countries to go beyond their UN climate deal commitments to save the world from "catastrophic future weather events."
UN Pushes for Ambitious Action to Achieve SDGs

April 27, 2016

At a debate in New York on achieving the UN's comprehensive Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") by the year 2030, UN officials called on participants to discuss how to fulfill and finance the SDGs, as well as the UN's climate change agenda, to "create pathways out of our current crises" and transform the world.
UN, Google Use Satellite Data to Monitor "Sustainability"

April 26, 2016

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization and technology company Google have announced their collaboration to use satellite data to monitor land use, climate change, and the progress of the world toward fulfillment of the UN's comprehensive Sustainable Development Goals.
UN Report Calls for Rights-based Drugs Approach

April 26, 2016

Declaring that "health is a human right," Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS Michel Sidibé has called for governments to decriminalize drug possession and use and to adopt a "harm reduction" approach to drugs that emphasizes the health and human rights of drug users.
UNESCO Links "Sustainable" Education, Designated Sites

April 26, 2016

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") recently hosted a forum in Athens considering how to use UNESCO's agenda on Education for Sustainable Development to push institutions of higher education to engage in some of the functions of maintaining UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
UN Report Outlines Social Policies to Remedy Child Inequality

April 25, 2016

A recent study published by the UN Children's Fund ("UNICEF") examines the effects of income inequality among children in high-income countries and calls on countries to implement social policies, including "protecting" the incomes of households with children and promoting healthy lifestyles, to remedy this inequality.