United Nations

Former UN Official Seeks Comprehensive Reforms

March 31, 2016

Arguing that in spite of its positive aspirations the UN is mired in bureaucracy and incompetence, former UN Assistant Secretary General Anthony Banbury has called for substantial reforms in the international organization's infrastructure, including shielding budget allocation decisions from politics and appointing an external panel to review the UN's personnel system.
UN Report Forces Logging Policy Shift in Tasmania

March 31, 2016

While arguing that the review of conditions in a Tasmanian region designated as a World Heritage Area ("WHA") by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") contained "critical mistakes," the Tasmanian Government has accepted a UNESCO report calling for a ban on logging of special timber in the WHA and "strict conditions" on tourism development.
UN Head Seeks Greater Impact from HRC

March 31, 2016

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called on the UN Human Rights Council ("HRC") to increase its on-the-ground impact on human rights around the world and to do more to advance the link between the UN's human rights and "sustainable development" agendas.
UN Rights Chief Calls for More "Humane" EU Migrant Policy

March 31, 2016

In recent remarks to the UN Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has called for European countries to implement "a much more rights-compliant and humane" policy on migrants that opens avenues for greater legal immigration by people from the Middle East.
Schaefer, Groves: US Must De-fund UN Climate Agency

March 30, 2016

Brett Schaefer and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation write that, following the accession of the Palestinian Authority to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ("UNFCCC"), the US is legally obligated to cut off funding to the UNFCCC and possibly to UN's Green Climate Fund, a UNFCCC mechanism that finances projects seeking to limit the effects of global warming.
UNESCO Chief Highlights Education as Vehicle for "Sustainability"

March 30, 2016

As part of a recent panel on "education as global public good," the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO"), Irina Bokova, asserted that the importance of education lies in part in advancing the UN agendas on climate change and sustainability among students around the world.
UK Government Will Promise Zero Carbon Emissions

March 30, 2016

UK energy minister Andrea Leadsom has announced that her government will "enshrine" the UN climate deal agreed in Paris last year into British law by pledging "net zero emissions" by the year 2050.
UN Convenes Panel on Women's "Empowerment"

March 30, 2016

As UN Women convened the first meeting of its High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, one of the panel's co-chairs defined the purpose of the exercise, funded by the UK Government and the World Bank Group, as "recognizing and valuing fairly all women's work" and ensuring that women "achieve their full potential."
UN Climate Mechanism Seeks to Expand Role

March 30, 2016

The board of the UN Clean Development Mechanism, which provides credits to companies for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and operates under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ("UNFCCC"), has called on the UNFCCC to consider expanding the scope of its work in order to help fulfill the aspirations of the Paris climate deal agreed in December 2015.
World Bank Launches Urban Sustainability Initiative

March 29, 2016

The World Bank has announced that, in partnership with UN agencies and other development banks, it is launching a $1.5 billion initiative to work with cities in developing countries to promote programs improving urban "sustainability" and reducing their impact on climate change.