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World Bank Meeting Stresses Carbon Tax
March 28, 2016
The World Bank recently hosted a meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, at which it pushed representatives from over 30 governments to adopt a tax on corporate emissions of greenhouse gases in order to limit global warming.
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Groves: UN Climate Deal Requires US Senate Ratification
March 28, 2016
Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation writes that the UN deal on climate change agreed in Paris in December 2015 is "in form, in substance, and in the nature of its commitments a treaty" that must be approved by the US Senate before it can take effect and before the President can enact its provisions.
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UN Agent Calls for Redistribution to Fulfill Human Rights
March 23, 2016
While conceding that international human rights law "does not necessarily imply a perfectly equal distribution of income and wealth," UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky has called for governments to engage in redistributive efforts to fulfill "basic rights" of individuals.
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UN Agency Opposes EU-Turkey Deal on Migrants
March 23, 2016
Expressing opposition to a deal providing for the return of Middle East migrants from the EU to Turkey, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has suspended cooperation with what it calls "detention centres" for refugees in Greece and is now focusing on monitoring the protection of migrants' human rights.
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UN Agents Warn Argentina on Debt Payment
March 21, 2016
Two UN human rights rapporteurs have warned the Argentinean Congress that its approval of an offer to pay hedge funds a portion of the billions of dollars on which the country defaulted over a decade ago would encourage "hold-out litigation" on sovereign debt and endanger economic, social, and cultural rights in the country.
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EU Investment Bank Partners with Climate Fund
March 17, 2016
The European Investment Bank has announced that it has been approved as a partner institution of the UN's Green Climate Fund, which finances projects in the developing world that seek to reduce global warming and mitigate its impact.
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UNHCR Expresses Concern on EU-Turkey Refugee Deal
March 17, 2016
Though it acknowledged that it did not have all the details of the agreement, which was still under negotiation, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees ("UNHCR") recently voiced its concern regarding any EU deal with Turkey in which refugees in the EU would be subject to a "blanket return" to Turkey.
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UNHCR Issues Recommendations on Refugee Crisis
March 17, 2016
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees ("UNHCR") has issued a set of six steps through which it says EU member states should move toward "solving" the refugee crisis, including opening new legal pathways for refugees to enter Europe.
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UN Agency Pushes SDG Data-Collection Effort
March 16, 2016
George Russell reports that, to match the "sprawling" scope of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs"), which seek social and environmental transformation of society by 2030, the UN Statistical Commission has proposed an "unprecedented" system of global data gathering to measure SDG progress.
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UN Cites Benefits of "Comprehensive Sexuality Education"
March 16, 2016
A report published by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") argues that UN-promoted "comprehensive sexuality education" has led to the exercise by young people across the globe of their sexual and reproductive health rights, often interpreted to include a right to abortion.