United Nations

UN, Italy Launch "Task Force" on Cultural Preservation

February 22, 2016

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") has announced that it has agreed with Italy to form an emergency task force of experts that UNESCO can call on Italy to deploy in case of crises threatening to destroy "cultural heritage" in various parts of the world.
UNESCO Pushes for "Sustainable" Ocean Governance

February 19, 2016

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission recently announced meetings on national and regional management of coastal areas with Flemish and EU officials to promote the UN's agenda on ocean "sustainability" and governance.
UN Deal Seeks Climate "Resilience" in Mediterranean

February 19, 2016

At a conference in Athens organized by the UN Environment Programme, countries agreed to a declaration pledging, in part, the protection of biodiversity in the Mediterranean and an increase in "the region's resilience to the impacts of climate change."
Despite Ruling, US Presses Forward with Climate Goals

February 19, 2016

Reuters reports that, despite the unusual order from the US Supreme Court to delay the implementation of President Obama's executive action seeking to lower US carbon emissions, the President remains committed to implementing the UN climate deal agreed in Paris in December.
UN Agent Seeks Compliance with Finding on Assange

February 17, 2016

Arguing that a "just and sustainable international order" depends on deference to human rights bodies, UN Independent Expert Alfred de Zayas called for the UK and Sweden to follow a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention "ruling" that Wikileaks founder and alleged sex offender Julian Assange must be given freedom of movement.
UN Group Criticizes Australian Proposal on Protests

February 17, 2016

A group of UN human rights mandate holders has called on the State Parliament of Western Australia to reject a proposal to criminalize the tactic of environmental activists of binding themselves to "equipment, trees, and other objects" to prevent development activities, arguing that these tactics are protected as free expression.
UN Creates Citizenship Education Chair at UCLA

February 12, 2016

The University of California at Los Angeles ("UCLA") hosted the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") Irina Bokova to celebrate the establishment at UCLA of the first UNESCO Chair on Global Citizenship Education, which seeks to further the teaching of the UN's social and environmental agenda to students around the world.
UN Forms "Sustainability" Network in Kenyan Universities

February 11, 2016

The UN Environment Programme has announced the launch of the Kenya Green University Network, which will seek to promote the UN's social and environmental agenda in the curricula of institutions of higher education and will push Kenyan universities to "play their part" in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
UN Panel Proposes Limits on Airplane Emissions

February 10, 2016

The UN's International Civil Aviation Organization has followed up the Paris climate deal agreed in December by proposing for adoption by a civil aviation council of 36 countries the world's first-ever standards for the reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions from airplanes.
Groves: US Congress Should Resist Paris Climate Deal

February 10, 2016

In testimony to a committee of the US House of Representatives, Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation argued that because the Obama Administration ignored its obligation to submit the recent Paris climate deal to the US Senate for ratification as a treaty, Congress should withhold funding from actions carrying out the deal and from the UN agency that helped negotiate it.