12 November 2015, The Conversation, The Trans-Pacific Partnership poses a grave threat to sustainable development. This month’s long-awaited release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)text was the result of years of negotiations on trade ties between nations around the Pacific Rim. Some six weeks earlier, another set of deliberations came to an end as the United Nations unveiled its 17 Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), which aim to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality by addressing critical issues such as food security, health care, access to education, clean and affordable water, clean energy, and climate action. Unfortunately, the two documents are incompatible. Several chapters of the TPP impinge upon the SDGs, potentially undermining the UN’s efforts to promote sustainable development and equality throughout the Pacific region. Moreover, many developing countries, least-developed countries, and small island states in the Pacific region are excluded from the preferential trade deal. What does the TPP say on development? The US Trade Representative has boasted that the TPP’s chapter on development will be a boon for developing Pacific nations, and that it will “focus attention on major development goals including inclusion of women, micro-enterprise, poverty reduction, and education, science, and technology”. But while the chapter is laden with aspiration, it lacks firm commitments or hard obligations. Here’s how it opens: “The Parties affirm their commitment to promote and strengthen an open trade and investment environment that seeks to improve welfare, reduce poverty, raise living standards and create new employment opportunities in support of development.” Read More here
Category Archives: People Stress
9 November 2015, Christian Science Monitor, World Bank: Global warming will drive 100 million people into poverty. Without swift action, 100 million people could fall into poverty within 15 years because of global warming, a new World Bank report says. More than 100 million people could fall into extreme poverty due to global warming, according to a World Bank report released Sunday. The 227-page report called “Shock Waves: Managing the Impact of Climate Change on Poverty,” warns those numbers could be reached in less than 15 years.As most of the world prepares for a global warming summit in Paris later this month, the report indicates only a change in strategy will spare the world’s poorest nations from the increasingly devastating effects associated with the Earth’s rising temperatures. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the regions most susceptible to the effects of climate change. “Climate change hits the poorest the hardest, and our challenge now is to protect tens of millions of people from falling into extreme poverty because of a changing climate,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement. The debate over the role of rich and poor nations has already begun. Last week, a high-ranking summit member representing 134 developing nations involved in climate change talks said that, without financial support, poorer countries would not be able to meet the mandates likely to be imposed at the summit. Read More here
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22 October 2015, Ralph Nader, The Downsides of Cheap Abundance. In college, Economics 101 is often described as the social science discipline that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. MIT Economist Paul Samuelson liked to focus on scarcity, or more specifically, the allocation of scarce resources. “Abundance” was always a pretty word with an idyllic connotation for Professor Samuelson. I often wonder why there weren’t a few classes about the real-life consequences of abundance, along with scarcity and people’s material welfare. The present generation of internet technology is a proper subject of study within an economic framework. It might help us understand what is happening to our society. Let’s start with today’s highly-touted information age. At our finger-tips is the greatest free trove of information in human history. We can get it quickly and efficiently. Are we more informed? Are we hungry for more information? Do we read more books in an era of record production of books? Do we know more about what our congressional and state legislators are about? Are we more knowledgeable about history and its lessons? Read More here
8 October 2015, The Conversation, FactCheck: does Australia co-operate with the UN on its human rights obligations? At its narrowest interpretation, Brandis is correct: at a purely procedural level, it is true that Australia does comply with its formal obligations to report to the UN, and has issued an open invitation for UN investigators called Special Rapporteurs to visit. However, taken more broadly, Brandis overstates Australia’s human rights record i relation to the UN. Australia has been widely criticised, including by the UN, for its weak compliance with substantive obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. Australia and the UN The “UN envoy” that Insiders host Barrie Cassidy mentions is United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Francois Crepeau. To understand Brandis’ reply, we must first understand the role of a Special Rapporteur. The UN Human Rights Council is a body established by the UN General Assembly to oversee human rights compliance by UN member countries (“states”). The UN uses what it calls “special procedures” for this purpose, such as Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts and Working Groups, to investigate and report on human rights issues, or the situation in particular states. Current issues under investigation include education, food, freedom of expression, and indigenous peoples. A special procedures visit to a state is only by invitation, and so a request is made for an invitation from a state. Some states issue the requested invitation and some don’t. Some states have issued a standing invitation, indicating a willingness to receive visits at any time. Australia issued a standing invitation in 2008, before which it agreed to every request it had received. Under the standing invitation, Australia has received special procedure visits on Indigenous people, health, foreign debt, and people trafficking; previously it received visits on freedom of religion or belief, contemporary forms of racism, arbitrary detention, and adequate housing. Read More here