IDN-InDepthNews – Page 692 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

UN INSIDER2017-03-102023-07-10

Nuclear Disarmament Is Humanity’s Common Cause

By Dr. J. Enkhsaikhan

Note: Dr. J. Enkhsaikhan is Chairman of Blue Banner NGO and former Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations in New York and Vienna. This article comes in run-up to the UN General Assembly’s two sessions – scheduled for March 27-31 and June 15-July 7 – to negotiate “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (IDN-INPS) – Some believe that those that do not possess nuclear weapons have no basis to demand that those that do possess alter their nuclear policies. However, as the three recent international conferences on humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons vividly demonstrated yet again, the detonation of a nuclear weapon, intentionally or otherwise, will have catastrophic consequences with far-reaching climatic, genetic and other devastating effects.

CTBTO2017-03-102023-07-10

The Key to Realizing Trump’s Nuclear Dream is the CTBT

Viewpoint by Brenna Gautam

Note: Brenna Gautam, a J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center, is a member of the CTBTO Youth Group. This article appears in cooperation with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), as part of the initiative ‘Youth for CTBTO’. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the CTBTO. – Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – “It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes,” President Donald Trump announced, “but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”

The announcement can be neatly split in two. The first, wistful for nuclear disarmament, falls in line with the history of Republican successes in arms reductions: while Democrats since Kennedy have frequently proposed reductions, it has been Republican administrations that ultimately put these into effect.

UN INSIDER2017-03-092023-07-10

Exhibition Highlights the Power of Human Rights Education

By Ravi Kanth Devarakonda

GENEVA (IDN) – Several international civil society groups and governments have joined hands to highlight the power of human rights education in transforming lives. In commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, they launched an Exhibition on March 6 at the UN in Geneva.

The Exhibition to be displayed until March 17 “reiterates the vital role of human rights education and training in the promotion of dignity, equality and peace, and in the prevention of human rights violations and abuses” – in the face of the rising wave of xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance.

Latin America & the Caribbean2017-03-092023-07-10

Caribbean Gearing Up for Marine Resources Treaty

By Desmond Brown

BELMOPAN, Belize (IDN) – The countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have been fine-tuning their positions ahead of the next United Nations preparatory meeting to establish an international legally-binding agreement on sustainable use of marine resources.

The UN meeting is scheduled for March 27 to April 7 and senior environment experts from CARICOM held a two-day workshop here from February 20-22 to discuss the issue.

United Nations negotiations for the new treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological resources in the world’s oceans – nearly 64 percent of which lie beyond national jurisdictions – began in 2016.

OPINION2017-03-082023-07-10

Populism – The Morbid Symptom of a Political Crisis

By Franz Baumann*

NEW YORK (IDN) – Carnage in Syria, millions (dozens of millions actually) of forcibly displaced people, fast-tracking global warming, crises in South Sudan, Venezuela, Brazil, Turkey, the Philippines and elsewhere, terrorist attacks in Europe, the UK Brexit vote and the US presidential election. What a list! Was 2016 an unusually ghastly year, or was it rather the new normal?

Hoping against hope that it was an outlier, these reflections highlight several macro trends that feed chauvinistic outbursts in many countries, yet that will not likely be reversed by anti-globalism, protectionism or militarism: rising inequality, jobless growth, terrorist attacks, the influx of migrants, corruption.

OPINION2017-03-082023-07-10

Being Anti-Russia Will Take The West Nowhere

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The state of being vigorously anti the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is becoming out of control. It is in danger of becoming pathological and self-destructive. What does the West gain in the long run if it sees nothing ahead but being anti-Russia? The West is in danger of having embarked on a journey to nowhere. Russia is not going to change significantly in the near future. The very close Putin/ Dimitri Medvedev team are going to remain in the saddle for a long time.

We are not yet in a second Cold War. Those who say we are don’t know their history. The Cold War was years of military confrontation, not least with nuclear arms. It was a competition for influence that stretched right around the globe and it was done with guns. There was the Cuban missile crisis when nuclear weapons were nearly used.

ARMAMENTS2017-03-082023-07-10

US 9th Circuit Court To Hear Marshall Islands Lawsuit Appeal

SAN FRANCISCO (IDN) – On March 15, 2017 at 9:00 AM, the appeal of the dismissal of the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ case in the U.S. Federal District Court will be heard in the Ninth District Court of Appeals.

The case, initially filed on April 24, 2014, alleges that the United States failed to uphold its legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to begin negotiations “in good faith” for an end to the nuclear arms race “at an early date” and for nuclear disarmament.

OPINION2017-03-072023-07-10

Sri Lanka: Multi-Ethnic East Cannot Meet Tamil-Majority North

By Sugeeswara Senadhira*

COLOMBO (IDN) – Immediately after announcing the temporary merger of the North and East in July 1987, the then Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene, in a surprising policy dichotomy, declared that he would canvass against the merger during the proposed referendum to be held in the East by December 31, 1987. Fortunately or unfortunately, the said referendum was never held, and it was routinely postponed annually by gazette notifications.

The issue of merger of the Northern Province and Eastern Province surfaced once again in February 2017 when Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reportedly rejected the suggestion made by the Sri Lankan Tamil politician Suresh Premachandran of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for Indian intervention in re-merging the two provinces.

Gender Equality2017-03-062023-07-10

The Shameful Epidemic That Is Rape

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) – Do legal systems around the world give women and girls true protection from rape and other forms of sexual violence? Do the victims of rape and sexual violence have access to real justice if violence is perpetrated?

The answer is ‘no’, says a report issued March 6 by Equality Now, an international human rights organisation working to protect and promote the rights of women and girls.

Are governments ensuring that adequate laws dealing with sexual violence are enacted, developed and enforced? Are governments living up their commitments to end all forms of violence – including sexual violence – against women and girls?

UN INSIDER2017-03-052023-07-10

Kazakhstan Offers Astana As Venue For Resolving Conflicts

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Kazakhstan fully supports the agenda and priorities of UN Secretary-General António Guterres and has offered Astana as venue to assist in transforming conflicts into peace, advance security and development, protect human rights, and promote the rule of law, according to Roman Vassilenko, the Central Republic’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev had spelt out that approach in his address to the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in 2015, he said.

Vassilenko was speaking at the UN Security Council ministerial open debate on “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Conflicts in Europe” on February 21, less than two months after joining as the Council’s non-permanent member for 2017-2018.