Biodiversity Agreement Historic But Difficult to Implement

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Biodiversity

Government delegations celebrate the close of the historic negotiation at COP15 of the New Global Framework on Biodiversity in the early hours of the morning on Monday Dec. 19, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada. CREDIT: Mike Muzurakis/IISD

MONTREAL, Dec 19 2022 (IPS) – The pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), which takes its name from its shape, is found throughout the Caribbean Sea, but its population has declined by more than 80 percent since 1990. As a result, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed it as “critically endangered” due to the effects of the human-induced climate crisis.

Its fate now depends on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Framework on Biodiversity, which was agreed by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Monday Dec. 19, at the end of the summit held since Dec. 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.

Now, the world’s countries must translate the results into national biodiversity strategies, to comply with the new accord. In this regard, David Ainsworth, spokesman for the CBD, in force since 1993 and based in Montreal, announced the creation of a global accelerator for the drafting of national plans, with the support of U.N. agencies.

COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world's natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world’s natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The menu of agreements

COP15, whose theme was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”, approved four objectives on improving the status of biodiversity, reducing species extinction, fair and appropriate sharing of benefits from access to and use of genetic resources, and means of implementation of the agreement.

In addition, the plenary of the summit, which brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies, agreed on 23 goals within the Global Framework, for the conservation and management of 30 percent of terrestrial areas and 30 percent of marine areas by 2030, in what is known in U.N. jargon as the 30×30.

This includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

Likewise, the agreement reached by the 196 States Parties at COP15 includes the halving of food waste, the elimination or reform of at least 500 billion dollars a year in subsidies harmful to biodiversity, and at least 200 billion dollars in funding for biodiversity by 2030 from public and private sources.

It also endorsed increasing financial transfers from countries of the industrialized North to nations of the developing South by at least 20 billion dollars by 2025 and 30 billion dollars by 2030, and the voluntary publication by companies for monitoring, evaluation and disclosure of the impact of their activities on biodiversity.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will manage a new fund, whose operation will be defined by the countries over the next two years.

With regard to digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, the Global Framework stipulates the establishment of a multilateral fund for benefit-sharing between providers and users of genetic resources and states that governments will define the final figure at COP16 in Turkey in 2024.

The Global Framework also contains gender and youth perspectives, two strong demands of the process that was initially scheduled to end in the city of Kunming, China, in 2020. But because that country was unable to host mass meetings due to its zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19, a first virtual chapter was held there and another later in person, and the final one now took place in Montreal.

The states parties are required to report at least every five years on their national compliance with the Global Framework. The CBD will include national information submitted in February 2026 and June 2029 in its status and trend reports.

With some differences, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples gave a nod to the Global Framework, but issued warnings. Viviana Figueroa, representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and Simone Lovera, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition, applauded the agreement in conversations with IPS, while pointing out its risks.

“It’s a good step forward, because it recognizes the role of indigenous peoples, the use of biodiversity and the role of traditional knowledge,” said Figueroa, an Omaguaca indigenous lawyer from Argentina whose organization brings together indigenous groups from around the world to present their positions at international environmental meetings.

“It has been a long process, to which native peoples have contributed and have made proposals. The most important aspects that we proposed have been recognized and we hope to work together with the countries,” she added.

But, she remarked, “the most important thing will be the implementation.”

Goal C and targets one, three, five, nine, 13, 21 and 22 of the Global Framework relate to respect for the rights of native and local communities.

Lovera, whose organization brings together NGOs and indigenous groups, said the accord “recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and of women. It also includes a recommendation to withdraw subsidies and reduce public and private investments in destructive activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching and oil palm monoculture.”

But indigenous and human rights organizations have questioned the 30×30 approach on the grounds that it undermines ancestral rights, blocks access to aboriginal territories, and requires consultation and unpressured, informed consent for protected areas prior to any decision on the future of those areas.

Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Major challenge

While the Global Framework has indicators and monitoring mechanisms and is legally binding, it has no actual teeth, and the precedent of the failed Aichi Targets casts a shadow over its future, especially with the world’s poor track record on international agreements.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD’s COP10 and which its 196 states parties failed to meet in 2020, included the creation of terrestrial and marine protected areas; the fight against pollution and invasive species; respect for indigenous knowledge; and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.

Several estimates put the amount needed to protect biological heritage at 700 billion dollars, which means there is still an enormous gap to be closed.

In more than 30 years, the GEF has disbursed over 22 billion dollars and helped transfer another 120 billion dollars to more than 5,000 regional and national projects. For the new period starting in 2023, the fund is counting on some five billion dollars in financing.

In addition, the Small Grants Program has supported around 27,000 community initiatives in developing countries.

“There is little public funding, more is needed,” Lovera said. “It’s sad that they say the private sector must fund biodiversity. In indigenous territories money is needed. They can do much more than governments with less money. Direct support can be more effective and they will meet the commitments.”

The activist also criticized the use of offsets, a mechanism whereby one area can be destroyed and another can be restored elsewhere – already used in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

“This system allows us to destroy 70 percent of the planet while preserving the other 30 percent,” Lovera said. “It is madness. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is very negative, because they lose their own biodiversity and the compensation is of no use to them, because it happens somewhere else.”

Figueroa said institutions that already manage funds could create direct mechanisms for indigenous peoples, as is the case with the Small Grants Program.

Of the 609 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, 303 are aimed at the conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 188 at alliances, and 159 at adaptation to climate change and reduction of polluting emissions.

The summit also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from their Utilization, both components of the CBD.

Images of the planet’s sixth mass extinction reflect the size of the challenge. More than a quarter of some 150,000 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.

The “Living Planet Report 2022: Building a nature-positive society”, prepared by the WWF and the Institute of Zoology in London, shows that Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the largest decline in monitored wildlife populations worldwide, with an average decline of 94 percent between 1970 and 2018.

With a decade to act, each passing day represents more biological wealth lost.

IPS produced this article with support from Internews‘ Earth Journalism Network.

 

Digital Treatment of Genetic Resources Shakes Up COP15

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The executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, highlighted on Friday Dec. 16 the results of the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and fair benefit sharing at an event during COP15 in the Canadian city of Montreal. But the talks have not reached an agreement on the digital sequencing of genetic resources. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, highlighted on Friday Dec. 16 the results of the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and fair benefit sharing at an event during COP15 in the Canadian city of Montreal. But the talks have not reached an agreement on the digital sequencing of genetic resources. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 16 2022 (IPS)

In addition to its nutritional properties, quinoa, an ancestral grain from the Andes, also has cosmetic uses, as stated by the resource use and benefit-sharing permit ABSCH-IRCC-PE-261033-1 awarded in February to a private individual under a 15-month commercial use contract.

The permit, issued by the Peruvian government’s National Institute for Agrarian Innovation, allows the Peruvian beneficiary to use the material in a skin regeneration cream.

But it also sets restrictions on the registration of products obtained from quinoa or the removal of its elements from the Andean nation, to prevent the risk of irregular exploitation without a fair distribution of benefits, in other words, biopiracy.”The scientific community is willing to share benefits through simple mechanisms that do not unfairly burden researchers in low- and middle-income countries.” — Amber Scholz

The licensed material may have a digital representation of its genetic structure which in turn may generate new structures from which formulas or products may emerge. This is called digital sequence information (DSI), in the universe of research or commercial applications within the CBD.

Treatment of DSI forms part of the debates at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began on Dec. 7 and is due to end on Dec. 19 at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal.

The summit has brought together some 15,000 people representing the 196 States Parties to the CBD, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies.

The focus of the debate is the Post-2020 Global Framework on Biodiversity, which consists of 22 targets in areas including financing for conservation, guidelines on digital sequencing of genetic material, degraded ecosystems, protected areas, endangered species, the role of business and gender equality.

Like most of the issues, negotiations on DSI and the sharing of resulting benefits, contained in one of the Global Framework’s four objectives and in target 13, are at a deadlock, on everything from definitions to possible sharing mechanisms.

Except for the digital twist, the issue is at the heart of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, part of the CBD, signed in that Japanese city in 2010 and in force since 2014.

The delegations of the 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed to make progress at COP15 in the negotiations on new targets for the protection of the world's natural heritage, in the Canadian city of Montreal. In the picture, a working group reviews a proposal on the complex issue. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

The delegations of the 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed to make progress at COP15 in the negotiations on new targets for the protection of the world’s natural heritage, in the Canadian city of Montreal. In the picture, a working group reviews a proposal on the complex issue. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Amber Scholz, a German member of the DSI Scientific Network, a group of 70 experts from 25 countries, said there is an urgent need to close the gap between the existing innovation potential and a fair benefit-sharing system so that digital sequencing benefits everyone.

“It’s been a decade now and things haven’t turned out so well. The promise of a system of innovation, open access and benefit sharing is broken,” Scholz, a researcher at the Department of Microbial Ecology and Diversity in the Leibniz Institute’s DSMZ German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, told IPS.

DSI stems from the revolution in the massive use of technological tools, which has reached biology as well, fundamental in the discovery and manufacture of molecules and drugs such as those used in vaccines against the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD COP10, were missed by the target year, 2020, and will now be renewed and updated by the Global Framework that will emerge from Montreal.

The targets included respect for the traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, their customary use of biological resources, and the full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities in the implementation of the CBD.

Lack of clarity in the definition of DSI, challenges in the traceability of the country of origin of the sequence via digital databases, fear of loss of open access to data and different outlooks on benefit-sharing mechanisms are other aspects complicating the debate among government delegates.

Through the Action Agenda: Make a Pledge platform, organizations, companies and individuals have already made 586 voluntary commitments at COP15, whose theme is “Ecological civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”.

Of these, 44 deal with access and benefit sharing, while 294 address conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 185 involve partnerships and alliances, and 155 focus on adaptation to climate change and emission reductions.

Genetic havens

Access to genetic resources for commercial or non-commercial purposes has become an issue of great concern in the countries of the global South, due to the fear of biopiracy, especially with the advent of digital sequencing, given that physical access to genetic materials is not absolutely necessary.

Although the Nagoya Protocol includes access and benefit-sharing mechanisms, digital sequencing mechanisms have generated confusion. In fact, this instrument has created a market in which lax jurisdictions have taken advantage by becoming genetic havens.

Around 2,000 gene banks operate worldwide, attracting some 15 million users. Almost two billion sequences have been registered, according to statistics from GenBank, one of the main databases in the sector and part of the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Argentina leads the list of permits for access to genetic resources in Latin America under the Protocol, with a total of 56, two of which are commercial, followed by Peru (54, four commercial) and Panama (39, one commercial). Mexico curbed access to such permits in 2019, following a scandal triggered by the registration of maize in 2016.

There are more than 100 gene banks operating in Mexico, 88 in Peru, 56 in Brazil, 47 in Argentina and 25 in Colombia.

The largest providers of genetic resources leading to publicly available DSI are the United States, China and Japan. Brazil ranks 10th among sources and users of samples, according to a study published in 2021 by Scholz and five other researchers.

The mechanisms for managing genetic information sequences have become a condition for negotiating the new post-2020 Global Framework for biodiversity, which poses a conflict between the most biodiverse countries (generally middle- and low-income) and the nations of the industrialized North.

Brazilian indigenous activist Cristiane Juliao, a leader of the Pankararu people, calls for a fair system of benefit-sharing for access to and use of genetic resources and their digital sequences at COP15, being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Brazilian indigenous activist Cristiane Juliao, a leader of the Pankararu people, calls for a fair system of benefit-sharing for access to and use of genetic resources and their digital sequences at COP15, being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Indigenous people and their share

Cristiane Juliao, an indigenous woman of the Pankararu people, who is a member of the Brazilian Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, said the mechanisms adopted must favor the participation of native peoples and guarantee a fair distribution of benefits.

“We don’t look at one small element of a plant. We look at the whole context and the role of that plant. All traditional knowledge is associated with genetic heritage, because we use it in food, medicine or spiritual activities,” she told IPS at COP15.

Therefore, she said, “traceability is important, to know where the knowledge was acquired or accessed.”

In Montreal, Brazilian native organizations are seeking recognition that the digital sequencing contains information that indigenous peoples and local communities protect and that digital information must be subject to benefit-sharing. They are also demanding guarantees of free consultation and the effective participation of indigenous groups in the digital information records.

Thanks to the system based on the country’s Biodiversity Law, in effect since 2016, the Brazilian government has recorded revenues of five million dollars for permits issued.

The Working Group responsible for drafting the new Global Framework put forward a set of options for benefit-sharing measures.

They range from leaving in place the current status quo, to the integration of digital sequence information on genetic resources into national access and benefit-sharing measures, or the creation of a one percent tax on retail sales of genetic resources.

Lagging behind

There is a legal vacuum regarding this issue, because the CBD, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in force since 2004, do not cover all of its aspects.

Scholz suggested the COP reach a decision that demonstrates the political will to establish a fair and equitable system. “The scientific community is willing to share benefits through simple mechanisms that do not unfairly burden researchers in low- and middle-income countries,” she said.

For her part, Juliao demanded a more inclusive and fairer system. “There is no clear record of indigenous peoples who have agreed to benefit sharing. It is said that some knowledge comes from native peoples, but there is no mechanism for the sharing of benefits with us.”

IPS produced this article with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

Pandemic Aggravated Violence against Women in Latin America

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Active Citizens, Civil Society, COVID-19, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Gender Violence, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations

Gender Violence

This article is part of IPS coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25.

"Not one woman less, respect our lives” writes a Peruvian woman on the effigy of a woman in a park in front of the courthouse, before a demonstration in Lima over the lack of enforcement of laws against femicides and other forms of violence against women. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

“Not one woman less, respect our lives” writes a Peruvian woman on the effigy of a woman in a park in front of the courthouse, before a demonstration in Lima over the lack of enforcement of laws against femicides and other forms of violence against women. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

LIMA, Nov 24 2022 (IPS) – Violence against women has failed to decline in the Latin American region after the sharp rise recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, while preventing the causes of such violence remains a major challenge.

This is what representatives of the United Nations, feminist organizations and women’s movements told IPS on the occasion of the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25.

“We attack the problem but not its causes. I have been talking for 30 years about the importance of preventing violence against women by fostering major cultural changes so that girls and boys are raised in the knowledge that it is unacceptable in any form.” — Moni Pizani

This date, established in 1999 by the United Nations, was adopted in 1981 at the first Latin American and Caribbean feminist meeting held in Colombia to promote the struggle against violence against women in a region where it continues to be exacerbated by high levels of ‘machismo’ or sexism.

The day was chosen to pay tribute to Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal, three sisters from the Dominican Republic who were political activists and were killed on Nov. 25, 1960 by the repressive forces of the regime of dictator Rafael Trujillo.

The date launches 16 days of activism against gender violence, culminating on Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, because male violence against women and girls is the most widespread violation of human rights worldwide.

“It is not possible to confirm a decrease in gender violence in the region at this post-pandemic moment,” said Venezuelan lawyer Moni Pizani, one of the region’s leading experts on women’s rights. “I could say, from the information I have gathered and empirically, that the level has remained steady after the significant increase registered in the last two years.”

Pizani, who retired from the United Nations, currently supports the UN Women office in Guatemala after a fruitful career advocating for women’s rights. She was twice representative in Ecuador for UN Women and its predecessor Unifem, then worked for East and Southeast Asia and later opened the UN Women Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama City as regional director.

“Before the pandemic we used to talk about three out of 10 women having suffered violence, today we say four out of 10. The other alarming fact is that the impact is throughout the entire life cycle of women, including the elderly,” she told IPS in a conversation in Tegucigalpa, Honduras during a Central American colloquium on the situation of women.

UN Women last year measured the “shadow pandemic” in 13 countries in all regions, a term used to describe violence against women during lockdowns due to COVID.

Seven out of 10 women were found to have experienced violence at some time during the pandemic, one in four felt unsafe at home due to increased family conflict, and seven out of 10 perceived partner abuse to be more frequent.

The study also revealed that four out of 10 women feel less safe in public spaces.

Pizani said the study showed that this violation of women’s human rights occurs in different age groups: 48 percent of those between 18 and 49 years old are affected, 42 percent of those between 50 and 59, and 34 percent of women aged 60 and over.

Venezuelan lawyer Moni Pizani, one of Latin America's leading experts on gender issues, with a long career at UN Women and its predecessor Unifem, takes part in a Central American colloquium in Tegucigalpa on sustainable recovery with gender equality in the wake of the COVID pandemic. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Venezuelan lawyer Moni Pizani, one of Latin America’s leading experts on gender issues, with a long career at UN Women and its predecessor Unifem, takes part in a Central American colloquium in Tegucigalpa on sustainable recovery with gender equality in the wake of the COVID pandemic. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

According to the same study, unemployed women are the most vulnerable: 52 percent of them experienced violence during the pandemic.

And with regard to mothers: one out of every two women with children also experienced a violation of their rights.

The expert highlighted the effort made by many countries to adopt measures during the pandemic with the expansion of services, telephone hotlines, use of new means of reporting through mobile applications, among others. But she regretted that the efforts fell short.

This year, the region is home to 662 million inhabitants, or eight percent of the world’s population, slightly more than half of whom are girls and women.

The level of violence against women is so severe that the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) cites it as one of the structural factors of gender inequality, together with gaps in employment, the concentration of care work and inequitable representation in public spaces.

Governments neither prevent nor address violence

Peru is an example of similar situations of gender violence in the region.

It was one of the countries with the strictest lockdowns, paralyzing government action against gender violence, which was gradually resumed in the second half of 2020 and which made it possible, for example, to receive complaints in the country’s provincial public prosecutors’ offices.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office Crime Observatory reported 1,081,851 complaints in 2021 – an average of 117 per hour. The frequency of complaints returned to pre-pandemic levels, which in 2020 stood at around 700,000, because women under lockdown found it harder to report cases due to the confinement and the fact that they were cooped up with the perpetrators.

Cynthia Silva, a Peruvian lawyer and director of the non-governmental feminist group Study for the Defense of Women’s Rights-Demus, told IPS that the government has failed to reactivate the different services and that the specialized national justice system needs to be fully implemented to protect victims and punish perpetrators.

Lawyer Cynthia Silva, director of the Peruvian feminist institution Demus, poses for a picture at the headquarters of the feminist organization in Lima. She stresses the need for government action against gender violence to include not only strategies for attending to the victims, but also for prevention in order to eradicate it. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Lawyer Cynthia Silva, director of the Peruvian feminist institution Demus, poses for a picture at the headquarters of the feminist organization in Lima. She stresses the need for government action against gender violence to include not only strategies for attending to the victims, but also for prevention in order to eradicate it. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

She stressed the importance of allocating resources both for addressing cases of violence and for prevention. “These are two strategies that should go hand in hand and we see that the State is not doing enough in relation to the latter,” she said.

Silva urged the government to take action in measures aimed at the populace to contribute to rethinking socio-cultural patterns and ‘machista’ habits that discriminate against women.

Based on an experience they are carrying out with girls and adolescents in the district of Carabayllo, in the extreme north of Lima, she said it’s a question of supporting “deconstruction processes” so that egalitarian relations between women and men are fostered from childhood.

On Nov. 26 they will march with various feminist movements and collectives against machista violence so that “the right to a life free of violence against women is guaranteed and so that not a single step backwards is taken with respect to the progress made, particularly in sexual and reproductive rights, which are threatened by conservative groups in Congress.”

Adolescent women and men in Lima, the Peruvian capital, wave a huge banner during the march for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25, 2019, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that exacerbated such violence in Latin America. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Adolescent women and men in Lima, the Peruvian capital, wave a huge banner during the march for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25, 2019, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that exacerbated such violence in Latin America. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

An equally serious scenario

Argentina is another example of gender violence – including femicides – in Latin America, the region with the highest levels of aggression against women in the world, the result of extremely sexist societies.

This is in contrast to the fact that it is one of the regions with the best protection against such violence in national and even regional legislation, because since 1994 it has had the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women.

The problem is that these laws are seriously flawed in their implementation, especially in the interior of the countries, agree UN Women, regional organizations and national women’s rights groups.

Rosaura Andiñach, an Argentine university professor and head of community processes at the Ecumenical Regional Center for Counseling and Service (CREAS), said it is worrying that in her country there are still high rates of femicide, despite the progress made in terms of legislation.

Between January and October 2022, there were 212 femicides and 181 attempted gender-based homicides in the country of 46 million people, according to the civil society observatory “Ahora que sí nos ven” (Now that they do see us).

She said the government still owes a debt to women in this post-pandemic context, as it fails to guarantee women’s rights by not adequately addressing their complaints.

“We do not want the same thing to happen as with a recent case: Noelia Sosa, 30 years old, lived in Tucumán and reported her partner in a police station for gender violence. They ignored her and she committed suicide that afternoon because she did not know what else to do. We are very concerned because the outlook is still as serious as ever in terms of violence against women,” Andiñach said.

It was precisely in Argentina that the #NiunaMenos (Not one woman less) campaign emerged in 2015, which spread throughout the region as a movement against femicides and the ineffectiveness of the authorities in the enforcement of laws to prevent and punish gender-related murders, because femicides are surrounded by a very high level of impunity in Latin America.

Moni Pizani, from UN Women, stressed that the prevention of gender violence should no longer fall short in the region.

“We attack the problem but not its causes. I have been talking for 30 years about the importance of preventing violence against women by fostering major cultural changes so that girls and boys are raised in the knowledge that it is unacceptable in any form,” she underlined.

This strategy, she remarked, “involves investing in youth and children to ensure that the new generations are free from violence, harassment and discrimination, with respect for a life of dignity for all.”

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Loss and Damage Fund Saves COP27 from the Abyss

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Climate Action

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, chair of COP27, reads the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the document that concluded the climate summit on Sunday Nov. 20, to an exhausted audience after tough and lengthy negotiations that finally reached an agreement to create a fund for loss and damage, a demand of the global South. CREDIT: Kiara Worth/UN

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, chair of COP27, reads the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the document that concluded the climate summit on Sunday Nov. 20, to an exhausted audience after tough and lengthy negotiations that finally reached an agreement to create a fund for loss and damage, a demand of the global South. CREDIT: Kiara Worth/UN

SHARM EL SHEIKh , Nov 20 2022 (IPS) – They were on the brink of shipwreck and did not leave happy, but did feel satisfied that they got the best they could. The countries of the global South achieved something decisive at COP27: the creation of a special fund to address the damage and loss caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

The fund, according to the Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the official document approved at dawn on Sunday Nov. 20 in this Egyptian city, should enable “rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction” following extreme weather events in these vulnerable countries.

Decisions on who will provide the money, which countries will benefit and how it will be disbursed were left pending for a special committee to define. But the fund was approved despite the fact that the issue was not even on the official agenda of the summit negotiations, although it was at the center of the public debate before the conference itself.

“We are satisfied that the developed countries have accepted the need to create the Fund. Of course, there is much to discuss for implementation, but it was difficult to ask for more at this COP,” Ulises Lovera, Paraguay’s climate change director, told IPS, weary from a longer-than-expected negotiation, early Sunday morning at the Sharm El Sheikh airport.

“This COP has taken an important step towards justice. I welcome the decision to establish a loss and damage fund and to operationalize it in the coming period,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. He also described as an achievement that a “red line” was not crossed, that would take the rise in global temperature above the 1.5-degree limit.

More than 35,000 people from nearly 200 countries participated in the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on Climate Change in Sharm El Sheikh, an Egyptian seaside resort on the Red Sea, where the critical dimension of global warming in the different regions of the world was on display, sometimes dramatically.

Practically everything that has to do with the future of the modes of production and life of humanity – starting with energy and food – was discussed at a mega-event that far exceeded the official delegations of the countries and the great leaders present, such as U.S. President Joe Biden and the Brazilian president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Hundreds of social organizations, international agencies and private sector stakeholders came here to showcase their work, seek funding, forge alliances, try to influence negotiations, defend their interests or simply be on a stage that seemed to provide a space for all kinds of initiatives and businesses.

At the gigantic Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center there was also a global fair with non-stop activities from morning to night in the various pavilions, in stands with auditoriums of between 20 and 200 seats, where there was a flurried program of presentations, lectures and debates, not to mention the more or less crowded demonstrations of activists outside the venue.

In addition, government delegates negotiated on the crux of the summit: how to move forward with the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which at COP21 in 2015 set global climate change mitigation and adaptation targets.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres walks hurriedly through the Sharm El Sheikh Convention Center during the last intense hours of the COP27 negotiations, when there were moments when it seemed that there would be no agreement and the climate summit would end in failure. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (3rd-R) walks hurriedly through the Sharm El Sheikh Convention Center during the last intense hours of the COP27 negotiations, when there were moments when it seemed that there would be no agreement and the climate summit would end in failure. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

On the brink of failure

Once again, the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan did not include in any of its pages a reference to the need to abandon fossil fuels, but only coal.

The document was the result of a negotiation that should have ended on Friday Nov. 18, but dragged on till Sunday, as usually happens at COPs. What was different on this occasion was a very tough discussion and threats of a walkout by some negotiators, including those of the European Union.

But in the end, the goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, established in the Paris Agreement, was maintained, although several countries tried to make it more flexible up to 2.0 degrees, which would have been a setback with dramatic effects for the planet and humanity, according to experts and climate activists.

“Rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions (are) required – lowering global net greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 relative to the 2019 level – to limit global warming to 1.5°C target,” reads the text, although no mention is made of oil and gas, the fossil fuels most responsible for those emissions, in one of the usual COP compromises, since agreements are reached by consensus.

The Bolivian delegation in Sharm El Sheikh, which included officials as well as leaders of indigenous communities from the South American country, take part in a meeting with journalists at COP27 to demand more ambitious action. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The Bolivian delegation in Sharm El Sheikh, which included officials as well as leaders of indigenous communities from the South American country, take part in a meeting with journalists at COP27 to demand more ambitious action. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The priorities of the South

Developing countries, however, focused throughout the COP on the Loss and Damage Fund and other financing mechanisms to address the impacts of rising temperatures and mitigation actions.

“We need financing because we cannot deal with the environmental crisis alone. That is why we are asking that, in order to solve the problem they have caused, the rich nations take responsibility,” Diego Pacheco, head of the Bolivian delegation to Sharm El Sheikh, told IPS.

Environmental organizations, which showed their power in Egypt with the presence of thousands of activists, also lobbied throughout COP27 for greater commitments, including mitigation actions.

“This conference cannot be considered an implementation conference because there is no implementation without phasing out all fossil fuels,” the main cause of the climate crisis, said Zeina Khalil Hajj of the international environmental organization 350.org.

“Together for implementation” was precisely the slogan of COP27, calling for a shift from commitments to action.

“A text that does not stop fossil fuel expansion, that does not provide progress from the already weak Glasgow Pact (from COP26) makes a mockery of the millions of people living with the impacts of climate change,” said Khalil Hajj, head of global campaigning at 350.org.

One of the demonstrations by climate activists at COP27 held in Egypt Nov. 6-20, demanding more ambitious climate action by governments, as well as greater justice and equity in tackling the climate crisis. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS

One of the demonstrations by climate activists at COP27 held in Egypt Nov. 6-20, demanding more ambitious climate action by governments, as well as greater justice and equity in tackling the climate crisis. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS

The crises that came together

Humanity – as recognized by the States Parties in the final document – is living through a dramatic time.

It faces a number of overlapping crises: food, energy, geopolitical, financial and economic, combined with more frequent natural disasters due to climate change. And developing nations are hit especially hard.

The demand for financing voiced by countries of the global South thus takes on greater relevance.

Cecilia Nicolini, Argentina’s climate change secretary, told IPS that it is the industrialized countries, because of their greater responsibility for climate change, that should finance developing countries, and lamented that “the problem is that the rules are made by the powerful.”

However, 80 percent of the money now being spent worldwide on climate change action is invested in the developed world, according to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest funder of climate action, which has contributed 121 billion dollars to 163 countries over the past 30 years, according to its own figures.

In this context, the issue of Loss and Damage goes one step further than adaptation to climate change, because it involves reparations for the specific impacts of climate change that have already occurred, such as destruction caused by droughts, floods or forest fires.

“Those who are bearing the burden of climate change are the most vulnerable households and communities. That is why the Loss and Damage Fund must be established without delay, with new funds coming from developed countries,” said Javier Canal Albán, Colombia’s vice minister of environmental land planning.

“It is a moral and climate justice imperative,” added Canal Albán, who spoke at a press conference on behalf of AILAC, a negotiating bloc that brings together several Latin American and Caribbean countries.

But the text of the outcome document itself acknowledges that there is a widening gap between what developing countries need and what they actually receive.

The financing needs of these countries for climate action until 2030 were estimated at 5.6 trillion dollars, but developed countries – as the document recognized – have not even fulfilled their commitment to provide 100 billion dollars per year, committed since 2009, at COP15 in Copenhagen, and ratified in 2015, at COP21 which adopted the Paris Agreement.

It was the absence of any reference to the need to accelerate the move away from oil and natural gas that frustrated several of the leaders at the COP. “We believe that if we don’t phase out fossil fuels there will be no Fund that can pay for the loss and damage caused by climate change,” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who was at the two-week conference in Sharm El Sheikh held Nov. 6-20, told IPS.

“We have to put the victims first in order to make an orderly and just transition,” she said, expressing the sentiments of the governments and societies of the South at COP27.

 

Peruvian Women Still Denied Their Right to Abortion

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Active Citizens, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations, Women’s Health

Women’s Health

Yomira Cuadros faced motherhood at an early age, as well as the obstacles of a sexist society like Peru’s, regarding her reproductive decisions. In the apartment where she lives with her family in Lima, she expresses faith in the future, now that she has finally started attending university, after having two children as a result of unplanned pregnancies. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Yomira Cuadros faced motherhood at an early age, as well as the obstacles of a sexist society like Peru’s, regarding her reproductive decisions. In the apartment where she lives with her family in Lima, she expresses faith in the future, now that she has finally started attending university, after having two children as a result of unplanned pregnancies. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

LIMA, Nov 18 2022 (IPS) – No woman in Peru should have to die, have her physical or mental health affected, be treated as a criminal or have an unwanted pregnancy because she does not have access to abortion, said Dr. Rocío Gutiérrez, an obstetrician who is the deputy director of the Manuela Ramos Movement, a non-governmental feminist center that works for gender rights in this South American country.

In this Andean nation of 33 million people, abortion is illegal even in cases of rape or fetal malformation. It is only legal for two therapeutic reasons: to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious and permanent health problem.

Peru thus goes against the current of the advances achieved by the “green wave”. Green is the color that symbolizes the changes that the women’s rights movement has achieved in the legislation of neighboring countries such as Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina and some states in Mexico, where early abortion has been decriminalized. These countries have joined the ranks of Cuba, where it has been legal for decades.

“I didn’t tell my parents because they are very Catholic and would have forced me to go through with the pregnancy, they always instilled in me that abortion was a bad thing. But I started to think about how pregnancy would change my life and I didn’t feel capable of raising a child at that moment.” — Fatima Guevara

But Latin America remains one of the most punitive regions in terms of abortion, with several countries that do not recognize women’s right to make decisions about their pregnancies under any circumstances. In El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Haiti it is illegal under all circumstances, and in some cases draconian penalties are handed down.

In the case of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and Venezuela, meanwhile, abortion is allowed under very few conditions, while there are more circumstances under which it is legal in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador.

“In Peru an estimated 50,000 women a year are treated for abortion-related complications in public health facilities,” Dr. Gutiérrez told IPS. “This is not the total number of abortions in the country, but rather the number of women who reach public health services due to emergencies or complications.”

The obstetrician spoke to IPS from Buenos Aires, where she participated in the XV Regional Conference on Women, held Nov. 7-11 in the Argentine capital.

Gutiérrez explained that the cases attended are just the tip of the iceberg, because for every abortion complicated by hemorrhage or infection treated at a health center, at least seven have been performed that did not present difficulties.

Multiplying by seven the 50,000 cases treated due to complications provides the shocking figure of 350,000 unsafe clandestine abortions performed annually in Peru.

The doctor regretted the lack of official statistics about a phenomenon that affects the lives and rights of women “irreversibly, with damage to health, and death.”

Gutiérrez said that another of the major impacts is the criminalization of women who undergo abortions, due to mistreatment by health personnel who not only judge and blame them, but also report them to the police.

Obstetrician Rocío Gutiérrez (C), deputy director of the feminist Manuela Ramos Movement, stands with two fellow activists holding green scarves – representing the struggle for reproductive rights - during the XV Regional Conference on Women held this month in the city of Buenos Aires. CREDIT: Courtesy of Rocío Gutiérrez

Obstetrician Rocío Gutiérrez (C), deputy director of the feminist Manuela Ramos Movement, stands with two fellow activists holding green scarves – representing the struggle for reproductive rights – during the XV Regional Conference on Women held this month in the city of Buenos Aires. CREDIT: Courtesy of Rocío Gutiérrez

Under article 30 of Peru’s General Health Law, No. 26842, a physician who attends a case of presumed illegal abortion is required to file a police report.

Gutiérrez also referred to the fact that unwanted pregnancies have numerous consequences for the lives of women, especially girls and adolescents, in a sexist country like Peru, where women often do not have the right to make decisions on their sexuality and reproductive health.

Healing the wounds of unwanted motherhood

By the age of 19, Yomira Cuadros was already the mother of two children. She did not plan either of the pregnancies and only went ahead with them because of pressure from her partner.

In 2020, according to official data, 8.3 percent of adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 were already mothers or had become pregnant in Peru.

Cuadros, whose parents are both physicians and who lives in a middle-class family, said she never imagined that her life would turn out so differently than what she had planned.

“The first time was because I didn’t know about contraceptives, I was 17 years old. The second time the birth control method failed and I thought about getting an abortion, but I couldn’t do it,” Cuadros told IPS.

At the time, she was in a relationship with an older boyfriend on whom she felt very emotionally dependent. “I had made a decision (to terminate the pregnancy), but he didn’t want to, he told me not to, the pressure was like blackmail and out of fear I went ahead with the pregnancy,” she said.

Making that decision under coercion hurt her mental health. Today, at the age of 26, she reflects on the importance of women being guaranteed the conditions to freely decide whether they want to be mothers or not.

Peruvian activists go topless to demand the right to legal abortion, during a demonstration in the streets of the capital on Mar. 8, 2018. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Peruvian activists go topless to demand the right to legal abortion, during a demonstration in the streets of the capital on Mar. 8, 2018. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

In her case, although she had the support of her mother to get a safe abortion, the power of her then-partner over her was stronger.

“Becoming a mother when you haven’t planned to is a shock, you feel so alone, it is very difficult. I didn’t feel that motherhood was something beautiful and I didn’t want to experience the same thing with my second pregnancy, so I considered terminating it,” she said.

Finding herself in that unwanted situation, she fell into a deep depression and was on medication, and is still in therapy today.

“I went from being a teenager to an adult with responsibilities that I never imagined. It’s as if I have never really gone through the proper mourning process because of everything I had to take on, and I know that it will continue to affect me because I will never stop being a mother,” she said.

She clarified that “it’s not that I don’t want to be a mother or that I hate my children,” and added that “as I continue to learn to cope, I will get better, it’s just that it wasn’t the right time.”

She and her two children, ages nine and seven, live with her parents and brother in an apartment in the municipality of Pueblo Libre, in the Peruvian capital. She has enrolled at university to study psychology and accepts the fact that she will only see her dreams come true little by little.

“Things are not how I thought they would be, but it’s okay,” she remarked with a newfound confidence that she is proud of.

Gutiérrez said more than 60 percent of women in Peru have an unplanned pregnancy at some point in their lives, and argued that the government’s family planning policies fall far short.

The National Institute of Statistics and Informatics reported that the total fertility rate in Peru in 2021 would have been 1.3 children on average if all unwanted births had been prevented, compared to the actual rate of 2.0 children – almost 54 percent higher than the desired fertility rate.

“There are a set of factors that lead to unwanted pregnancies, such as the lack of comprehensive sex education in schools, and the lack of birth control methods and timely family planning for women in all their diversity, which worsened during the pandemic. And of course, the correlate is access to legal and safe abortion,” said Gutiérrez.

She lamented that little or no progress has been made in Peru in relation to the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights, including access to safe and free legal abortion, despite the struggle of feminist organizations and movements in the country that have been demanding decriminalization in cases of rape, artificial insemination without consent, non-consensual egg transfer, or malformations incompatible with life.

University student Fátima Guevara decided to terminate an unwanted pregnancy when she was 19 years old. Four years later, she is sure that it was the right decision, in terms of her plans for her life. The young woman told her story at a friend's home, where she was able to talk about it openly, in Lima, Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

University student Fátima Guevara decided to terminate an unwanted pregnancy when she was 19 years old. Four years later, she is sure that it was the right decision, in terms of her plans for her life. The young woman told her story at a friend’s home, where she was able to talk about it openly, in Lima, Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

The obscurity of illegal abortion

The obscurity surrounding abortion led Fátima Guevara, when she faced an unwanted pregnancy at the age of 19, to decide to use Misoprostol, a safe medication that is included in the methods accepted by the World Health Organization for the termination of pregnancies.

“I didn’t tell my parents because they are very Catholic and would have forced me to go through with the pregnancy, they always instilled in me that abortion was a bad thing. But I started to think about how pregnancy would change my life and I didn’t feel capable of raising a child at that moment,” she told IPS in a meeting at a friend’s home in Lima.

She said that she and her partner lacked adequate information and obtained the medication through a third party, but that she used it incorrectly. She turned to her brother who took her to have an ultrasound first. “Hearing the fetal heartbeat shook me, it made me feel guilty, but I followed through with my decision,” she added.

After receiving proper instructions, she was able to complete the abortion. And today, at the age of 23, about to finish her psychology degree, she has no doubt that it was the right thing to do.

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UN Needs a Sea Change in its Handling of Sexual Exploitation & Abuse (SEA)

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Civil Society, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Gender Violence, Global, Headlines, Health, Human Rights

Opinion

An art exhibition in Juba, supported by the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), seeks to educate people about gender and sexual based violence. Credit: UNMISS/Nektarios Markogiannis

NEW YORK, Nov 8 2022 (IPS) – Calling it “so disappointing and disheartening” in social media on 17 October, Dr. Rosie James, a British medical expert, announced that “I was sexually assaulted by a World Health Organization (WHO) staff tonight at the World Health Summit.”

WHO, as we all know, is a part of the UN system of entities. She went to emphasize that “This was not the first time in the global health sphere that this has occurred (for MANY of us).”

Dr. James further elaborated to our disdainful shame that “I want to make something clear. This is not just a WHO or UN issue. I and many others have experienced sexual abuse in medicine and field NGOs, for example. Workplaces need to be safe and supportive environments for all. And it will take each one of us to make that a reality.”

It is an embarrassment to the international community that she warned that “We must do better #Zero Tolerance; # MeToo; #Gender Equality.”

In 2021, an independent commission reported on cases concerning WHO personnel responding to the tenth Ebola virus epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That was not enough of a warning bell for the WHO staff and its leadership. Now this.

To make the matter worse, CNN reported another shocking news about a UN employee getting a 15-year prison sentence by a US court for multiple sexual assaults, perpetrating “monstrous acts against multiple women over nearly two decades.”

During some years of that period. the staff worked for UNICEF, known for its longstanding, unblemished record of care and dedication for the world’s children.

These and many other such cases, particularly UN peacekeepers and other staff of UN peace operations encouraged the US government to announce on 26 October that it has established its engagement principles for use by all federal agencies engaging with the United Nations and other International Organizations on the prevention and response to incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.

These principles reflect the US government’s “commitment to increase U.S. engagement in a clear and consistent manner” and to “promote accountability and transparency “in response to such issues.

This is the first time a Member State has publicly declared a set of “engagement principles” to work with the UN in an area of utmost importance which puts the UN’s credibility at stake.

More so, as it is announced by the largest contributor to the UN budget and a veto-wielding Member of the UN.

Substantively, there are many positive aspects of these principles in putting the UN on guard. But at the same time, if various Member States start announcing such “engagement principles” in various areas and issues and insist on pursuing those in the context of UN’s work, a chaotic situation is bound to emerge.

The UN has yet to make its position known on the US announcement which in effect is an expression of the latter’s frustration about the way the UN has been handling the sexual exploitation abuse cases in a rather lackadaisical manner over the years.

Its much-touted zero-tolerance and no-impunity policies have not improved the situation to the satisfaction of many well-wishers of the UN.

Zero-tolerance policy is applied by the UN system entities as if they are using a zebra-crossing on a street which does not have any traffic lights.

The non-governmental entity the Code Blue Campaign is the most articulate and persistent actor with regard to the sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) issues and incidents in the UN system as a whole.

The Campaign, steered by Stephen Lewis and Paula Donovan as the co-founders, surely deserves the global community’s whole-hearted appreciation and highest commendation for its laudable work.

It has correctly emphasized that “… unjust UN policies and practices have, over decades, resulted in a culture of impunity for sexual “misconduct” ranging from breaches of UN rules to grave crimes. This represents a contravention of the UN Charter.”

The labyrinthine rules, regulations, procedures, channels of communication of the UN make the mockery of the due-process and timely justice. These have been taken advantage of by the perpetrators time and again.

As most of the SEA incidents happen at the field levels, nationalities and personal equations play a big role in delaying or denying justice.

The victim-centred approach of the UN in handling SEA cases has been manipulated by the perpetrators and their organizational colleagues to detract attention from their seriousness.

Not only the victims should get the utmost attention, so should be the abusers because upholding of the justice is also UN’s responsibility.

Also, UN watchers become curious whenever media publish such SEA related reports, the UN authorities invariably mentions the concerned staff is on leave or administrative leave. When these cases are in the public domain, the abusers are merrily enjoying the leave with full pay.

It is also known that during the leave the abusers have tried to settle the matter with the victims or their families with lucrative temptations. The leave has also been used to wipe off the evidence of the crime. These have happened in several cases with the full knowledge of the supervisors.

What a travesty of the victim-centred approach!

The head of the UN peace operations where the SEA cases take place should be asked by the Secretary-General to explain the occurrence as a part of his or her direct responsibility. Unless such drastic measures are taken the SEA would continue in the UN system.

Another unexpectable dimension of the victim-centred approach is that the abuser-peacekeepers are sent back home for dispensation of justice as per the agreement between the troops contributing countries (TCC) and the UN. Sending them home is one of the biggest reasons for the continuation of SEA in the peace operations.

The victim is not present in that kind varied national military justice situation and no evidence are available except UN-cleared reports to show or suppress the extent of abuse.

Again, a travesty of justice supported by the upholder of the global rule of law!

The UN Secretary-General would be well-advised to propose to the Security Council a change in the clause of the agreement that UN signs with the TCCs which incorporates for repatriation of abuser-peacekeepers to their home countries. If a TCC refuse to do so, the agreement would not be signed. Period.

A functional, quick-justice global tribunal should be set up with the mandate to try the peacekeepers as decided by the UN. If the International Criminal Court (ICC) can try heads state or government for crimes against humanity, why the UN peacekeepers cannot be tried for SEA?

That would be a true victim-centred approach!

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is a former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations; former Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN and President of the Security Council

IPS UN Bureau

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