Thousands rally in Romania in support of pro-European presidential candidate

Thousands of Romanians gathered at University Square in central Bucharest on Thursday night to show their support for European values ahead of an election that polls say could see a radical far-right isolationist, who has been sympathetic to Russia, take power.


Issued on: 06/12/2024 
By: NEWS WIRES

01:44

People hold mobile phones with flashlights during a pro-European rally ahead of Romania's December 8 runoff presidential elections in Bucharest on December 5, 2024. © Vadim Ghirda, AP


Several thousand rallied in Romania on Thursday in support of a pro-European presidential candidate a few days before key elections, fearing their democratic rights were under threat.

Around 3,000 gathered at University Square in the capital Bucharest, waving European Union flags and chanting "Freedom" and "Europe".

In the first-round on November 24, far right outsider Calin Georgescu, a past admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, took the most votes, sparking fears about the future of the EU and NATO member and triggering protests especially among young people.

Georgescu is to face Elena Lasconi, the leader of the centrist, pro-EU USR party, in a run-off on Sunday.

"I fear that democracy is going to disappear in this country and this is what I don't want," said Liliana Rotaru, who works in the banking sector.

"I trust my people and hope that they will choose wisely and vote for the European Union and NATO," the 50-year-old added. "So that means for Mrs Lasconi."

Another protester, Radu Bourceanu, who works in human resources, said the protesters gathered to show "we are pro European" but said it was hard to predict the outcome of Sunday's vote "because, we have a mass manipulation through diverse, social media apps."

Romanian authorities have pointed to "massive" social media promotion, "manipulated" influencers and cyberattacks as they declassified documents detailing allegations against Georgescu and Russia.

"I'm really anxious, and I do really hope that democracy will win and the Russian influence will not prevail in Romanian elections," said Laura Boncu, 33.

"I don't know how our future will look if the Russian candidate, the pro-Russian candidate, will win," she said.

"I'm here to show that Romania is still a democracy, and we're fighting and we're showing up to be able to live tomorrow in a democracy."

Georgescu has in recent days avoided answering questions about his previous praise for Putin and his "Russian wisdom".

A critic of the EU and NATO, he says he does not want to leave either grouping but wants to put Romania "on the world map".

(AFP)

Romania's top court annuls presidential

 vote amid Russia interference fears


Romania's top court annulled the result of the first round of the country's presidential election on Friday, adding that the entire election process would have to be rerun. The decision came after security services warned the vote had been distorted by a massive Russian influence campaign in favour of far-right candidate Calin Georgescu.


Issued on: 06/12/2024 - 
By: NEWS WIRES

The Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision follows a move to declassify intelligence on Russian interference in the election campaign. © Nicolae Dumitrache, AP

A top Romanian court on Friday annulled the first round of the country's presidential election, days after allegations that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round.

The Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision — which is final — came after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia ran a sprawling campaign comprising thousands of social media accounts to promote Calin Georgescu across platforms like TikTok and Telegram.

The intelligence files were from the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Special Telecommunication Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Despite being a huge outsider who declared zero campaign spending, Georgescu emerged as the frontrunner on Nov. 24. He was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a runoff on Sunday.


A new date will now be set to rerun the first round.

Lasconi strongly condemned the court's decision, saying it was “illegal, immoral, and crushes the very essence of democracy.”

“We should have moved forward with the vote. We should have respected the will of the Romanian people. Whether we like it or not, from a legal and legitimate standpoint, 9 million Romanian citizens, both in the country and the diaspora, expressed their preference for a particular candidate through their votes. We cannot ignore their will!" she said.

"I know I would have won. And I will win because the Romanian people know I will fight for them, that I will unite them for a better Romania. I will defend our democracy. I will not give up.”

She said the issue of Russian interference should have been tackled after the election was completed.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said in a statement the annulment was “the only correct solution” following the intelligence drop which revealed the “Romanian people’s vote was flagrantly distorted as a result of Russian interference.”

“The presidential elections must be held again,” he said in a post on Facebook. “At the same time, investigations by the authorities must uncover who is responsible for the massive attempt to influence the outcome of the presidential election.”

The same court last week ordered a recount of the first-round votes, which added to the myriad controversies that have engulfed a chaotic election cycle.

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, said the court's decision amounts to a “crisis mode situation for the Romanian democracy.”

“In light of the information about the external interference, the massive interference in elections, I think this was not normal but predictable, because it’s not normal times at all, Romania is an uncharted territory,” he told The Associated Press. “The problem is here, do we have the institutions to manage such an interference in the future?”

Thirteen candidates ran in the first round presidential vote in the European Union and NATO member country. The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments.

Georgescu's surprising success left many political observers wondering how most local surveys were so far off, putting him behind at least five other candidates before the vote.

Many observers attributed his success to his TikTok account, which now has 5.8 million likes and 531,000 followers. But some experts suspect Georgescu’s online following was artificially inflated while Romania’s top security body alleged he was given preferential treatment by TikTok over other candidates.

In the intelligence release, the secret services alleged that one TikTok user paid more $381,000 (361,000 euros) to other users to promote Georgescu content. Intelligence authorities said information they obtained “revealed an aggressive promotion campaign” to increase and accelerate his popularity.

Asked by the AP in a interview Wednesday whether he believes the Chinese-owned TikTok poses a threat to democracy, Georgescu said: “The most important existing function for promoting free speech and freedom of expression is social media.”

(AP)

EU demands 'urgent' answers from TikTok about possible foreign interference in Romanian election

Copyright Damian Dovarganes/Copyright 2018 The AP. All rights reserved

By Jorge Liboreiro

Published on 06/12/2024 - 

A series of declassified documents suggest TikTok was exploited by a "state actor" to influence the outcome of Romania's presidential election.

The European Commission has sent TikTok an "urgent" request for information demanding more answers about the platform's increasingly controversial role in the first round of Romania's presidential elections, which saw the sudden victory of Călin Georgescu and fuelled serious concerns of foreign interference.

Georgescu, an independent candidate who has embraced Eurosceptic, Russian-friendly, ultra-nationalist and pseudo-scientific views, will face off Elena Lasconi, a pro-European liberal, in the second round scheduled for this Sunday.

"We are concerned about mounting indications of coordinated foreign online influence operation targeting ongoing Romanian elections, especially on TikTok," said Henna Virkkunen, the Commisison's executive vice-president in charge of digital policy.

The request, released on Friday, is based on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and comes with a deadline of 24 hours. It marks the second request for information sent to TikTok in the context of the Romanian elections after the first one sent last week.

Brussels wants the company to clarify the revelations contained in the intelligence documents that Romanian President Klaus Iohannis declassified on Wednesay, which strongly suggested Georgescu's abrupt rise had not been "a natural outcome" but the result of artificially coordinated action to manipulate and exploit TikTok's algorithm.

The campaign was likely orchestrated by a "state actor," the documents said. Although Russia is not mentioned as the culprit, the agencies detected similarities between an online campaign in Romania and a previous one that Moscow had conducted in Ukraine.

According to the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), a previously hidden network, mainly operating on TikTok, which had been largely dormant since its creation in 2016, became very active in the two weeks before the first round of the elections. The network's operators, recruited and coordinated through a channel on the messaging platform Telegram, used methods typical of a state actor's "mode of operation."

The SRI also reported that nearly one million euros were spent in the campaign by an individual supporting Georgescu's candidacy, with up to €950 paid for a repost. TikTok itself admitted to receiving €362,500 from this person last week, the documents showed.

The declassification sent shockwaves through Romania and beyond, stoking fears the Eastern European country had fallen victim to foreign interference.

"TikTok needs to set up resources to counter information operations ahead of the election weekend coming up," a Commission spokesperson said.

TikTok under scrutiny

The request for information follows the "retention order" that Brussels announced on Thursday, which compels TikTok to "freeze and preserve" all internal documents and information, including its system of recommendations and the monetised promotion of political content, related to electoral risks across the bloc.

The order will apply from 24 November 2024 until 31 March 2025 and cover upcoming elections in Romania, Croatia, Austria, Greece and Germany.

The data retained by the order could help the Commission open a formal investigation into TikTok's role in the Romanian race. The probe, which would represent the next stage of the request for information, has not yet been announced.

TikTok did not reply to questions emailed by Euronews.

On Tuesday, representatives of the company faced a grilling in the European Parliament during which they sought to defend TikTok's actions in Romania. The executives said the platform had taken down several networks aimed at meddling in the elections, including one with 1,781 followers that supported Georgescu.

MEPs left the meeting visibly dissatisfied, complaining many of their questions had been unanswered. Valérie Hayer, the leader of Renew Europe, asked for Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, to be summoned before the hemicycle.

"What has happened in Romania is another warning bell for us: disinformation can happen all over Europe with very harmful consequences," she wrote.

Hayer said that should Brussels determine TikTok violated the DSA, the EU "should follow with stringent sanctions, without excluding a suspension or a full ban."

TikTok, which is Chinese-owned, has been a recurring target of scrutiny in Western countries over the spread of misinformation and propaganda through its powerful algorithm, which keeps users hooked to an endless stream of recommended content.

‘People want change’: inside Romania’s 

far-right stronghold

ByAFP
December 6, 2024

Businessman Ciprian Gavrila says he hopes far-right presidential hopeful Calin Georgescu will win Sunday's run-off - Copyright AFP Tania LEE

Ani SANDU and Fulya OZERKAN

In the Romanian village of Mihai Viteazu, where far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu performed particularly well in the first-round election in which he stormed to a surprise lead, businessman Ciprian Gavrila explained why.

“People are saying ‘Stop’, they want change,” Gavrila said at his bar, diagnosing the mood heading into a run-off Sunday that is being closely watched for a change in political direction in the EU and NATO member, which borders Ukraine.

“The parties in power for so many years have deceived and fooled us,” said the 43-year-old, a member of the extreme-right SOS Romania party, which entered parliament following legislative elections last Sunday.

In Mihai Viteazu, SOS Romania and two other far-right parties combined won nearly 65 percent of the parliamentary vote, the country’s highest score.

Georgescu also got one of his best results in the village of 3,000 people in the first-round vote on November 24, topping the constituency with 45.5 percent of the vote, compared to almost 23 percent nationwide.

Georgescu will face centrist Elena Lasconi in Sunday’s run-off.

Liberal mayor Adrian Costache said Georgescu’s landslide win in his village came as a “surprise” to him.

“People want to see if others are more capable in developing the country”, which ranks among the poorest in the European Union, he told AFP.


– ‘Capable man to lead us’ –


Mihai Filip, a 55-year-old salesman, told AFP he voted for Georgescu after following him on platforms such as TikTok for the past two months.

With his slogan “Romania first” echoing Donald Trump’s, Georgescu produced a wave of viral content on social media around issues such as his call for an end to aid for Ukraine.

Romanian authorities alleged Georgescu was granted “preferential treatment” by TikTok ahead of the first-round vote, with his videos viewed millions of times — an accusation the social network has denied.

“Georgescu cares about the Romanian people first and foremost. He does not care about Russia,” Filip said.

“Everything in our country is expensive, while wages are still low,” he added.

While expressing worries that electing the pro-European small-town mayor Lasconi would usher in pro-LGBTQ policies, it was Georgescu’s “Christian faith” that caught Filip’s attention.

“She will pass a law on marriage between two men, I cannot accept such a thing,” he alleged, adding that Romania was in need of “a capable man to lead us”, not “a woman”.

During her campaign, Lasconi said she was in favour of same-sex civil partnerships, but has never come out in favour of same-sex marriage.

– Protest vote –

Georgescu “taps into a rather conservative and traditional discourse that permeates Romanian society,” political scientist Marius Ghincea told AFP.

He also represents a protest vote for those disillusioned with the establishment, he added.

Russia’s war in neighbouring Ukraine does not appear to be a main concern for the voters in Mihai Viteazu, which is less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the border and located in the Constanta region that is home to a NATO air base.

Georgescu, a critic of NATO and a past admirer of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, fervently campaigned for an end to aid for Kyiv, raising fears in Brussels and Washington.

Marian Popa Romel, a construction worker, said he had heard a lot about Georgescu recently, including that “he’s with the Russians, that he’s taking us out of NATO, out of the EU”.

“But I’m still going with him, because he’s a man,” the 56-year-old said.

Daniel Panait, 21, said he would cast his vote for Georgescu, mainly out of discontent with current politicians.

“Nothing has been done in this country, and especially in this village. We have no sewage,” he told AFP.

Bar owner Gavrila, who also runs a car wash, has already made his choice, and hopes for Georgescu to win.

“Why don’t we try to see how this man does?” he said, while glancing at the election coverage on TV.

LEFT WING POPULISM

AOC Becomes First Bluesky User to Reach 1 Million Followers


Bluesky became an alternative to X, formerly known as Twitter, after the 2024 election. (A MONTH AGO)

By Chris Walker , 

Truthout

December 5, 2024

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez listens to speakers during an event outside Union Station on June 16, 2021, in Washington, D.C.Win McNamee / Getty Images

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive representing parts of the Queens and Bronx boroughs of New York City, became the first user on the social media site Bluesky to reach 1 million followers earlier this week.

Bluesky has been around since the fall of 2021. However, it wasn’t until last month that the site gained popularity as an alternative to X, formerly known as Twitter.

Many users shifted platforms due to their disdain for billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X and was a major supporter of Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential race. After Trump’s win in November, many liberal and left-leaning X users sought different options for social media, citing the fact that X has become overrun with hateful, far right accounts as a result of lax regulation under Musk.

Ocasio-Cortez was among those who started a Bluesky account after Trump’s win. In a post currently pinned to the top of her feed, the New York lawmaker explained why she prefers Bluesky to X.

“A thing I like here is it’s okay to have moments of happiness in public without being broadly scolded, and I believe that sustaining this kind of humanity will be very important as we resist fascism,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in the post. “We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive.”

While Ocasio-Cortez’s X account is still popular and somewhat active, it is often the target of ridicule and attacks from right-wing accounts.

In a recent post remarking on her achievement of 1 million followers, Ocasio-Cortez expounded upon why she made the shift.

“People are leaving Twitter because it’s not fun anymore and no one is obligated to be on a platform they don’t enjoy. It’s not rocket science,” she said.

Since the exodus of users from X to Bluesky over the past month, the latter site has amassed more than 24 million new accounts. Some faithful users of X and other commentators have claimed that the new site is nothing more than an echo chamber where liberal and left-leaning users only discuss ideas among themselves — but media journalist Parker Molloy has contested that critique.

“I think that our default view of social media has become one where insults have become the default, where interactions are a form of combat, and there’s an expectation that being online means bracing yourself for hostility at every turn,” Molloy wrote last month. “Bluesky challenges that norm, not by shutting out opposing views, but by creating a space where conversations aren’t immediately derailed by harassment or bad-faith arguments.”

“It’s not about avoiding disagreement — it’s about fostering an environment where disagreements can actually happen productively,” Molloy added.

Ocasio-Cortez made headlines for another reason this week: She’s reportedly mulling a run for the top Democratic spot on the House Oversight Committee, which is tasked with ensuring “the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies.” As the ranking member of the committee, Ocasio-Cortez would be a leading voice against Republicans and the Trump administration in their attempts to use the government to go after their perceived political enemies.

“I’ll be making a decision shortly,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Tlaib: Congress “Can No Longer Deny” Israeli Genocide After Amnesty Report

Advocates are reigniting calls for an arms embargo on Israel after landmark findings that Israel is committing genocide.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

December 5, 2024

Rep. Rashida Tlaib speaks during a news conference calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on November 13, 2023.

Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images

Advocates for Palestinian rights have reignited their calls for the U.S. to stop sending arms to Israel following a landmark Amnesty International investigation concluding that Israel is committing genocide, as many Palestinians and experts have been saying for months.

“My colleagues can no longer deny that this is genocide,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan). “We must follow our own U.S. laws. We need an Arms Embargo now.”

On Thursday, Amnesty released a sprawling report determining that Israel’s assault of Gaza amounts to genocide, citing Israel’s relentless attacks, blocking of humanitarian aid, targeting of health and other basic infrastructure, forced displacement of 90 percent of Gaza’s population, and more.

Amnesty is the first major international humanitarian organization to outright label Israel’s actions as a genocide. The group was also one of the first major human rights organizations to label Israel’s violent occupation and oppression of Palestine as apartheid, back in 2022.

The human rights group, one of the largest in the world, specifically called out the U.S. as a major collaborator in the genocide due to the Biden administration’s policy of sending Israel weapons with zero red lines. Just last week, despite Israel’s clear, ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, reports emerged of the Biden administration advancing yet another sale of weapons to Israel worth $680 million.

Related Stor

y
Amnesty International Finds Israel Is Committing Genocide in Bombshell Report
“Genocidal intent has been part and parcel of Israel’s conduct in Gaza since 7 October 2023,” the report says.
By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutDecember 5, 2024

Amnesty warned that states continuing to send weapons are risking legal complicity in genocide.

Amnesty also called on UN bodies like the Security Council and the General Assembly to take immediate action to implement a permanent ceasefire and a “comprehensive arms embargo” on Israel.

“We welcome the fact that an internationally-respected organization like Amnesty International would clearly state what has become obvious to the entire world — with the exception of Biden administration officials,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in a statement.

“Based on the conclusion of this report and on countless similar reports documenting Israel’s genocide, we demand that President Biden order an immediate ban on weapons deliveries to the genocidal Israeli government,” Awad went on.

In the past 14 months, Israeli forces have killed at least 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza, including 17,500 children, and injured at least 105,000, according to official counts by Gaza health officials. As Amnesty and international experts have acknowledged, the death toll is likely far higher, with some estimates ranging as high as 330,000, out of a pre-genocide population of 2.3 million.

UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese warned in September that Israel “could end up exterminating almost the entire population in Gaza” within the next two years if international powers do not intervene to stop it.

The leadership committee for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement lauded the report. “We now call on Amnesty International members and sections to step up their pressure on complicit states, corporations and institutions to end their complicity with Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation, apartheid and genocide,” the BDS National Committee said in a statement.

“Stopping Israel’s genocide demands mounting enormous pressure on governments to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel, starting with a comprehensive military-security embargo, as was done against apartheid South Africa,” the group continued.

Amnesty International Finds Israel Is Committing Genocide in Bombshell Report

“Genocidal intent has been part and parcel of Israel’s conduct in Gaza since 7 October 2023,” the report says.

By Sharon Zhang ,

Truthout

December 5, 2024

Palestinians walk in a devastated neighborhood due to Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis on December 2, 2024.

Bashar Taleb / AFP via Getty Images


Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

One of the world’s most prominent human rights groups concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in a bombshell report released Thursday.

In a 296-page investigation, Amnesty International found that the breadth of Israel’s military assault on Gaza — including mass civilian killings, forced displacement, the blocking of humanitarian aid, and many other alleged violations of the Genocide Convention — combined with Israeli officials’ clear intent to destroy Gaza means that their campaign amounts to genocide.

Amnesty is the first major international human rights organization to formally label Israel’s assault a genocide. Numerous UN agencies and groups have also found evidence that Israel is committing genocide.

The sprawling report details some of the most inhumane parts of Israel’s assault and invasion up until the end of November, highlighting the “unprecedented magnitude” of Israel’s military incursions and starvation campaign, as well as dozens of statements by Israeli officials and soldiers indicating their intent to wipe out Gaza.

The report cites numerous Israeli massacres investigated by Amnesty that targeted civilian structures in densely populated areas, including 15 attacks between October 2023 and April 2024 that killed 334 people, 141 of whom were children. It also points to statements by Israeli officials, like when President Isaac Herzog claimed that there were no Palestinian civilians who were “not involved” in the attack on October 7, 2023.

Related Stor

UN Report: Israel’s Tactics in Gaza Are “Consistent With Genocide”
Israel’s “unprecedented destruction” has deprived Palestinians of all conditions of life, the group found. By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutNovember 14, 2024

The human rights group found Israel guilty of three of five acts prohibited in the Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group, causing physical or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction.

Further, as Amnesty argues, the Genocide Convention specifies that in order for an assault to be classified as genocide, it must have an “intent to destroy” a group. The group says that, while Israel claims its attacks have only targeted Hamas, Amnesty found that “these claims are not credible,” as Israel has consistently ignored its obligations to avoid civilian harm and has thus committed indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.

“The evidence presented in the report clearly shows that the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, as such, was Israel’s intent, either in addition to, or as a means to achieve, its military aims,” the report says. “There is only one reasonable inference that can be drawn from the evidence presented: genocidal intent has been part and parcel of Israel’s conduct in Gaza since 7 October 2023, including its military campaign.”

The group calls on international powers to stop sending arms to Israel or else risk complicity in genocide, specifically calling out key arms suppliers like the U.S. and Germany.

“Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

“Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now. States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide,” Callamard said.

Amnesty also called on the International Criminal Court to add genocide to the recently issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“No one should be allowed to commit genocide and remain unpunished,” said Callamard.

Amnesty International report says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

Amnesty International accused the state of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a report published on Thursday, an allegation Israeli leaders have repeatedly denied. The report says Israel has "unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity".


Issued on: 05/12/2024 -
By: NEWS WIRES

01:47

Mohammad Shouman carries the body of his daughter, Masa, who was killed in an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, during her funeral in Rafah on January 17, 2024. 

© Fatima Shbair, AP


Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israel of "committing genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the war last year, saying its new report was a "wake-up call" for the international community.

The London-based rights organisation said its findings were based on "dehumanising and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials", satellite images documenting devastation, fieldwork and ground reports from Gazans.

"Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them," Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

"Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now," she added.

The Palestinian group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack inside southern Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering a deadly Israeli military offensive on Gaza as Israeli officials vowed to crush the militant group.

A total of 1,208 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, were killed during the Hamas attack, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

Since then at least 44,532 people have been killed in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

"There is absolutely no doubt that Israel has military objectives. But the existence of military objectives does not negate the possibility of a genocidal intent," Callamard told AFP at a press conference in The Hague.

She said the organisation had based its findings on the criteria set out in the UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.

Israel has repeatedly and forcefully denied allegations of genocide, accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields.

But Amnesty's 300-page report points to "direct deliberate attacks on civilian and civilian infrastructures where there was no Hamas presence or any other military objectives, the use of heavy explosive weapons with a wide radius of destruction in densely populated residential areas," the blocking of aid deliveries, and the displacement of 90 percent of Gaza's 2.4 million people.

'Erasure'

In the days after the October 7 attack, Israel imposed a "total siege" on Gaza, with the slogan: "No electricity, no water, no gas". Limited supplies have been allowed in since then.

Palestinians have been subjected to "malnutrition, hunger and diseases" and exposed to a "slow, calculated death", Amnesty said.

The rights group, which is also due to publish a report on the crimes committed by Hamas, cited 15 air strikes in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and April 20, which killed 334 civilians, including 141 children, for which the group found "no evidence that any of these strikes were directed at a military objective".

The Amnesty report also referenced dozens of calls by Israeli officials and soldiers for the annihilation, destruction, burning or "erasure" of Gaza.

Such statements highlighted "not only systemic impunity but also the creation of an environment that emboldens...such behaviour."

"Governments must stop pretending that they are powerless to terminate Israel's occupation, to end apartheid and to stop the genocide in Gaza," said Callamard.

"States that transfer arms to Israel violate their obligations to prevent genocide under the convention and are at risk of becoming complicit," she added.

(AFP)

Academic Labor Unions Are Key to Fighting Trump’s Repressive Higher Ed Agenda

AAUP President Todd Wolfson says unions like his are key to fighting Trump’s attacks on the bedrock of democracy.

By Eleanor J. Bader , 

Truthout

December 5, 2024

Three unions representing roughly 9,000 staff and faculty workers went on strike at Rutgers University in April 2023.Kyle Handojo

Two days after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, Todd Wolfson, the newly installed president of the 109-year-old American Association of University Professors, (AAUP) issued a statement committing the organization to the ongoing defense of academic freedom and shared governance.

“While the results of this presidential election are disappointing,” he wrote on the AAUP website, “we remain steadfast in our commitment to our principles and ensuring that future generations of Americans are afforded the opportunity that higher education provides.”

Among the most pressing concerns, he wrote, are the decline in public funding for higher education, ballooning student debt, and attacks on the freedom to teach and learn.

“Without a thriving, inclusive higher education system that serves the public good, the majority of Americans will be excluded from meaningful participation in our democracy and this country will move backward,” Wolfson predicted. “We will do everything in our power to protect our institutions, faculty, staff and students and stand up against those seeking to violate academic freedom and the core principle of higher education.”

It’s a daunting challenge.

According to the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, as of January 2024, slightly more than 400,000 faculty, 27 percent of the total, were union members. But Wolfson, a seasoned academic activist, is not cowed by the enormity of organizing the unorganized 73 percent. His experience tells him that activating them is possible.

As president of one of three unions that waged a successful strike at Rutgers University in 2023, Wolfson knows how to build power, work in coalition, and stoke sustained rank-and-file involvement. He also understands that growing the AAUP’s membership, training new members, and analyzing and then opposing legislation to limit freedom of speech, freedom to teach and freedom to organize will require a multitiered strategy.

In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Wolfson speaks to reporter Eleanor J. Bader about the AAUP’s agenda for 2025 and his vision for the future of academic labor.

Eleanor J. Bader: Let’s start with organizing. How does the AAUP plan to grow the union and bring in new members?

Todd Wolfson: We’re working to build member density, getting folks on every campus organized and trained. We did an organizer training in mid-November. Three hundred people from 70 campus chapters spent 12 hours using Skills to Win, a series of materials developed by the late union organizer/activist, Jane McAlevey. Part of the training is skill building: How to conduct one-on-one conversations; how to identify potential leaders; how to chair a meeting; and how to build and grow a vibrant union chapter. The other part of the training includes a discussion of the political economy to deepen everyone’s understanding of disinvestment in higher education and the rampant fascist attacks against colleges and universities. Our campaign is called Organize Every Campus. We have to do this because threats are looming at the national level and on multiple campuses.


We know what we are fighting for — fully funded higher education — and know that higher education is the lifeblood of any democracy.

Tell me about the differing attacks on campuses throughout the country.

There are so many. The University of Connecticut has announced plans to cut many majors and impose massive budget cuts. The University of North Texas has perused syllabi and is forcing faculty to change what is being taught in Gender Studies and African studies courses. At Muhlenberg College, tenured anthropology professor Maura Finkelstein was dismissed after she expressed support for the Palestinian people and criticized Israel’s genocidal policies. At Rutgers, adjunct writing instructors have been let go and at Portland State University in Oregon, nearly 100 layoffs have been announced. I want to stress that all of these attacks began before Trump took office.

It sounds like a huge organizing job to fight these proposed cuts.

For sure. The AAUP needs to figure out how to fight back on each campus while simultaneously working to understand how what’s happening fits into the national struggle to defend and protect higher education. One of my mentors is Willie Baptist, who now works at the Kairos Center. Willie taught me that organizers need, first, to be committed to the work. This requires political clarity. On campuses, it means understanding the threat fascism poses to higher education. It also requires an understanding of the university as an economic entity. Skill competency, including the ability to build community, is also key. Basically, we have to be able to foster healthy relationships and encourage and inspire others.

The Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, AAUP-AFT and AAUP-BHSNJ strike at Rutgers University, calling for living wages and equal pay.Kyle Handojo

Since 1980, when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its decision in NLRB v. Yeshiva University, full-time faculty at private colleges and universities have been classified as managerial employees and excluded from NLRB protections. That obviously impedes the AAUP’s ability to recruit new members at private institutions. Is there any way around this?

The AAUP has about 45,000 members. Most, 35,000, are part of bargaining units but 10,000 are in what we call Advocacy Chapters. These Chapters do not have bargaining rights and are largely based in private colleges or universities or are located in states where public workers do not have the right to bargain collectively. Most of them are in the South or Southwest.

Although Advocacy Chapters are prohibited from bargaining over wages and benefits, they are not powerless. At the University of Pennsylvania, for example, the Advocacy Chapter has grown and members are organizing around the university’s parental leave policy. Penn is also Ground Zero in the fight to protect pro-Palestinian speech.

But I also want to note that many large public universities are not organized. Penn State, the largest public university in Pennsylvania, has not unionized. Ohio State and the University of Michigan are also unorganized, so we have a lot of work to do to bring every public university into the AAUP or other education unions.

You were a professor at Rutgers and led one of the unions that waged a successful strike there last April. Workers won significant raises for graduate students, postdocs, and others. The union also successfully pushed back against longstanding state disinvestment from public higher ed. Are the lessons from this strike transferable to other schools?

Rutgers has 30,000 employees in 20 different bargaining units, including two police unions. There are 70,000 students. We started organizing during the pandemic. I was the president of one of the unions when the campus shut down and we organized to demand that Rutgers — as a public university — serve the public good. We demanded that they retain staff and adjunct faculty since layoffs would have ended their health care coverage during a global health crisis. We won. That built unity. Later, when our contract came up, we were able to bring three unions representing 9000 workers together to shut down the university. This is why a wall-to-wall union, uniting all workers regardless of job title, makes sense. Management typically works to divide workers during negotiations so the more unity you can build, the less effective divide-and-conquer tactics are.

Does the AAUP collaborate with other education unions?

This really is a new day. In September, all of the unions with members working in higher education — the AAUP, the AFT, NEA, SEIU, AFSCME, UNITE HERE, Higher Education Labor United (HELU) — came together and aligned our vision for the future. This had never happened before. The AAUP and HELU were the only groups composed solely of educators but every one of these unions is fully committed to defending higher education from attacks by the right. We see each other as partners. Along with noneducational allies like the ACLU, we are strategizing about protecting our members and fighting back against attacks against us.


The AAUP is here to remind people that higher ed is the bedrock of democracy.

We’re also partnering with Bargaining for the Common Good to build coalitions with community groups. The Chicago Teachers Union and the unions at Rutgers are models of community-academic partnership and have pushed for housing and mental health support. We’ve learned from them.

In August 2024, the AAUP announced that it will no longer categorically oppose academic boycotts. The shift recognized that boycotts “can instead be legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education.” Some AAUP members have pushed back against this decision and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an organization funded by the right-wing Donors Trust and Koch Foundation, has put the AAUP in its crosshairs. Is this a concern?

Making enemies is part of the job. My work, and the work of others in the AAUP, is to reiterate a set of principles about how and why higher education matters. The right wing and the Republicans operate as an echo chamber and efforts to dehumanize us are part of that. We know what we are fighting for — fully funded higher education — and know that higher education is the lifeblood of any democracy, a way to ensure that people have the critical thinking skills to understand the world. Whether the right attacks us for teaching about race, gender or the atrocities happening in Gaza, we’re protecting free speech. Nothing we’re doing is radical. It’s simply the foundation of a healthy democracy. So even when the right takes cheap shots at us, we are not diverted but are instead even more resolute about building worker power and defending our campuses.

At the same time, I know that people have strong feelings about what we’re doing. Gaza is one example. Nonetheless, I believe we can talk our way through our differences.

What do you consider the biggest challenges facing the AAUP under the Trump administration?

I worry that the administration will try to expand the definition of antisemitism to include any criticism of Israel and will threaten colleges with the loss of federal funding using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in all programs and activities that receive federal money.

This is a big, serious threat. Criticism of Israel is not the same as criticism of the Jewish people but I am concerned about the safety of students, faculty and staff who speak out about Gaza or the human tragedies unfolding there. I actually think many college presidents will stand with us on this and will see this threat as an attack on academic integrity.

The Rutgers University strike began on April 10, 2023, and resulted in an agreement that included across-the-board salary increases.Alan Maass

What are your immediate goals once Trump and Vance take office?

We have to take it one step at a time. First, we have to figure out how to defend each campus. We can’t allow people to become complacent about repression or attacks on speech. We need to get our message about the value of higher education out. We need everyone — engineers, physicists, sociologists, poets — to talk about why higher education matters. This is the only way we can counter the messaging of the right. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others on the right continually devalue higher ed. People need to hear counternarratives.

We also need to fully deconstruct Project 2025 to see the specifics of the attacks and address them. We already see that the right is trying to weaponize Title VI and weaken the accreditation process to make it easier to cut funding for programs that they oppose.

Look, the political situation is scary right now. It’s dire. But there is also a silver lining. The first time Trump was in office people flocked to progressive organizations and got involved in social justice efforts. I expect this to happen again.

Any final thoughts?

This is not a moment to shrink or back off. It’s a moment to grow and build power. We in the AAUP are ready to fight for what we need — fully funded higher education, an end to student debt, and respect for every worker on every campus. This is just one moment in a long struggle. The AAUP is here to remind people that higher ed is the bedrock of democracy.This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.




Eleanor J. Bader is an award-winning journalist who writes about domestic social issues, movements for social change, books and art. In addition to Truthout, she writes for The Progressive, Lilith Magazine and blog, the LA Review of Books, Rain Taxi, The Indypendent and other online and print publications.

US Supreme Court Case on Trans Health Shows How Gender Essentialism Harms Us All


Everyone who cares about bodily autonomy should fight for trans health care.

By Lewis Raven Wallace ,

Truthout

December 6, 2024

Supporters of trans rights and their opponents rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as the high court hears arguments in a case on trans health care bans, on December 4, 2024, in Washington, D.C.Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

When I had my first gender-affirming medical intervention, I was 21 years old. The year was 2005, and at that time, the idea of a trans surgery being covered by health insurers was outlandish.

So, I saved up money starting at age 18, and visited psychologists at the free gender clinic in the San Francisco Bay Area where I lived. I told them I had been “living as a man full time” and pretended to fit the clinical definition of gender dysphoria in order to get a letter allowing the surgeon to work on me. (I was genderqueer and nonbinary, had a high voice and feminine features and had virtually never “passed” as a man.)

I knew deeply and with utter certainty that having a double mastectomy would improve my self-image and help me live in an expression closer to who I am. So I jumped through all of their hoops, including the surgeon himself at the consult taking one look at me and asking if I was really sure about this.

I lay in a hotel bed in Plano, Texas, afterward, as happy as I have ever been. My dad, whose warm supportiveness was rare among parents of trans children at that time, visited me and took me out to the Cheesecake Factory while I delighted in my next body. It was easier for me than most people: I had family support, the ability to travel and pay out of pocket for treatment, and I was transitioning in a direction that afforded me more privilege over time as I became more masculine in appearance.

Years later, when I started hormone treatments, I was thrilled to find how much the medical community had advanced on trans issues, taking an “informed consent” approach with hormones rather than requiring me to pass an unpassable gender test. But of course, these gender tests are not required for cisgender people who want breast reductions, breast augmentations, plastic surgeries or gender-affirming hormone treatments, so long as these align with some societal caricature of their assigned sex at birth.

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Right-Wing Justices Had to Help Anti-Trans Lawyer During SCOTUS Hearing
The justices seemed to embrace arguments for maintaining Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. By Chris Walker , Truthout  December 4, 2024

When I had top surgery back in 2005, people told me I was mutilating myself, that I was too young to decide, and that my decisions didn’t make sense to them. Now, I am one of thousands who can attest that accessing this care was life-saving and deeply affirming of my being.

My concern today is that trans people should not have to attest to this — because the “debate” over trans health care presented to the Supreme Court this week in U.S. v. Skrmetti will impact all of us, not just trans people.

At its core, this Supreme Court case is about the government’s control over gendered bodies. The case challenges a Tennessee law that bans trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care. But the proliferation of state laws attacking trans health care access shows that trans liberation movements have threatened a central ideological tenet of the Christian right and conservatism — gender essentialism.


Legalizing the denial of bodily self-determination increases patriarchal control over all people deemed socially transgressive.

The belief that gender identity is an innate biological category determined by our sex at birth is not a medical fact but a product of 18th- and 19th-century Western patriarchal thought — it is deeply entwined with the belief that “woman” is both an essential category and an inferior one. This essentialist belief system showed its weakness from the start, as it has long been forcibly imposed on unwilling communities via police and the military — through everything from sex-segregated spaces, to sexist rules applying only to women, to laws against cross-dressing and policing of gay and trans gathering spaces.

If gender were in fact essential and naturally aligned with sex at birth, why would it need to be policed at all?

In recent decades, even Western medicine has been questioning gender essentialism, prompted in part by activism from intersex and transgender communities. As many non-Western cultures have long acknowledged, a significant minority of people are born or grow up with ambiguous sex characteristics (chromosomes, hormones and secondary sex characteristics) and an even larger group of people do not grow up to identify with their sex assigned at birth. Intersex and transgender people’s existence shows that sex and gender are mutable and exist on a spectrum, and a vast majority of young trans people who receive affirming care attest that they are happy with the outcome.

In a desperate attempt to keep patriarchal gendered social systems from falling apart, conservative forces are now targeting these happy trans youth. They claim that young people are endangered by gender-affirming health care, even as they allow nonconsensual surgeries and hormone treatments forced on intersex children to continue unabated. The Tennessee argument in the Supreme Court quite openly holds that trans youth should be restricted from choosing health care that cisgender youth are freely permitted. The danger is not the hormone treatments — it is who is taking them, and how that upsets the status quo.

The argument presented by Chase Strangio of the ACLU and U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asks simply that the Tennessee law be held to a certain level of scrutiny because it differentiates on the basis of sex. And yet the Supreme Court seems poised to reject that argument, with the court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson — which repealed Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion — serving as precedent for further restrictions of bodily autonomy.

Tennessee Solicitor General Jonathan Skrmetti made the connection explicit in his brief, asking the court to expand Dobbs to allow gender-affirming care bans at the state level. As Strangio told Slate, “whether you look at the equality thread or the autonomy thread in Dobbs, this is about structural efforts to impede people’s abilities to make decisions for themselves.”

Underlying both of these cases is an effort to curtail self-determination, particularly for cis and trans women, trans people in general, and low-income people (who are the most immediately impacted by all health restrictions, because they cannot afford to simply travel or move for care).

Legalizing the denial of bodily self-determination increases patriarchal control over all people deemed socially transgressive — in these cases, literally forcing poor people to carry pregnancies to term and give birth against their will, and to live in bodies and gender expressions that actively harm their mental and physical health.

The spectacle we are witnessing is not actually a debate about whether or not trans youth should be able to access hormones. These state leaderships do not care about protecting trans youth. They care about limiting and controlling gender transgression, protecting an antiquated medical definition of gender, and enforcing patriarchy as a biological claim on reality. Criminalizing trans care is a slippery slope, alongside criminalizing abortion, that we must oppose in a united front fighting for the health and safety of all.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.


Lewis Raven Wallace
Lewis Raven Wallace (he/they/ze) is an independent journalist based in Durham, North Carolina, and the author and creator of The View from Somewhere book and podcast. He’s currently a Ford Global Fellow, and the Abolition Journalism Fellow with Interrupting Criminalization. He previously worked in public radio, and is a long-time activist engaged in prison abolition, racial justice, and queer and trans liberation. He is white and transgender, and was born and raised in the Midwest with deep roots in the South.

Bitcoin Hits New High as Crypto-Friendly Atkins Tapped to Lead SEC

"If Atkins is confirmed by the Senate, crypto grifters will surely rejoice at their newfound freedom to swindle, but most investors in the U.S. will be much less safe," wrote one researcher.


Eloise Goldsmith
Dec 05, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The price of a single Bitcoin topped $100,000 Wednesday—a major milestone for the cryptocurrency—mere hours after President-elect Donald Trump selected crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Atkins previously served as the SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008 and then went on to found a financial consulting company, Patomak Global Partners, which included failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX among its clients, according to The Wall Street Journal. Atkins is expected to adopt a warmer approach to crypto.

On a podcast last year, Atkins noted that "if the SEC were more accommodating and would deal straightforwardly with these various [crypto] firms, I think it would be a lot better to have things happen here in the United States rather than outside," according to The Washington Post.

"[Atkins] believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, and that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the world. He also recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before," wrote Trump on Truth Social when announcing the pick.

Trump on Thursday claimed credit for Bitcoin reaching new heights: "CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!! YOU'RE WELCOME!!! Together, we will Make America Great Again!"

Crypto leaders cheered the Atkins news.

"Paul Akins is an excellent choice for the new SEC chair!" wrote Brian Armstrong, the co-founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of the cryptocurrency firm Ripple, called Atkins an "outstanding choice."

Current SEC Chair Gary Gensler has pursued legal action against a number of crypto companies, including FTX, and drawn the ire of the crypto world for maintaining that by and large the crypto industry should be governed by the same SEC rules that oversee stock and bond trading.

Meanwhile, critics of the Atkins pick warned that investors could be less safe if he is confirmed to helm of the SEC.

"Donald Trump's nomination of Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission is a huge gift to the crypto industry, as evidenced by the immediate jump in Bitcoin's stock price... If Atkins is confirmed by the Senate, crypto grifters will surely rejoice at their newfound freedom to swindle, but most investors in the U.S. will be much less safe," wrote Kenny Stancil, senior researcher at Revolving Door Project, a watchdog group.

Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen, added that "any sentient being—let alone a securities markets expert—should understand that bitcoin is 'thin air,' as Trump himself once put it. That Paul Atkins has made a living promoting such a scam doesn't bode well for his reflexes as a shepherd for investor protection."

'What a Racket': CBO Finds Extending Trump Tax Cuts Would Shrink US Economy

"The looting has begun," said one Democrat. "Far from unleashing record-breaking growth, the next Trump tax scam will make hardworking families worse off, shrink our economy, and blow a $4.6 trillion hole in the deficit."


Jake Johnson
Dec 05, 2024
COMMON DREAMS


The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected Wednesday that extending provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that are set to expire at the end of next year would shrink the U.S. economy over the long run, a finding that came as Republicans planned to move ahead with another round of regressive tax cuts within the first 100 days of the new Congress.

In its new analysis, the CBO found that allowing provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to expire as scheduled in 2025 would have a positive long-term effect on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth compared to permanently extending the provisions.

"Expiration increases the long-term growth of potential GDP by about 6 basis points," the CBO said.





Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said in response to the CBO's findings that "the looting has begun."

"Far from unleashing record-breaking growth, the next Trump tax scam will make hardworking families worse off, shrink our economy, and blow a $4.6 trillion hole in the deficit," said Whitehouse. "What a racket, to push for trillions in tax cuts so billionaires keep paying lower rates than nurses and plumbers, and then cite deficit concerns to rob families needing things like home heating or childcare."

"Looting the treasury for megadonors is a rotten trick," the senator added, "and no amount of budgetary smoke and mirrors will hide it."

The CBO report was published as congressional Republicans continued to map out their legislative agenda before taking control of both chambers in January. The Associated Pressreported earlier this week that "in preparation for Trump's return, Republicans in Congress have been meeting privately for months and with the president-elect to go over proposals to extend and enhance those tax breaks, some of which would otherwise expire in 2025."

"It's always been about further enriching political and economic elites even at the cost of our economic future."

During the 2024 campaign, Trump pledged to sustain individual tax breaks enacted by the 2017 law—which disproportionately benefited the rich—and further reduce the statutory tax rate for U.S. corporations.

"The last time Republicans spent this much money for no apparent gain was the war in Iraq," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Wednesday. "Trump's political donors want a return on their investment, and Republicans are going to give it to them, even at the cost of shrinking our economy and destroying jobs."

To offset the massive projected cost of extending the 2017 law and enacting new corporate tax cuts, Republicans are planning to pursue deep cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other programs that help low-income Americans meet basic needs.

"President-elect Trump campaigned as a champion of the working class but his first act will be tanking the economy and throwing workers under the bus to line the pockets of his wealthy friends," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. "The Trump tax scam is back for its second act, and Americans should brace for impact."

David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, called the latest CBO analysis of the Republican Party's tax policies "even more damning than previous iterations."

"Using the country's credit card to give away trillions of dollars to the wealthiest Americans and big corporations would be disastrous for our economy and the average American," Kass said Wednesday. "The Trump Tax Scam bill has never been about economic growth or improving the lives of working and middle-class Americans. It's always been about further enriching political and economic elites even at the cost of our economic future."

"Moving forward," Kass added, "the incoming administration and congressional Republicans must answer why they plan to make hardworking Americans worse off, shrink our economy, and increase the deficit by $4.6 trillion."

Biden Administration Takes 'Morally Bankrupt' Climate Position at ICJ

"This opposition to strong international law on climate justice categorically undermines the Biden administration's climate legacy," said Ashfaq Khalfan of Oxfam America.


U.S. State Department legal adviser Margaret Taylor is pictured at an International Court of Justice hearing on December 4, 2024.
(Photo: Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Dec 05, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The Biden administration faced backlash from scientists, advocacy groups, and vulnerable Pacific islands on Wednesday for arguing before the United Nations' highest court that the Paris agreement is sufficient and countries should not face additional legal obligations to fight the climate emergency.

The U.S. position, outlined at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by State Department legal adviser Margaret Taylor, was deemed "morally bankrupt" by Oxfam America, which decried the administration's insistence that "countries do not have clear legal obligations to reduce carbon pollution, especially as it prepares to turn over the executive office to a proven climate denier like President-elect [Donald] Trump."


"This opposition to strong international law on climate justice categorically undermines the Biden administration's climate legacy," Ashfaq Khalfan, Oxfam America's climate justice director, said Wednesday. "The U.S. has today denied any firm obligation to reduce carbon pollution to safer levels, phase out fossil fuel production, or provide funding to lower-income countries to help with renewable energy and protection from climate harms. Governments have failed to do what is necessary to protect humanity from the climate crisis, and it is essential that the ICJ holds them to account by pushing them towards concrete action to ensure climate justice."

Taylor argued during her presentation in The Hague on Wednesday that "the U.N. climate change regime, with the Paris agreement at its core, is the only international legal regime specifically designed by states to address climate change" and that "cooperative efforts through that regime provide the best hope for protecting the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations."


While technically a legally binding international treaty, the Paris accord has failed to arrest the rise of planet-warming carbon emissions, which have surged to an all-time high this year. The agreement—from which the U.S. is expected to withdraw for a second time under Trump—has no enforcement mechanism, and its language leaves ample room for countries to continue burning fossil fuels at levels that scientists say are incompatible with a livable future.

"The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights, and reject climate justice."

Delta Merner, lead scientist for the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, criticized the U.S.—the largest historical polluter—for resisting "calls for climate accountability" at Wednesday's ICJ hearing.

"Instead of taking responsibility for its contributions to the climate crisis, the United States used its 30-minute slot to downplay the role of the courts for global climate action, emphasize nonbinding national commitments under the Paris agreement, and reject the notion of historical responsibility," said Merner. "By framing climate change as a collective action challenge without clear legal obligations for individual states, the United States dismissed the potential for redress or binding accountability measures that advance justice for climate-vulnerable nations."

"In the face of stonewalling from major polluters, we applaud the leadership of Vanuatu and others for advancing this process," Merner added. "These proceedings must continue to center the voices of frontline communities."

The Pacific island of Vanuatu first launched the push for an ICJ advisory opinion on climate in 2021. Less than two years later, the U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution calling on the ICJ to issue an opinion on countries' legal obligations regarding the global fight against climate change.

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change and environment, criticized the U.S. presentation at Wednesday's landmark hearing and said treaties such as the Paris agreement can't be "a veil for inaction or a substitute for legal accountability."


"These nations—some of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters—have pointed to existing treaties and commitments that have regrettably failed to motivate substantial reductions in emissions," said Regenvanu. "There needs to be an accounting for the failure to curb emissions and the climate change impacts and human rights violations that failure has generated."

Vishal Prasad, director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, expressed outrage at what he described as "a disheartening attempt by the U.S. to evade its responsibilities as one of the world's largest polluters."

"The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights, and reject climate justice," Prasad added

ICJ Hearings Offer New Chance to Get Rich Countries to Pay for Climate Crisis

The UN’s court will soon clarify nations’ legal responsibility to avert the human rights impacts of climate catastrophe.

By Schuyler Mitchell , 

Truthout

December 4, 2024

A boy rides his bike through floodwaters occurring near high tide in a low-lying area near an airport in Funafuti, Tuvalu, on November 24, 2019.Mario Tama / Getty Images

Five years ago, a group of 27 law students at the University of the South Pacific came together and hatched a bold new plan to bring the issue of climate justice before the United Nations’ top court.

Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change was born, and the youth-led group quickly grew to include more than 100 members from countries across the South Pacific. They were tired of world leaders failing to take aggressive action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and thereby fueling a climate crisis that disproportionately harms Pacific Island communities.

The law students decided to turn to international humanitarian law as a potential remedy, successfully rallying leaders of Pacific states to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ legal obligations to prevent devastation wreaked by climate change. The opinion would set forth consequences for countries that violate human rights by causing significant harm to the world’s climate. In March 2023, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution, spearheaded by the nation of Vanuatu, calling on the ICJ to issue the advisory opinion — the first time such a resolution has been passed with consensus.

The ICJ began public hearings at The Hague on December 2. Over the course of two weeks, the court will hear arguments from more than 100 countries and international organizations, including youth-led organizations and Indigenous groups, about what states are obligated to do to ensure the environment’s habitability and mitigate the climate crisis. While an ICJ advisory opinion is nonbinding, it marks the first time the UN’s highest court has been asked to clarify nations’ legal responsibility to prevent climate change.

Humanitarian groups have highlighted how the dangerous planetary temperature rise spurred by fossil fuel extraction threatens a range of fundamental human rights, including the right to health, food, housing and even life. Since 1850, rich countries, especially the United States, have contributed a disproportionate share of greenhouse gas emissions, while poorer countries are left to grapple with the climate crisis’s most devastating impacts.

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Ahead of the hearings, the Center for International Environmental Law released a report outlining the human rights and legal basis for states and corporations to provide reparations for harm caused by the climate crisis. While the ICJ hearings mark a historic development, as the report outlines, it isn’t the first time that an international body has weighed in on the legal obligations of states and corporations to mitigate climate harm.

“Under international law, those whose human rights are violated have a right to remedy, including full reparation for climate-related harms,” the report’s authors wrote. “Existing national, regional, and international reparation mechanisms provide precedents and examples from which experience could be drawn for repairing climate harm.”

One of these examples can be found in the case Billy et al. v. Australia. In May 2019, a group of Indigenous Torres Strait Islands residents filed a petition to the UN, arguing that Australia’s failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cease fossil fuel extraction would render their home islands uninhabitable in less than 15 years.

“The Authors have a deep concern that their culture and way of life, which is intimately linked with their land and sea territories in the Torres Strait, is gravely threatened by the effects of climate change and sea level rise in particular,” the Torres Strait Islanders wrote in their petition. “Unless urgent action is taken, climate change is predicted to make their islands uninhabitable within their and their children’s lifetimes.”

A UN committee decided in September 2022 that Australia had violated the group’s right to life under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN asked Australia to adequately compensate the Torres Strait Islanders for the harm inflicted, marking the first time an international tribunal found a country responsible for climate harm under human rights law.

Other international courts have issued rulings against states for their complicity in environmental harm and ordered reparations. In La Oroya v. Peru, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights — the human rights tribunal for American states — ruled this March that Peru had failed to control toxic industrial pollution from a mining complex in the Andes.

Families in the town were exposed to heavy metals and carcinogens in their soil, air and water for 100 years, and the town’s children have tested positive for dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the community’s exposure to the harmful pollution amounted to a human rights violation, and, crucially, ordered the state to implement both individual and collective reparations. This includes environmental remediation, free specialized health care for residents, relocating families who wish to move, tightening air quality standards and creating a system for tracking environmental quality data in mining areas.

In May, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, an independent judicial body established by UN convention, became the first international court to issue an advisory opinion on the climate crisis. The court ruled that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are a form of marine pollution and found that states have a legal obligation to take measures to curb emissions.

These cases are among those that set important legal precedents for the hearings in front of the ICJ this month. And the hearings couldn’t arrive at a more crucial time: The UN Climate Change Conference, COP29, recently concluded in Azerbaijan with a disappointing and paltry climate finance deal. Climate justice activists and negotiators from Global South nations had called for wealthy countries to provide at least $5 trillion a year to help poor countries adapt to the climate crisis and decarbonize their economies. But COP29 negotiators instead inked a final agreement of $300 billion — a bitter outcome that one activist said was “a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed” and another negotiator called a “travesty of justice.”

In the face of COP29’s failures, human rights and climate advocates are hoping that international law could be another tool in the climate action toolkit, compelling rich countries to pay reparations for the climate disasters that they’ve played an outsize role in causing.

Of course, one might wonder: Even if the ICJ concludes that countries should face legal consequences for climate-based human rights violations, will world leaders actually listen? How would those consequences be enforced?

Notably, Australia rejected the UN’s findings in Billy et al. v. Australia and has neglected to pay the Torres Strait Islanders compensation. And the power of international law feels particularly precarious amid the U.S. and its allies’ unbridled and ongoing support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. President Joe Biden’s administration has said it will not limit arms sales to Israel, despite well-documented evidence that Israel has committed human rights abuses. The International Criminal Court, the UN’s other top court in The Hague that prosecutes war crime cases against individuals, recently issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — warrants that the U.S. and other Western nations have either rejected or ignored.

However, even though the ICJ’s opinion is nonbinding, it provides authoritative guidance and is expected to be cited in future climate litigation and negotiations. The hearings have already received an unprecedented level of participation, and the fact that the issue of climate justice made its way to one of the world’s highest courts, thanks to a youth-led grassroots movement, shouldn’t be discounted.

Given the magnitude of the crisis, every tool, every effort, counts. Basically, this is the first step in a long struggle for equitable climate action under international law. But we need a lot more than one step — hopefully, by the time the rest of the steps come, it won’t be too late.


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Schuyler Mitchell is a writer, editor and fact-checker from North Carolina, currently based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The Intercept, The Baffler, Labor Notes, Los Angeles Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her on X: @schuy_ler