Ben & Jerry’s co-founder announces lawsuit against Magnum for ‘interfering’ with its social mission

The brand's new parent company tried to remove three key members of the independent board overseeing its social missions.

Images Staff
20 Dec, 2025
DAWN

Ben Cohen, the outspoken co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, has announced that the ice cream brand’s independent board is suing its new parent company, Magnum, accusing it of illegally interfering with the board that safeguards Ben & Jerry’s social mission — just one week after Magnum took charge.

“On Monday, just one week after taking charge of Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum tried to remove three key members from the Independent Board, which oversees Ben & Jerry’s social mission,” Cohen wrote in a post on X.

“The Independent Board is now suing Unilever/Magnum.”

Cohen made it clear that, in his view, the move crosses a legal and ethical line. “Magnum does not have the legal right to interfere with the Independent Board,” he added.

Reiterating the company’s founding ethos, Cohen stressed that Ben & Jerry’s was built to speak out — especially when it is uncomfortable. “If Magnum can’t live with that, they shouldn’t be in charge of it,” he wrote, adding the hashtag #FreeBenAndJerrys.

In 2000, Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield sold the company to Unilever, negotiating a unique governance structure designed to protect its social mission.

However, the founders have repeatedly accused Unilever of trying to muzzle the brand’s activism, tensions that culminated in Greenfield’s resignation in September. Now, with Ben & Jerry’s placed under Unilever’s subsidiary — The Magnum Ice Cream Company (MICC) — those fears appear to have intensified.

What actually happened

According to Reuters, Ben & Jerry’s — now operating under Magnum — removed three long-serving members of its independent board as part of newly introduced governance rules, including a nine-year term limit for board members.

Among them was Anuradha Mittal, the board’s chair, who joined in 2007 and had served as chair since 2018. Mittal told Reuters earlier this month that she had no intention of stepping down under pressure from Unilever, describing attempts to remove her as an effort to “undermine the authority of the board itself”.

In a statement, Ben & Jerry’s said that directors who had served more than nine years would no longer be eligible for re-election from 2026 onward. While the company did not publicly name the affected members, sources confirmed to Reuters that Mittal was removed with immediate effect, while long-standing directors Daryn Dodson and Jennifer Henderson will see their terms expire on December 31.

If the three additional directors are removed, the board, which once had eight members, would be left with just two directors, Ben & Jerry’s CEO and one member previously appointed by the brand’s prior owner Unilever.

Cohen strongly pushed back against the move, praising the three directors for serving “with integrity and courage” and calling their removal “another step in Magnum’s systematic effort to dismantle Ben & Jerry’s from the inside and silence the very social mission that gives the brand its value.”

Competing narratives

Magnum, which now controls Ben & Jerry’s, has claimed that the brand’s foundation trustees have refused to address alleged deficiencies in financial controls and governance.

The trustees, however, flatly rejected those claims.

In a statement, they said the allegations were “misleading and unfounded,” arguing that what is unfolding is “a coordinated effort by Magnum to manufacture a narrative of dysfunction” in order to justify unprecedented control over an independent, mission-driven institution.

This latest clash is not happening in isolation. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop selling ice cream in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, prompting a legal clash with Unilever. Last year, the company sued its parent over what it said were repeated attempts to silence its advocacy for a ceasefire and Palestinian rights.

Ben & Jerry’s was officially moved under The Magnum Ice Cream Company in September as part of Unilever’s planned corporate spin-off.

 

Ben Cohen

@YoBenCohen

Tag 

@MagnumIceCream

and tell them you want a #FreeBenAndJerrys and sign the letter at http://freebenandjerrys.com

Anuradha Mittal

1:28 PM · Dec 19, 2025

·

35.9K

Views

CELEBRITY : MATTERS OF THE MIND

Sarah Hellewell 

Published December 14, 2025

THE CONVERSATION


Kim Kardashian | Scott A. Garfitt/Invision/AP

A recent episode of The Kardashians shared some startling news about Kim Kardashian’s brain.

Discussing Kim’s recent brain scan, her doctor pointed out “holes” on her brain scan which, he said, were related to “low activity.”

While this sounds incredibly sad and concerning, doctors and scientists have doubts about the technology used and its growing commercialisation.

I study brain health, including imaging the brain to look for early signs of disease. Here’s what I think about this technology, whether it can really find holes in our brains, and if we should be getting these scans to check our own.

What can imaging really tell you?

Earlier this year, Kim was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, or widening of an artery, after an MRI.

The type and extent of this aneurysm are unclear. And there doesn’t seem to be a clear link between her aneurysm and this recent news.


Kim Kardashian’s brain scan shows ‘low activity’ and holes. As a brain expert, I have questions…

But we do know the latest announcement came after a different type of imaging, known as single-photon emission tomography (SPECT). This involves injecting radioactive chemicals into the blood and using a special camera which creates 3D images of organs, including the brain. This type of imaging was developed in 1976 and was first used in the brain in 1990.

SPECT scans can be used to track and measure blood flow in organs, and are used by doctors to diagnose and guide treatment for conditions affecting the brain, heart and bones. While SPECT has some clinical use under limited circumstances, there is no good evidence for SPECT scans outside these purposes.

Enter the world of celebrities and private clinics

The clinic featured in The Kardashians episode offers SPECT to its clients, including the Kardashian-Jenners.

SPECT images have mass appeal due to their aesthetically pleasing pastel colours, widespread promotion on social media, and claims that these scans can be used to diagnose any number of conditions. These include stress (as in Kim’s case), Alzheimer’s, ADHD, brain injury, eating disorders, sleep problems, anger and even marital problems.

But the scientific evidence to support the use of SPECT as a diagnostic tool for an individual and for so many conditions has led many doctors, scientists and former patients to criticise the work of such clinics as scientifically unfounded and “snake oil.”

Scans could potentially show changes in blood flow, though these may be common across conditions. Blood flow can also vary depending on the area of the brain examined, time of day, and even how well-rested a person is.

Areas in which blood flow is reduced have been described as “holes”, “dents”, or “dings” on such SPECT scans.

In Kim’s case, this reduced blood flow was explained as “low activity” of the brain. Her doctor suggested the frontal lobes of her brain were not working as they should be, due to chronic stress.

But there is no scientific evidence to link these changes in blood flow to stress or functional outcomes. In fact, there is no single technique with scientific support to link changes in brain function to symptoms or outcomes for an individual.

These scans aren’t cheap

Doctors have several concerns about people without symptoms seeking SPECT as a diagnostic tool. First, people are injected with radioactive materials without a defined clinical reason.

Patients may also undergo treatment or be recommended to take particular supplements based on a diagnosis from SPECT that is scientifically unfounded.

And as SPECT scans are not recognised as a medical requirement, patients pay upwards of US$3,000 for a SPECT scan, with dietary supplements costing extra.

Do I need a scan like this?

While imaging tools such as SPECT and MRI may be genuinely used to diagnose many conditions, there is no medical need for healthy people to have them.

Such scans for healthy people are often described as “opportunistic”, with a double meaning: they may possibly find something in a person with no symptoms, but at several thousand dollars a scan, they take advantage of people’s health anxieties and can lead to unnecessary use of the healthcare system.

It can be tempting to follow in the footsteps of the stars and look for diagnoses via popularised and widely advertised scans. But it’s important to remember that the best medical care is based on solid scientific evidence, provided by experts who use best-practice tools based on decades of research.

The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at The Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science, and Research Fellow at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University in Australia

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 14th, 2025

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FASD

Google warns staff with US visas against international travel due to embassy delays: report

Reuters Published December 20, 2025 

Alphabet’s Google has advised some employees on US visas to avoid international travel due to delays at embassies, Business Insider reported on Friday, citing an internal email.

The email, sent by the company’s outside counsel BAL Immigration Law on Thursday, warned staff who need a visa stamp to re-enter the United States not to leave the country because visa processing times have lengthened, the report said.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Some US embassies and consulates face visa appointment delays of up to 12 months, the memo said, warning that international travel will “risk an extended stay outside the US”, according to the report.

The administration of US President Donald Trump this month announced increased vetting of applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, including screening social media accounts.

The H-1B visa programme, widely used by the US technology sector to hire skilled workers from India and China, has been under the spotlight after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee for new applications this year.

In September, Google’s parent company Alphabet had strongly advised its employees to avoid international travel and urged H-1B visa holders to remain in the US, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Employee conduct

This approach is best illustrated in cases of employees prone to absenteeism, a leading source of misconduct the world over. 

Parvez Rahim 

Published December 20, 2025 

DAWN

The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan University Hospital.

THE Industrial and Commercial Emp­loyment (Standing Orders) Ordinance, 1968, is the most critical and frequently referred to labour enactment in Pakistan. It contains provisions relating to the classification of workmen, mandatory issuing of appointment letters, payment of profit bonus, retrenchment, termination of employment and a standing order relating to punishments.

Standing Order (SO) 15, relating to punishments, is one of the most used provisions of labour laws, which classifies the offences committed by employees into two categories. The first is in the case of an employee guilty of offences that aren’t serious — the employee is liable to be fined a nominal amount. The other is in the case of an employee guilty of an act of commission or omission, which has serious implications for the organisation — that employee is liable to be dismissed from service.

There is a comprehensive list of ‘misconducts’ in the SO, for which an employee may either be (i) fined; or (ii) his increment or promotion withheld for up to one year; or (iii) relegated to a lower post; or (iv) dismissed from service.

The key misconducts include “willful insubordination or disobedience to any lawful and reasonable order of a superior; theft, fraud, or dishonesty in connection with the employer’s business or property; willful damage to or loss of employer’s goods or property; habitual absence without leave or absence without leave for more than 10 days; riotous or disorderly behaviour during working hours or any act subversive of discipline; and habitual negligence and neglect of work.”

Employers must adopt a reformative approach.

Where possible the employers should focus on the rehabilitation of offenders to reintegrate them as responsible employees. This reformative approach emphasises changing an individual’s behaviour by addressing the root causes of their disruptive activity through counselling, psychological treatment and the introduction of incentives. It contrasts with retribution and deterrence.

This approach is best illustrated in cases of employees prone to absenteeism, a leading source of misconduct the world over. Excessive absenteeism is rampant in in both the private and public sectors. The most common reason given is sickness. Illness can be feigned and neither the company doctor or some other medic can be sure whether the absence is related to sickness.

Absenteeism leads to escalation in the cost of running a business. There are hidden costs such as overtime to cover for sick employees, temporary help to replace absentees, supervisory time spent to find a person to cover, and lowered productivity on the part of those who have to work harder for someone who is chronically absent. As people do get sick, it is unrealistic to set a goal of zero absenteeism. The right objective is to have programmes that penalise those who abuse their sick leave privilege. It is also desirable to reward employees who have good attendance records.

Generally, employers have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud and dishonesty by employees. While there is nothing wrong in having such a policy, one must know the reasons behind such actions. Employees commit fraud due to pressure, opportunity and the belief that their behaviour is justified even if not appropriate. They are often driven by personal financial issues, a sense of being undervalued, and weak internal controls. Other contributory factors include addiction, a belief that they deserve more compensation, and sometimes an inability to distinguish between right and wrong actions.

Actions subversive of discipline by employees are also common. These stem from organisatio­nal shortcomings, psychological factors and personal issues. They invol­­ve lack of clarity, fairness and support at the workplace rather than malicious intent. Poor management, such as autocratic attitudes, favouritism, or a manager’s own failure to follow rules, can damage morale and encourage insubordination.

Employees indulge in disorderly behaviour due to feelings of unfairness, lack of support and poor management practices. This misconduct is frequently a symptom of deeper workplace issues. Managers often complain that a certain employee is consistently underperforming and recommend strict action. Unless precise allegations of habitual negligence against the employee are proved in an internal inquiry, action on the basis of vague statements by the supervisor will backfire.

Interestingly, cases of misconduct are far higher among men than women working in a similar capacity.

While one is not advising employers to refrain from taking action against employees guilty of serious misconduct, they should tighten financial controls and train managers in how to supervise employees with fairness. Companies managed professionally hardly encounter any cases of indiscipline.

The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan University Hospital.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2025

Dead inside

America’s glamour cannot mask the violence that goes on.

Rafia Zakaria 

Published December 20, 2025  

DAWN

EVEN as the US teeters on the world stage, with economic woes and the gap between the rich and poor expanding, you wouldn’t know it if you landed in an American city. The cars are still shiny and new. The restaurants are still full of people laughing, eating, and spending on a single meal what could support an entire family in South Asia for perhaps months. New York City is decked up for Christmas, with gorgeous decorations adorning its streets. A peek into the homes of the wealthy reveals scenes of celebration. The world may be burning but the wealthy and powerful remain untouched by misery.

Such is the mask that America wears. Over the last week, however, it slipped a little as some events showed that even the world’s wealthiest are not immune to tragedy and that beneath the brightest exteriors lie the darkest truths. The first scene unfolded in Los Angeles. The setting was a Christmas party, a glitzy affair hosted by the former late night TV show host Conan O’Brien. It was the sort of thing that one sees in American movies and indeed many who make American movies were in attendance. Champagne and great food flowed in luscious quantities.

It was here that an illustrious Hollywood family was seen having a very public altercation. The director-actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were there. Reiner directed movies including When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride. It was during the time he was making When Harry Met Sally that he met the woman who would become his wife — he changed the ending of the movie for her. He wanted it to have a happy ending so that he would have one too.

Michele and Rob were both at the party as was their son Nick Reiner. According to reports, the son got into a loud argument with his parents at the party. It is unclear what the argument was about, but the couple left after the clash. Everyone knows what happened next. The couple were found stabbed to death hours later. In the days that have followed it has become known that Nick Reiner had struggled with drugs and substance abuse for years. He has been arrested.

On the other side of the country, another nightmare was unfolding at Brown University. Early December is the time for exams at US universities and students were all cramming. In the engineering building, a study session was being held in one of the classrooms. It was full of students. At around 4pm, a gunman burst into the classroom and opened fire. According to police, he shot about 40 rounds. When he was done, two were dead and nine injured. The gunmen himself was able to get away (he was found dead some days later, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound). Students at the university were in lockdown for hours; those in the building hid in closets and hallways and bathrooms because they did not know if the shooter would be bursting into their rooms next. They had to stay that way until the police came and led them to a safe place. One of the students killed was from Azerbaijan — no doubt living out his dream of attending one of the top institutions in the world.


America’s glamour cannot mask the violence that goes on.

Not far from Brown University, another murder took place, a couple of days after the shooting. The victim was an MIT professor — a brilliant scientist from Portugal. Police are now linking the suspect in the Brown University tragedy with the murder of the professor.

Tragedies and crimes occur everywhere in the world, and it is true that America is a big country. But who was killed, how easily they were killed, and the she­­er rapacious sc­­ale of violence cannot be masked even by all the po­­wer, wealth and glamour covering it up. The people who died over the weekend were all brilliant and talented and yet could not count on the state to give them a safe existence. The inner wreck of family structures, the completely unchecked proliferation of weapons, and more than anything else, the easy tendency of individuals to turn to violence has become a cancer that is eating America from the inside.

Two of the four people that died were immigrants — one a student at Brown University and the other the MIT professor. The US is making a big show of being done and dusted with immigration and immigrants. Immigrants too should seriously look at other places where they can flourish and actually live a safe and peaceful life. This macabre America, replete with gun violence, where everyone, from a wealthy film director to an outstanding student to a science genius, can be killed in so short a period of time is not the place for a better future.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2025


Rafia Zakaria is an attorney and human rights activist. She is a columnist for DAWN Pakistan and a regular contributor for Al Jazeera America, Dissent, Guernica and many other publications.

She is the author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Beacon Press 2015). She tweets @rafiazakaria

PAKISTAN

Building research capacity

Faisal Bari 

Published December 19, 2025

DAWN
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

LITERATURE on teacher impact shows that good teaching provides a significant delta on student learning, compared to average or poor teaching. Simply put, teachers matter and good teaching is important for ensuring better learning outcomes.

However, recruiting, motivating, and keeping good teachers gainfully and efficiently employed is not easy. In Pakistan, a couple of decades back, teacher recruitment was seen as having too much discretion with not enough reliance on rules. Allegations of corruption and nepotism in teacher recruitment were common. Many of these charges were based on facts. Two decades ago, reforms were introduced to move to more rules-based (merit-based) recruitment. This has definitely reduced the allegations, and litigation on recruitment issues has also decreased. But has it improved teacher and/or teaching quality? Has it improved student learning? And what unintended consequences has it led to? These are important follow-ups for completing the loop for feedback and continuous improvement. ‘Merit’-based recruitment might reduce corruption, but does it allow us to differentiate between good and bad teachers? If not, the reform might be of limited value.

Many places worldwide have significant requirements for specific courses, diplomas and even degrees before a person can become a teacher. When we moved towards merit-based recruitment, provincial governments removed the requirements for education degrees before joining as a teacher. This has increased the pool of candidates for teaching (a physics graduate can come into teaching directly) but many of these applicants did not choose to be teachers and have no understanding of what teaching is: you can be good at physics but teach it badly. How has this impacted learning outcomes?

Some jurisdictions even have teacher licensing. Teacher licensing has often been talked about in Pakistan but it was only recently that Sindh introduced it. But will licensing improve teaching and learning? We have 1.5 million or so teachers in Pakistan and still suffer a shortage. Will licensing help? Is it only for government schools or also private schools? Will teachers be required to have licences in low-fee private schools, where sometimes they teach Matriculation- or Intermediate-level students? Who will pay for the cost?


Recruiting, motivating, and keeping good teachers efficiently employed is not easy.

Once a teacher has been recruited, is she a teacher forever? Does she need any education, training or upgradation? Is there a role for continuous professional development and how is it to be structured? Punjab has some 450,000 teachers. How do you design effective professional development systems for such large numbers? Do we design devolved systems or centralised ones? How do we ensure quality and some level of uniformity across the system? We have had continuing professional development systems in place, but the general feeling is that they don’t seem to work and haven’t had the intended impact and definitely not the one needed.

Once deployed, how do we keep teachers motivated to teach effectively for the entire length of their careers — 30-35 years? What are effective career paths for teachers? If a teacher is a good Grade 1 teacher today, how do we ensure that she will be a good, motivated and effective Grade 1 teacher in 10, 20 or 30 years from now? What should happen to her financial returns and other ‘incentives’ so that she is able to have a rewarding career in Grade 1?

We do not have research on most of these important questions. Which means we do not have effective feedback loops on policies. Policies keep coming and getting implemented. But what consequences do they have? How can we improve if we don’t have effective feedback loops that research consequences and impact?


What is heartening is that there is an increasing realisation — in government and academia and among development partners and research institutions — of the need to have these feedback loops and to do relevant policy research on important questions. Most education departments already have specific implementation and planning units to structure some of this work. Development partners have historically funded and encouraged some research, but this has recently become more structured and is being given due importance. Academic research output has also been steadily increasing in education in Pakistan.

The most recent and current impetus has come from a very innovative research support programme funded by FCDO and called the Data and Research in Education-Research Consortium. DARE-RC has funded some 35 studies in the education sector, five to six of them on teacher issues. These studies are in collaboration with education departments. The programme is of medium term (it just closed the fourth round of call for proposals).

The results of the studies will allow us to bring out relevant issues more clearly, and some of them will start answering some of the questions raised above. By focusing on local researchers, the programme is also developing the capacity for research in education in Pakistan and a community of practice in the area. The hope is that other programmes, following this one and funded by government and partners, will continue to build on this approach, so that we not only have answers to the questions but also the local capacity to do such work. We will always have more questions and we need communities and people who are able to answer them so that we can keep improving outcomes in education.


Pakistan must have around 1.5-2m teachers today. With millions of children still out of school, and with most in-school children getting a poor quality of education across the country, we need more teachers — more motivated and committed teachers — and a lot more teacher training to ensure better content knowledge as well as a sound understanding of optimal pedagogical strategies. We also need much better policies for management and regulation of teaching, and effective feedback loops to ensure things keep improving. In this context, DARE-RC offers an interesting model for developing the capacity needed for such work. I hope education departments will not only look at the outcomes of the research studies being done under DARE-RC, but also at how the research capacity being built can be strengthened and deepened beyond the programme. This is important if we are to ensure our policies improve over time.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025

FEMICIDE

PAKISTAN

Judicial injustice

Rida Hosain 

Published December 17, 2025

DAWN

IN his additional note in Noor Mukadam’s case, Justice Ali Baqar Najafi wrote that the case is “a direct result of a vice spreading in the upper society which we know as living [sic] relationship … The young generation must note its horrible consequences such as in the present case which is also a topic for the social reformist, to discuss in their circles”. The order implies that if a victim conformed to a certain moral or societal expectation, the crime could have been avoided. The reasoning shifts the focus away from the perpetrator’s culpability and onto the victim’s character and choices. It perpetuates a culture in which women are held responsible for the violence inflicted upon them. Victims are expected to predict, prevent, and bear responsibility for the violence committed against them.

According to a report by the Sustainable Social Development Organisation, 32,617 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) were reported in 2024 including 2,238 incidents of domestic violence and 547 cases of ‘honour’ killings. Women are subjected to violence not because they deviate from ‘norms’, but often precisely within those conventional and domestic spaces — inside their homes and at the hands of family members. To claim that the crime is the result of ‘live-in’ or a specific kind of a relationship demonstrates ignorance and dangerously reinforces victim-blaming. Cases of GBV must not be converted into a moral discussion. Nor should a victim’s life be reduced to a cautionary tale for society. The presence of such a Supreme Court order signals to the entire judicial hierarchy that moral commentary in cases of GBV is acceptable when it should have no place in our legal system. Rather than rejecting narratives that justify violence, the same harmful logic is being embedded in an order.

In contrast, in 2021, in ‘Atif Zareef vs the State’, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah held: “A woman, whatever her sexual character or reputation may be, is entitled to equal protection of law. No one has the licence to invade her person … it is the accused who is on trial and not the victim.” Placed side by side, the difference in the two judgements is stark. One judgement uses a judicial order to blame a victim, the other dismantles those very prejudices. One judgement shifts respon-

sibility away from the perpetrator, the other makes it unmistakably clear that the victim is not on trial. One judgement reduces the victim to a moral lesson, the other reaffirms her right to dignity.

During the hearings of the case, similar remarks were reported in the press. However, the ‘remarks’ now form part of a judicial order. The order creates a hierarchy of victims; those deemed ‘deserving’ of sympathy and those who are deemed to have ‘brought it upon themselves’. In a country where there is already severe underreporting, the order may further lead to victims choosing silence over the risk of being blamed for the violence against them.


GBV cases mustn’t be converted into moral debates.

Justice Najafi is one of seven judges that has been appointed to the Federal Constitutional Court. In the post-27th Amendment constitutional order, the FCC has the final say on constitutional interpretation. The FCC can, through the stroke of a pen, undo well-settled jurisprudence. The 27th Amendment does not specify criteria for appointment of judges to the FCC. The first batch of judges essentially hold their position by virtue of the executive selecting them.

Prior to the destructive 26th and 27th amendments, Pakistan was to have its first female chief justice in 2030. Previously, on the basis of seniority, the most senior judge of the court would have taken oath as chief justice and the executive had no say in the process. Under the bizarre new system, there are two chief justices: a chief justice of the FCC and a chief justice of the Supreme Court. Per the amendments, the FCC and SC chief justices are to be chosen by a parliamentary committee which shall have proportional representation based on the strength in parliament, and will select the chief justices from the three senior-most judges. Without government support in the committee, an eligible judge will not succeed in becoming chief justice of either court. Government approval has become a decisive factor in determining which judge becomes chief justice.

And with that, the once-certain prospect that Pakistan was on track to have its first female chief justice is no longer there. A previously guaranteed milestone has been made subject to the whims of political power. While representation alone cannot transform an institution, it remains an important advancement for women in the judiciary. Meaningful change requires strengthening institutions, not tearing them down. For far too long, unconscious bias against women has plagued our judicial system; the amendments entrench further injustice.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2025

The writer is a barrister. She tweets @RidaHosain

AFGHANISTAN

A clear indictment

Editorial 

Published December 19, 2025 

DAWN

YET again, the UN Security Council’s monitoring report on Afghanistan has painted a grim picture of the presence of transnational terrorist groups on Afghan territory. The report, a regular feature, reiterates that Afghanistan remains a staging ground for some of the most lethal terrorist outfits in the world. Pakistan, which has been a victim of the TTP, based in Afghanistan, has known this painful reality for years.

The report notes that over 20 international and regional terrorist organisations currently call Afghanistan home. These include IS-K, Al Qaeda, the TTP and ETIM, among others.

With the exception of IS-K, these groups have good relations with the Afghan Taliban. Importantly, the report says that the Taliban’s claims that no militant groups are based on their soil are “not credible”.


For Pakistan, the TTP — largely due to the permissive environment it enjoys under Afghan Taliban rule — poses a major security challenge. The UN document says that the terrorist group has conducted over 600 attacks against this country in the current year.

Moreover, TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud is believed to spend time in Kabul, while other anti-Pakistan terrorists, such as Gul Bahadur, are also based in Afghanistan.

The report highlights links between the TTP and Al Qaeda, as well as ETIM. Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, said to be a front for TTP and Al Qaeda fighters, is amongst the other terrorist groups active next door. Meanwhile, another matter of grave concern is the presence of madressahs run by IS-K near the Pakistani border.

The details mentioned in the UN report shatter any illusion that Taliban-run Afghanistan poses no threat to its neighbours. On the contrary, just as it used to be before the US-led invasion, Afghanistan has become a safe haven for extremely dangerous and violent militant outfits that threaten the region and the world.

And while the report says that there are differences within the upper echelons of the Taliban leadership on how to deal with the TTP, Kabul’s rulers are unlikely to take action against the group, as the regime may actually “lack the ability to do so”.

This should be a matter of great concern for the international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbours. Nearly all states bordering Afghanistan have experienced terrorist attacks carried out by groups based on Afghan soil, with Pakistan the hardest hit.

The way forward does not seem to be clear-cut. More conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan will not solve the problem in the long run. Talks with the Kabul regime have also failed to provide meaningful outcomes.

In such a situation, perhaps the least bad option is to reach out to the relatively ‘moderate’ elements within the Taliban set-up, and press upon them the need to stop terrorists from threatening Afghanistan’s neighbours.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025

CLIMATE CRISIS

PAKISTAN

Authoritative advisory opinion

Ali Tauqeer Sheikh

Published December 18, 2025  

DAWN

The writer is a climate change and sustainable development expert.

ALTHOUGH the International Court of Justice’s July 2025 advisory opinion on climate change was a watershed moment in climate action, it received limited attention from Pakistan’s legal and climate communities. This landmark decision by the ICJ’s 15 judges authoritatively clarifies states’ legal responsibilities, establishing the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature threshold as the binding global benchmark. COP30 in Belém has since acknowledged growing risks of overshoot.

The court’s opinion imposes on every state a binding obligation to demonstrate its “highest possible ambition” in climate action. This requires aligning Nationally Determined Contributions and regulatory frameworks with the scientifically determined target. Significantly, the court’s analysis extends state responsibility to the full lifecycle of fossil fuels: production, licensing, subsidies, and downstream indirect emissions across the value chain. The opinion confirms that IPCC assessments constitute “the best available science”, rendering fossil fuel subsidies potentially wrongful when foreseeably incompatible with temperature limits.

The ICJ’s reasoning unfolds through five foundational principles:

Precautionary approach: Scientific uncertainty cannot justify inaction. The court emphasises that IPCC warnings mandate immediate protective steps, even as 1.5°C proves unsafe for vulnerable populations of countries like Pakistan at current 1.2°C warming.


Duty to prevent significant harm: Under customary international law, states must exercise due diligence to prevent transboundary environmental damage, extending to all anthropogenic GHG contributions from production through consumption.


Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC): Burdens must align with historical emissions, current capacities, and evolving circumstances. The Paris Agreement’s “different national circumstances” formulation upholds, rather than weakens this core principle.


Intergenerational equity: Present generations hold climate stability in trust for future ones. The court rejects infrastructure decisions creating emissions lock-in that imperil subsequent generations’ rights to dignified living conditions.


Duty to cooperate: A legally binding obligation requires states to collaborate on mitigation, adaptation, finance, and technology transfer, with higher-capacity states bearing primary responsibility towards vulnerable ones.

The court rejected arguments by developed countries that specialised climate treaties supersede other international obligations, confirming these principles integrate across UN Charter obligations, human rights law, and environmental treaties. This means the developed countries cannot use the Paris Agreement’s ambiguous language to shield themselves from broader legal accountability.


Pakistan’s superior judiciary operationalised ICJ’s recent climate principles much earlier.

While unanimous on core 1.5°C obligations as a state responsibility, individual judges articulated nuanced approaches. Judge Nolte advocated cautious interpretation, prioritising close adherence to treaty texts. Judge Xue highlighted challenges in linking past emissions to present harms, calling for steady progress through careful monitoring while treating 1.5°C as a practical guide. Judge Yusuf stressed that new fossil fuel projects constitute risks under due diligence standards, demanding clear national plans over procedural delays.


Judges Aurescu, Bhandari, and Tladi linked human rights and harm prevention to accelerated emissions cuts by major emitters, grounding these in equity principles and compensation duties. In their statement, Judges Bhandari and Cleveland required accounting for full emissions chains from production to use, calling new fossil fuel exploration incompatible with 1.5°C limits.

Pakistan’s superior judiciary operationalised these ICJ principles years earlier. In ‘Shehla Zia vs Wapda’ (1994), the Supreme Court established that scientific uncertainty mandated precautionary protection. ‘D.G. Khan Cement vs Government of Punjab’ (2021) prohibited industrial expansion in ecologically fragile zones, embodying ‘duty to prevent significant harm’ while recognising intergenerational justice and environmental personhood.

Most significantly, ‘Asghar Leghari vs Federation of Pakistan’ (2015) saw Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah recognise Pakistan’s limited historical emissions while mandating action commensurate with national capacity, explicitly invoking CBDR-RC. Justice Shah affirmed future generations’ constitutional rights to climate stability. The Climate Change Commission, where I served under Dr Parvez Hassan, operationalised the ‘duty to cooperate’ through multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Justice Athar Minallah’s Islamabad Zoo case reinforced that governmental neglect causing environmental degradation violates fundamental duties. These precedents position Pakistan’s judiciary among global leaders in climate jurisprudence, presenting a compelling case for Pakistan to recognise its recently ‘retired’ judges by nominating them for ICJ positions in 2027, when a third of the court’s members retire.

The diverse judicial perspectives in the ICJ offer Pakistan multiple pathways rather than binary choices. Pakistan can pursue enhanced environmental standards and climate risk assessments that satisfy core obligations, while evidence-based sectoral transitions can target RE expansion and incremental scaling. Controlled fossil fuel reductions synchronised with global roadmaps can balance climate ambition with economic stability.

Pakistan faces significant implementation challenges. Its political economy, fiscal constraints, institutional capacity gaps, and reliance on fossil fuel projects create tensions with climate commitments. The advisory opinion’s non-binding nature means enforcement depends on political will and diplomatic pressure. However, our unique position as both climate-vulnerable and jurisprudentially advanced creates an opportunity where Pakistan can leverage its superior court precedents to demonstrate that 1.5°C-aligned governance is legally feasible and constitutionally mandated. By formally recognising the judiciary’s pre-emptive alignment with ICJ principles, Pakistan positions its jurisprudence as a global contribution worthy of replication.

Coordinated action is needed across multiple fronts. Pakistan must deliver climate justice to its people by grounding its position in pioneering judicial precedents alongside the ICJ opinion, establishing that developed countries’ obligations to provide financial and technological help stem from binding legal principles, not voluntary solidarity.

By honouring their judiciary’s legacy while embracing the ICJ’s guidance, Pakistani negotiators can champion the 1.5°C imperative as a moral necessity and legal obligation. The deeper challenge ahead, however, is delivering justice to front-line communities while advancing climate accountability.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2025

Reading nature

Amin Valliani 

Published December 19, 2025 

DAWN

A FAMILY lost its buffalo during the floods earlier this year when the major rivers were overflowing. The buffalo was the family’s sole economic asset. At this moment of sadness, someone came to sympathise with the family, but the head of the household said it would have been better had he died instead, as then the family would mourn for a few days but life would then go on. However, the loss of the buffalo, he said, made his family not only mourn but also starve.

There are thousands of such stories, de­­scribing the plight of affected people who have been left penniless due to the disaster. Many families, already living hand-to-mouth, are now destitute and traumatised.

Pakistan is a resource-rich country, but around 40 per cent of its population lives below the poverty line. Every year we experience floods, storms, droughts, earthquakes and other calamities which increase poverty levels. The government is unable to control these calamities and cannot deal with their aftermath. Natural calamities occur due to inherent natural processes and forces.

External factors, such as climate change, intensify these events. While the underlying forces are natural, human activities can influence the frequency and severity of these occurrences, blurring the lines between natural hazards and human-induced disasters.


Solutions are needed on a self-help basis.

We must remember that Islam is the religion of ‘nature’, it emphasises understanding nature. The Holy Quran also says that “Allah burdens not a person beyond his scope …” (2:286). Such types of catastrophes remind us of Islam’s teaching that Allah tests His creation to make them resilient and create fortitude in their hearts and minds. Our life is made up of problems, they occur every day and it is nature’s way of testing and imparting lessons to human beings till one learns the meaning, and discovers the purpose, of life.

Normally, we receive advance signals and warnings, informing the community of impending disaster. It is necessary that advance preparations are made to deal with such situations. The challenge before Pakistan is not only to respond to disasters after they occur, but more importantly, to strengthen preparedness and resilience before they strike.

It is said that Pakistan’s contribution to climate change is negligible, but it is included in the list of the most affected countries of the world. Some circles have urged the government to make a global appeal for aid, but normally, the international community offers only sympathy on such occasions. For example, we have seen that in January 2023, Pakistan organised a conference in Geneva with the UN’s help, aimed at securing international support for its post-flood recovery and financial commitments for climate resilience after the devastating 2022 floods. Different states and institutions made commitments, but the majority of the pledges failed to materialise.

Pakistan needs to rely on no one, and seek solutions on a self-help basis without recourse to others. The finance minister also declared that Pakistan would not seek international aid after the 2025 floods. This is a good decision which enhances the nation’s self-respect.

Moreover, Pakistan needs to benefit from the experiences of those who have created the capability for climate resilience. There are countries which have solved the problems posed by natural calamities by developing solutions of their own, such as rain-harvesting systems, collecting rainwater during rainy days and subsequently using it in months of water scarcity.

Here the example of Singapore would be helpful. Singapore has largely solved its problem of wa­­ter scarcity. It currently imports wa­­t­er from neigh­bou-

ring Malaysia but has also adopted the Four National Taps Strategy and has planned to become fully self-sufficient by 2061 when its agreement with Malaysia ends.

It has developed a comprehensive network of drains, canals, and rivers, collects rainwater and channels it into 17 reservoirs across the country. This system also manages storm water to prevent flooding. Singapore collects and treats its used water to a high standard, producing safe and high-quality reclaimed water known as ‘NEWater’.

Singapore also removes salt from seawater through advanced desalination plants to produce fresh water. This technology has seen significant advancements and contributes a substantial portion of the country’s water supply. Singapore has heavily invest­­ed in developing and advancing water technologies, particularly in desalination and water reclamation.

This diversified and technological approach has made Singapore a global leader in water management and a model for other nations facing water scarcity challenges. It could help to learn from such examples.

The writer is an educationist with an interest in religion.
valianiamin@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025

Watering hope and hype

Khurram Husain 

Published December 18, 2025

DAWN

A BRIEF but telling moment passed quickly without comment in the press conference by the DG ISPR on Dec 5. It came in response to a question in which he was asked a vague and rambling question about how the “national media” amplifies the remarks and narratives that the DG had spent the entire press conference denouncing as fake and against the interests of Pakistan.

The DG started off by saying that the big problem with the “national media” is that they want to discuss nothing but “politics and rhetoric”. He exhorted them to talk about “actual issues” inst­e­­ad and went on to furnish a few examples. He said the country’s population is 250 million, and it’s growing by 4m every year, saying that we’re adding a small country’s worth of population every year.

“That requires a lot of resources,” he said, referring to the mouths that need feeding. He pointed to the recent rains and ensuing floods, pointed out the huge losses they caused, then added that, according to one estimate, 25 to 30 million acre feet of water was drained into the sea within three months. “One MAF is equal to $1 billion of agriculture product,” he carried on. “So you poured 25 to 30 billion dollars’ worth of water” into the sea.

Then he mentioned the water storage capacity of the country, at 13 to 14 MAF, and underlined that next year there will be even more rains, then let the thought trail off by saying the media should be talking about “storage and its canals”.


Rarely, if ever, does one see an actual substantive issue being given actual substantive treatment on prime time television.

“Our population is increasing, we need food security for them, we need to increase cultivable land, we need to, for the sake of the economy, properly exploit our mineral resources,” he said, as he urged the media to talk about these (and other) things, “and tell us this is the proper way to do it”. He concluded by telling the questioner that there are not “dozens, but hundreds of issues” to talk about, but the media seems to have made up its mind to keep its focus on “he says, she says” and what people are saying to each other rather than concentrating on the actual problems plaguing the country.


So let’s start by acknowledging that the DG is absolutely correct in pointing out that Pakistan’s public conversation is heavily saturated with the “he says, she says” of politics. Rarely, if ever, does one see an actual substantive issue being given actual substantive treatment on prime time television or any actual investigative work in print publications. Journalists rarely make the effort to ask whether a claim that is being made is true or not. They simply report what somebody said and leave it at that.

One result is that inaccurate claims gain widespread circulation and journalists, of all people, don’t ask simple questions, like ‘is this true?’ More than anything else, it is the economy that suffers because wild claims presenting quick fixes, or elaborate cons disguised as ‘innovation’ enter the policy conversation, are backed by dodgy numbers and data, get reported in the media as if they were factual, and perceptions grow around them that somehow a magical fix of all our economic problems can be had if only we can do this one thing, whatever it may be.

Take the example cited by the DG himself, the claim that 1 MAF of water equals $1bn of agriculture output, which he apparently supposes to mean that $25 to $30bn worth of water is being drained into the sea every year. On this supposition he builds the understanding that if we could only harness this water, using dams and canals, we could recover all this value and ensure our food security, and presumably also shore up our external account weakness, since he gives the value of the water in dollars.


But does 1 MAF of water really equal $1bn of output? The last mention this claim finds is when the Punjab member of the Indus River System Authority — Rao Irshad Ali Khan — told a Senate committee that “we and our coming generations would die of hunger if we do not build dams” and used this figure to buttress his case back in 2020. But if you look carefully, you will notice something.

It seems a crude calculation was performed to derive this figure. They seem to have taken the GDP contribution of agriculture, forestry and fisheries for FY2019, as reported by the State Bank, converted that amount to dollars at average exchange rate for that fiscal year, then divided that figure with the total availability of surface water in FY2019. If you do this, you get a figure close to $1bn per MAF.

But there are problems here. The first and biggest problem is an underlying assumption that is faulty. If it takes roughly 1 MAF of water to produce $1bn worth of agriculture output today, does that mean we can secure another $1bn worth of agriculture output with every incremental 1 MAF of water? The answer is no, it doesn’t work like that. The costs of building all the infrastructure required to arrange that incremental 1 MAF of water will have to be deducted from the present value of the anticipated future cash flows of any agricultural output that will result from the storage. Once you do this, you will notice that any increase in cultivable land brought about by building more water storage capacity does not break even for at least a decade if not longer.

Space prevents a more detailed examination and rebuttal of the Punjab member’s claims. But suffice it to say that it is a defective idea to build a vision for national renewal out of assumptions built on the claim that 1 MAF of water can add $1bn to our economic output. The lack of focus on substantive issues in our national conversation is what gives currency to such dubious numbers. It is a good idea to take them with a heavy dose of scepticism.

The writer is a business and economy journalist.
khurram.husain@gmail.com
X: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2025

Islamabad the ugly

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar 

Published December 19, 2025

DAWN

IT is a truism that Pakistan is an extremely class-divided society. From the proverbial village to the metropolitan city, the brutal reality of an anti-poor system stares us in the face, assuming we choose to open our eyes and look.

In late November, the Capital Develop­ment Authority (CDA) initiated a mass eviction in a sprawling katchi abadi sandwiched between the Bari Imam shrine and the President’s House. The abadi, known as Muslim Colony, has existed for at least five decades, and by conservative estimates was home to 20,000 working people, making it arguably the largest informal settlement in Islamabad.

Muslim Colony’s first-generation residents literally built Islamabad with their own hands, including the grand buildings on Constitution Avenue that overlooked their shanties. Over the years, a significant number of Muslim Colony residents became the drivers, gardeners, cooks and cleaners that sustain the ruling classes’ offices and homes.

As construction workers and service providers, katchi abadi dwellers are never ‘security risks’ — in fact it is their labour which explains the palatial lifestyles of Islamabad and Rawalpindi elites. But when push came to shove, the CDA and what seemed like most of Islamabad’s police force forcibly dispossessed Muslim Colony residents of their homes. Anyone who dared peacefully resist faced violent arrest and harassment.

And the courts? The evictees were principally protected by at least two stay orders, one issued by the Supreme Court in 2015 after another mass eviction of a katchi abadi in sector I-11 of the capital, and another more recent one issued by the Islamabad High Court after Muslim Colony residents approached it.

The eviction crews, led by highly educated CDA officers, treated the court orders as mere pieces of paper worth less than the cost of their printing. Perhaps we should not be surprised at the contempt of the bureaucratic apparatuses of the state for even the little relief provided by the superior courts to the working poor in this country — after all, ex-military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf once boasted that the Constitution is merely a piece of paper that can be ripped up and tossed into the proverbial dustbin.


Katchi abadi dwellers are never ‘security risks’.

Katchi abadis and their violent dispossession expose one of the most long-standing myths in Pakistan. They say ‘Islamabad the beautiful’ is the most liveable city in Pakistan, a planned metropolis of world-class standard. To begin with, the CDA and successive militarised hybrid regimes that back it have turned Islamabad into a concrete jungle, allowing all sorts of commercial activities in the Margalla hills while fronting relentless construction of big thoroughfares and plazas to serve the suburban rich. All this has made the city even less liveable for the mass of its working people alongside students who in-migrate to acquire an education.

Renting a home, let alone buying one, is virtually impossible for a working-class household in Islamabad. The city’s real estate was already more expensive than Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar or Quetta even before post-2000 heralded a great new land grab by property speculators and real estate developers. Apparently, all of this was and continues to be facilitated by the CDA, which has wilfully made a mockery of the 1960 Master Plan, occasionally making changes in zoning by-laws to provide post-facto cover to all sorts of profit-making abominations.

Meanwhile, katchi abadis have continued to proliferate because the working masses do, after all, need shelter. There are now approximately 50 settlements in Islamabad with a total population of more than 500,000. Another one of the my­­ths that has been peddled by the CDA and others of its ilk — who want the labour of working people but refuse to acknowledge their basic needs — is that katchi abadi dwellers are free riders and land grabbers who are essentially har­ming the public good. This, quite simply, is a lie.

Katchi abadis come into being through fully-functioning informal housing markets in which cash exchanges hands between the users of land (katchi abadi residents), the administrators of land (government functionaries) and informal middlemen. The government functionaries are at the apex of this arrangement because they pocket a ‘monthly rent’ while always retaining the power to arbitrarily pull the plug and bulldoze the settlement.

This is what happened in Muslim Colony as it has happened in many other katchi abadis. And given the complete impunity of those who perpetrate so-called ‘anti-encroachment operations’, they will not stop. But working people will not be swallowed up by the ground either. It is they who make Islamabad what it is. Without them, it is but an ugly reflection of the larger class war waged by this country’s rapacious and shameless elite.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.