Monthly Archives: August 2018

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Reputational Risk Under MNCs Environmental Violations

by Sumiah Bagazi

 

Multinational Companies (MNCs) have negative impacts on human rights, especially the right to a clean environment. MNCs have caused deterioration of the environment and wide range of human rights violations, such as displacement; and threats to life, expression, health, and property rights protected by the human rights declaration. A Host state constitution, law, and international commitments govern the MNCs operations, including human rights.

The responsibility to respect environmental standards is spread among all stakeholders. Host states, home states, and MNCs could be reluctant to implementing human rights. Nonetheless, not only should host and home states enforce human rights on MNCs because of their human rights ratification but also prevent reputational risks. States’ active or passive participation in environmental degradation raises reputational risks that eventually causes financial loses to all parties, host state, home state, and the MNCs itself. This blog will examine reputational risks to MNCs, host state, and home state as a result of MNCs’ environmental and human rights abuses.

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“Climate Refugee”: Misnomer or Opportunity?

by Leeja Miller

 

The term “climate refugee” has been used frequently in the media and elsewhere to refer to the growing number of people being displaced by rising sea levels, land degradation, and large-scale natural disasters due to climate change.[1] The legal protections afforded to these displaced people are murky, however, and international legal definitions of who is considered a “refugee” leave those displaced by the effects of climate change largely without remedy. Developments in national and international jurisprudence and adaptive interpretations of international treaties may, however, mark the beginning stages of an international movement towards recognizing and granting legal protections to climate refugees.

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temporary protected status trump administration

The Right to the Environment of El Salvadoran Recipients of TPS

by Jessica Johnson

 

The Right to the Environment of El Salvadoran Recipients of TPS

In January and February 2001, two massive earthquakes decimated the country of El Salvador, causing the devastation of land and homes as well as economic strife. After the disaster, the United States granted El Salvadoran nationals Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”), a status designated to a country suffering from a natural disaster, war, or other extraordinary circumstances that prevent nationals from residing there safely. The status has been periodically extended, as is permissible under the statute while poor conditions persist.[1]

In March 2018, President Donald Trump announced the end of Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for over 200,000 El Salvadoran immigrants to the United States. Trump’s justification for deporting hundreds of thousands of El Salvadorans is that “original conditions caused by the 2001 earthquakes no longer exist”, coupled with a persistent desire to tighten border security.[2] However, the U.S. renewed the status in 2016 and cited to ongoing effects of the earthquakes, including severe drought impacting food security, economic loss due to inability to harvest, infrastructure challenges, a lack of potable water, and resulting strife and violence stemming from these problems.[3] Without the political stability and security needed to deal with these environmental issues, they persist today.[4]

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agroterrorism food crop

Environmental Rights and Biological Agroterrorism

by Emma Dismukes

 

Agroterorrism is a form of environmental human rights offense. When an individual, group, or government intentionally introduces disease into the food production system, the results are detrimental to the public health and economic stability of the community.[1] The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment has recognized the rights of people to enjoy a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.[2] Agroterorrism directly undermines this right. This is a modern-day approach to biological warfare and is easily defined. There are instances, as scientific knowledge grows and adapt, that are not as black and white as they once appeared. These developments in technology may require an updated understanding of Agroterrorism and its impact on the human right to the environment.

Removing the autonomy of a subset of the community who most directly rely on the land for their wellbeing, and thereby limiting their access to cultivate food and earn a livable wage, is cruel and manipulative.  According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “[a]groterrorism is a threat to national security and could result in increased human illnesses and deaths, widespread destruction of crops and livestock, and significant economic loss to the Nation’s farmers and ranchers.”[3] Attacks on agriculture affects both the national economy, as well as community well-being and security,[4] particularly “in the event of a public health scare resulting from foodborne outbreaks or the spread of animal pathogens contagious to humans.”[5]

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national parks indigenous peoples

What you Should Know Before you Visit Another National Park

by Danica Cotov

 

Growing up, I spent every summer traveling across the U.S. with my family. We camped, hiked, and explored as many National Parks as possible; it was the classic American road trip, minus the RV.

Trekking up seemingly endless plateaus in the unforgiving Arizona desert, trudging against powerful currents in the submerged dark canyons of Utah, and climbing slick boulders on Hawaii’s jagged coast, I felt free. I experienced a sense of belonging that I had yet to feel amongst peers. I was convinced I was a transcendentalist born too late.

As “Father of the National Parks,” I admired John Muir. A naturalist, conversationalist, and author, he put words to the emotions I felt. In Our National Parks, he wrote:

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.”[1] 

The mountains, the valleys, the coastlands, they were all my “home.” But what I didn’t realize at the time was that in order for them to become my home, thousands of people had to be kicked out of theirs.

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militarization

“Hopelessly Outmatched” – Keeping an eye on the mass murder of indigenous populations and environmental activists globally

by Adam Bentley

 

During the course of my Human Rights, the Development and Community Resilience we have analyzed several cases in which violence has been inflicted upon local indigenous populations for protesting the degradation of their environment and land. One of these cases was the Social and Economic Rights Action Center and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (SERAC) v. Nigeria brought before the African Commission on Human & Peoples Rights. 1 In this case Nigerian security forces have “attacked, burned and destroyed several Ogoni villages and homes under the pretext of dislodging officials and supporters of the Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP).2 In this class, we also watched a video that documented the murders of environmental activists around the globe. Horrified by the sheer disregard of human life and their environment, I was inspired to conduct research on the tactical violence inflicted upon indigenous populations and environmental activists seeking to preserve the environment, to analyze exactly how prevalent this issue is, what locations this violence is most concentrated in, and most importantly where do these armed forces come from?

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jesner ruling alien tort

Jesner Is Not The End Of Environmental and Human Rights Litigation Against Transnational Corporations

by Raphael B. Hirsch

 

On May 29th, 2018 transnational corporations celebrated the narrow victory of Jesner v. Arab Bank of Jordan, PLC. Critics incorrectly argue that domestic federal litigation against transnational corporations for human rights violations have been extinguished. They are wrong. First of all, the Alien Tort Statute as a mechanism for holding transnational corporations liable in American Courts for actions committed abroad was already on its way out before Jesner was decided. Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., served to preclude suits against foreign corporations when the relevant conduct occurred outside of the United States. Thus, Jesner’s narrow holding that foreign transnational corporations may never be sued under the Alien Tort Statute should come as no surprise to anyone. Secondly, in what appears to be politically motivated, the court was unwilling to assert dominance over a Jordanian company, as Jordan is a strong ally of the United States in the Middle East.

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adams purple garden

Guerilla Gardening and Community Building as a Challenge to Local Laws

by Thera McAvoy

 

In urban spaces with few green spaces, that may also act as food deserts, some people chose to begin gardening on public or privately owned land without permission. Guerilla gardening is the act of planting gardens in urban spaces, often without any kind of legal right to use the land.[1] Forms of guerilla gardening vary widely, and can range from throwing seed bombs (Made of dirt, clay, compost, water, and seeds intended to germinate where they fall.), moss graffiti painted on walls, or planting full gardens and maintaining them.[2]

Guerilla gardeners are motivated by a lot of different forces. Some are trying to fight deserts in areas the don’t have ready access to supermarkets or produce stores through practices such as grafting fruit bearing tree limbs onto non fruit bearing city trees.[3] Seed bombing can function as a way to green and beautify neglected public spaces and vacant lots.[4] Others want to show how land should be used and managed, and how their local governments are failing to make use of empty land.[5] This runs the risk that much of the land used for gardening is often being used illegally–either through trespassing against private owners or through using public land against local ordinances.

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The Depletion of Niger Delta and Human Rights of the Ogonis Population

by Larissa Brito de Senna

 

Niger Delta is equivalent to 853 km of coastline shared with the Mud Coast, the Barrier-Lagoon Complex, the Arcuate Niger Delta, and the Strand Coast. The British-Dutch multinational oil and gas corporation found crude oil in a village near the Niger Delta in 1956 and after exploring the area and settling by the river, Shell began commercializing oil from the area in 1958.

This event only opened doors for several other multi-corporations to start exploring the country, as a whole new instrument of enrichment and profitable production at low costs. Nowadays, Nigeria is largest oil producer in Africa, being the sixth biggest producer in the world and the first country in the list of the most powerful nation when it comes to potential in oil and gas producer. From the initial 5,100 barrels per day during the oil discovery in 1956, this number absurdly increased to 2.5 million barrels per day.

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flint michigan water crisis

The Right to Clean Water- The Flint, Michigan Story

by Cassondra Britton

 

“How could this happen?” this question was repeated when discussing the tragedy that had befallen Flint, Michigan. In 2014 thousands of Flint residents began noticing their water had begun to look, taste, and smell funny.[1] By 2015 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Virginia Tech indicated dangerous levels of lead in the water at residents’ homes.[2] However, these tests came too late, many children and adults had dangerous levels of lead in their blood with no remedy[3]. After the Flint, Michigan story broke out the people across the United States began to fundraise and raise awareness of the tragedy using their own money to provide bottled water for the residents. Why was this necessary in the United States shouldn’t the government be in charge of that?

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