Fauna, Flora…and Funga: The Case for the Protection of Fungi Under National and International Law

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Fauna, Flora…and Funga: The Case for the Protection of Fungi Under National and International Law

Fungi are the Earth’s connective tissue and are crucial for human health and well-being. Yet, they have largely been ignored in international and national environmental law and policy. International negotiations this year provide an opportunity to fix this.

Fauna Flora Funga

After a year of postponed meetings and conferences, the international community is back on track and poised to meet several times this year to tackle urgent environmental threats. In May, states will negotiate the Post-2020 Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will guide state biodiversity efforts for years to come. In September, the global community will consider means to strengthen the global food system at the UN Food Systems Summit. And in November, the climate crisis will again be the subject of global consideration at COP26 in Glasgow.

Problem-solving strategies – including those deployed to address environmental threats – aren’t fully effective unless they cover all of the key components of the given issue. This much is obvious. And yet, in the past, these types of international governance convenings – international and national environmental law generally – have ignored a crucial player: fungi.

Life on Earth depends on fungi. The vast majority of plants, for example, depend on symbiotic fungi to obtain the nutrients they need and ward off disease; indeed, plants never would have migrated onto land if not for their partnership with fungi. Fungi are also essential for fixing carbon and vital nutrients into the soil, thus providing a service that entire ecosystems depend upon to function. Humans rely on fungi for food, medicines, and spiritual practices. Indeed, many of the transformational advances in healthcare achieved in the past two centuries relied on fungi: penicillin, for example, comes from fungi. Many future advances in medicine – for treating cancers, viruses, and mental illnesses – are similarly likely to come from fungi. Yet despite their utmost importance, fungi are usually ignored in both international and national environmental protections.

It’s an ignorance we can’t afford to sustain. If international and national environmental law and policy continue to discount the interests of fungi and the threats they face, then these laws and policies will be – at best – ineffective.

The Status of Fungi in International and Domestic Law

There are a number of international environmental treaties that explicitly aim to mitigate threats to flora (plants) and fauna (animals). This includes the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wilde Flora and Fauna (CITES), both are seminal pieces of international environmental law. The texts of CBD and CITES, as well as other international environmental treaties, explicitly reference flora and fauna as the subject of the protections that the treaties offer. The third F – funga, representing the diversity of fungi species – is conspicuously absent.

This is not an inconsequential oversight. Not only does it mean that fungi species don’t benefit from the legal and policy protections offered by these treaties, but it also suggests that fungi are somehow less important than plants or animals. This could not be further from the truth, as fungi’s essential role in ecosystems demonstrates.

This misleading message is reflected not only in the absence of fungi in international treaty texts but also in the work of important conservation institutions. Take the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), for example. It is an international organization that, among other things, gathers and analyzes data and conducts research on the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. As part of this work, IUCN compiles the Red List, which tracks the extinction risk status of plant, animal, and fungi species. However, while the Red List includes 43,556 plant species and 76,457 animal species, it only covers 343 fungi species. This is likely due both to a lack of attention paid to fungi species and the fact that, generally speaking, less effort has been made to identify fungi species relative to plant and animal species. Because there is a gap in IUCN’s work on fungi species and because IUCN’s data and analysis are critical in facilitating conservation work, it is more challenging to advance fungi conservation than plant and animal conservation.

In general, domestic law mirrors international law in its failure to explicitly recognize fungi as a distinct form of life with distinct needs. The major exception to this is Chile, where the concerted efforts of fungi activists to secure policy protections for fungi led to their explicit inclusion in a major environmental law passed in 2010. As a result of this, Chile’s main conservation law – which establishes procedures for protecting at-risk species – now includes fungi. 

What Can Be Done and Why It Matters

The aforementioned gap in international and national law needs to be filled by explicitly incorporating fungi. This begins with expanding discussions of flora and fauna to include funga – thereby making it the “3 Fs.” Policymakers and environmental advocates should work to ensure that fungi are clearly included in conservation frameworks. That may mean changing the text of a given national conservation law to include fungi or it may mean working at the agency-level to ensure regulations incorporate fungi.

Recognizing fungi in international and national law has important practical and symbolic consequences. Practically, it will unlock funding for fungi research, obligate governments to take certain steps to protect fungi, and limit certain activities harmful to vulnerable species of fungi. Symbolically, it signals the importance of fungi and their role in ecosystems. This is why we at the Climate Litigation Accelerator – in collaboration with fungi experts Giuliana Furci and Merlin Sheldrake – launched an initiative (FaunaFloraFungi) to fill this regulatory gap. The programmatic statement of the initiative is open to signatures and has already been endorsed by Jane Goodall, Michael Pollan, Donna Haraway, Andrew Weil, Andrea Wulf, Paul Stamets, Robert Macfarlane, Wade Davis, David Boyd and a number of other prominent scientists, naturalists, environmental advocates, and citizens from around the world.

Fungi are equal members of Earth’s web of life and fundamental to the health of humans and the planet. This year provides exceptional opportunities to update international and national law and policy to finally reflect this truth. Let’s make sure to use them.

April 27, 2021. César Rodríguez-Garavito and Jacqueline Gallant, The Earth Rights Research & Action (TERRA Law).

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April 27, 2021 Youssef Farhat Post  

Breaking Through the Climate Gridlock with Citizen Power

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Breaking Through the Climate Gridlock with Citizen Power

Why climate advocates are increasingly turning to citizens’ assemblies to remedy governments’ sluggishness on climate change.

Climate change protesters holding a picket sign that reads: Stop Denying, Earth is Dying.
Shayna Douglas (unsplash)

Nearly thirty years ago, the international community formally recognized the urgency of the threat posed by climate change through the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Yet, based on the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions, we are barreling towards an increase in temperature that far exceeds the 1.5 to two degrees Celsius after which dangerous destabilization of the climate system is possible.

This decades-long gridlock on ambitious climate action has led climate advocates and concerned citizens to search for alternative methods to jumpstart action on climate change. Increasingly, climate activists – including Extinction Rebellion – have been turning to one method in particular: citizens’ assemblies. In this explainer, the Climate Litigation Accelerator (CLX) provides an introduction to this emerging trend.

What Is a Citizens’ Assembly?

Drawing inspiration from examples of participatory democracy in Ancient Greece, citizens’ assemblies are a form of “deliberative mini-publics.” They are usually convened to consider major public policy issues, like electoral reform. Though citizens’ assemblies vary in the details of their institutional design, they tend to share certain core features.

For example, citizens are generally chosen to participate through a random selection process. Citizens’ assemblies work because they’re assumed to be representative of the public at large and not systematically biased towards a particular viewpoint or segment of society. That’s why this step is critical in the assembly design process. 

Once in session, a citizens’ assembly typically begins with a series of activities intended to educate the participants on the issue – or issues – for which the assembly was convened. The educational component is followed by activities intended to provide a space for discussion with fellow citizen participants and deliberation of the issue. This can take place in a variety of forms, including small group discussions and plenary sessions.

The educational efforts and deliberation activities culminate in a final decision rendered by the citizens’ assembly. The nature of that decision depends on the issue under review, but generally the citizens’ assembly will adopt a series of policy proposals or positions on the issue and on sub-topics of the issue.

Citizens Assemblies: Pros and Cons

Advocates of citizens’ assemblies offer a number of justifications for using citizens’ assemblies to shape public policy. One of the most significant is that these assemblies are thought to help break persistent gridlock on major issues within the political system. Advocates for citizens’ assemblies also argue that they enhance the democratic legitimacy of policy choices that involve significant trade-offs and facilitate buy-in for those tough policy choices.

Over the past several decades, there has also been a movement towards incorporating greater public participation in democratic governance. Citizens’ assemblies are one mechanism to do just that, and the evidence demonstrates that citizens’ assemblies are effective tools to increase public engagement. Citizens’ assemblies can also help combat distrust in political institutions, which can endanger the conditions necessary for democracy to thrive.

Skeptics have urged more caution when considering whether to advance citizens’ assemblies. In particular, some observers have argued that citizens’ assemblies may incentivize elected policymakers to “outsource” tough decision-making to these assemblies. There is also no guarantee of a good or appropriate outcome, which is a source of concern for some skeptics. Indeed, given the rising tide of populism and polarization, the assemblies may be unable to reach a consensus or may advance suboptimal policies. 

Can Citizen Assemblies Jumpstart More Ambitious Action on Climate Change?

For many climate advocates, citizens’ assemblies are seen as a key tool in the fight to secure more ambitious action on climate change. For them, the issue is ripe for deliberation by a citizens’ assembly because of the longstanding gridlock that has stymied progress on the issue and because a citizens’ assembly adds legitimacy to the major trade-offs associated with policymaking on climate change.

Some have also argued that citizens’ assemblies are well-positioned to consider long-term problems – which climate change undoubtedly is – “because citizens need not worry about the short-term incentives of electoral cycles, giving them more freedom than elected politicians.”

Climate Citizen Assemblies: A Growing Trend

In spring 2020, British citizens met over six weekends for the U.K. Climate Assembly, where they considered what the United Kingdom should do to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Ultimately, assembly members adopted a set of recommendations which were released in their final report. It remains to be seen how the government will respond to the Assembly’s findings and whether they will be incorporated into the U.K.’s climate policies.

In 2019 and 2020, French citizens had the opportunity to participate in Convention Citoyenne Pour le Climat, a national citizens’ assembly on climate change. The assembly was tasked with coming up with a series of policy measures, consistent with social justice, that would allow a forty percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The assembly’s report was released in 2020; though the ultimate impact of the assembly’s recommendations will become more apparent in the future, French president Emmanuel Macron has indicated that at least some of the assembly’s proposals will be incorporated into French policy.

What’s Next?

Climate advocates are taking citizens’ assemblies, which have historically operated within national boundaries, to the next level. In the fall of 2021, a global citizens’ assembly on climate change will be held in the lead up to COP26, aiming to jumpstart the COP process that has thus far failed to secure the emission reduction commitments necessary to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius. CLX will be closely documenting these developments. If citizens at the global assembly can find a path to ambitious climate action, so can global leaders.

March 2, 2021. César Rodríguez-Garavito and Jackie Gallant, The Earth Rights Research & Action program (TERRA Law).

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March 2, 2021 Youssef Farhat Post  

In Markets We Cannot Trust: What the Texas Storm Reveals about Privatized Services

INEQUALITIES

In Markets We Cannot Trust: What the Texas Storm Reveals about Privatized Services

Millions of people in Texas went without power and heat during a brutal winter storm. This avoidable catastrophe was the result of trusting the market and private interests to deliver the public good.

Country Road Illuminated By Traffic in the Night With Stars on Clear Sky
PorqueNoStudios (iStock)

“I’m cold and huddled under blankets,” my mom texted me last week, on her second day without power. She is one of millions in Texas, the largest energy-producer in the United States, who went days without electricity or heat during the recent winter storm that killed 30 people. While local politicians moved quickly to falsely pin the blame on renewable energy, the breakdown in Texas demonstrates the folly of relying on private actors and markets to prepare for climate change, to look after the public good, and to guarantee basic rights.

The Texas power system is built on a “total trust in markets” and the suffering last week is a consequence of that misplaced faith. In 1999, the state deregulated its electricity system to a patchwork of private companies, and it now relies on “nearly unaccountable and toothless” regulatory agencies and voluntary guidelines.

The deregulated private companies predictably chose to prioritize short-term profit over investments in the system. They did not winterize the power grid—ignoring the advice of federal authorities and the lessons of a similar 2011 storm—and neglected to maintain a reserve margin for demand surges, unlike every other power system in North America.

The fallout has been unimaginable. More than 4.2 million households lost power in temperatures as low as 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Although the full death toll won’t be known for weeks, at least 30 people died in Texas, including six experiencing homelessness. Hundreds more were poisoned by their efforts to keep warm, such as running generators indoors. People slept in their cars. Clinics shuttered. People of color and low-income individuals were disproportionately affected, with predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods among the first to lose power.

Meanwhile, the deregulated market means some companies will receive an appalling windfall from the storm. Sky-high demand for energy during the cold weather drove prices through the roof, and now people who did not lose power face outrageous energy bills. “My savings is gone,” remarked one Dallas resident who now faces a nearly $17,000 bill. In the city of Denton, the rate per megawatt hour jumped from less than $24 to $2,400. The city will pay over $207 million for four days of power which is more than it spends in a typical year.

However, despite its obvious failures, ideological commitment to the market remains on full display. Before the lights were even back on, politicians were lying about the cause of the outages and exploring how further deregulation could “help.”

This anemic vision of government, which is hardly shared by all Texans but too often dominates policymaking at the state level, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sensible policies that guarantee basic rights but might diminish profit—such as regulation, planning, taxation, and public provision—are routinely written off as extreme because the government has successfully been recast as primarily a facilitator of markets. Capital-friendly decisions are conveniently, if erroneously, peddled as “win-win” and protective of individual freedoms. Neoliberalism has been internalized by the body politic.

Unfortunately, the market alone will never deliver equitable and reliable access to essential services. It cannot, on its own, guarantee the fulfillment of basic rights. Instead, running public services as an investment risks marginalizing their non-commercial purposes. This is why human rights activists, experts, and monitoring bodies routinely raise concerns about the risks of relying on the private sector to provide critical services. Running public services for a profit without robust regulation can lead to inequitable access, high costs, exclusion, and poor maintenance, while wasting taxpayer money and thwarting accountability.

As others have written, this crisis should serve as a “profound warning” in the context of climate change, which will lead to more frequent extreme weather events. Roads, water systems, power grids, housing, and other essential infrastructure desperately need upgrades. Texas shows us that continuing to rely on profit-focused companies to make those changes will leave many stranded. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Around the world, energy systems are increasingly brought back under public control through a process called remunicipalization, in part due to private actors’ repeated failures to transition to renewable energy.

As people in Texas stood for hours in lines to enter bare grocery stores for the second time in less than a year, my sister wrote to me: “I now feel acutely aware of the fact that I will not be taken care of in a disaster. People will not turn on your lights, people will not give you heat when it’s freezing, people will not make sure you have good drinking water, and people will not make sure you don’t die of a horrible illness.” If markets continue to be allowed to stand in for government, she will be right.

February 23, 2021. Rebecca Riddell, Human Rights and Privatization Project at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law.

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February 23, 2021 Youssef Farhat Post  

GJC Issues Statement on the Constitutional and Human Rights Crisis in Haiti

HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT

GJC Issues Statement on the Constitutional and Human Rights Crisis in Haiti

The Global Justice Clinic, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School issued a statement on February 13, 2021 expressing grave concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in Haiti. Credible evidence shows that President Jovenel Moïse has engaged in a pattern of conduct to create a Constitutional crisis and consolidate power that undermines the rule of law in the country. The three clinics call on the U.S. government to denounce recent acts by President Moïse that have escalated the constitutional crisis. They urge the U.S. to halt all deportation and expulsion flights to Haiti in this fragile time; to condemn recent violence against protestors and journalists; and to call for the release of those arbitrarily detained. With long experience working in solidarity with Haitian civil society, the clinics urge the U.S. government to recognize the right of the Haitian people to self-determination by neither insisting on nor supporting elections without evidence of concrete measures to ensure that they are free, fair, and inclusive.

The Clinics also sent a letter expressing similar concerns to the member states of the United Nations Security Council ahead of their meeting on February 22, 2021, which is expected to include a briefing on Haiti from the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH).

Statements and Letters

February 14, 2021

This post reflects the statement of the Global Justice Clinic, and not necessarily the views of NYU, NYU Law, or the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

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February 14, 2021 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized  

“We are not Data Points”: Highlights from our Conversation on the Kenyan Digital ID System

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Seeing the Unseen: Inclusion and Exclusion in Kenya’s Digital ID
System

On October 28, 2020, the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights Project held a virtual conversation with Nanjala Nyabola for the second in the Transformer States Conversation Series on the topic of inclusion and exclusion in Kenya’s digital ID system. Nanjala is a writer, political analyst, and activist based in Nairobi and author of Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya. Through an energetic and enlightening conversation with Christiaan van Veen and Victoria Adelmant, Nanjala explained the historical context of the Huduma Namba system, Kenya’s latest digital ID scheme, and pointed out a number of pressing concerns with the project.

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Kenya’s new digital identity system, known as Huduma Namba, was announced in 2018 and involved the establishment of the Kenyan National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS). According to its enabling legislation, NIIMS is intended to be a comprehensive national registration and identity system to promote efficient delivery of public services, by consolidating and harmonizing the law on the registration of persons. This ‘master database’ would, according to the government, become the ‘single source of truth’ on Kenyans. A “Huduma Namba” (a unique identifying number) and “Huduma Card” (a biometric identity card) would be assigned to Kenyan citizens and residents.

Huduma Namba is the latest in a long series of biometric identity systems in Kenya that began with colonization. Kenya has had a form of mandatory identification under the Kipande system since the Native Registration Ordinance of 1915 under the British colonial government. The Kipande system required black men over the age of 16 to be fingerprinted and to carry identification that effectively restricted their freedom of movement and association. Non-compliance carried the threat of criminal punishment and forced labor. Rather than repealing this “cornerstone of the colonial project” upon independence, the government instead embraced and further formalized the Kipande system, making it mandatory for all men over 18. New ID systems were introduced, but always maintained several core elements: biometrics, the collection of ethnic data, and punishment. ID remained necessary for accessing certain buildings, opening bank accounts, buying or selling property and free movement both within and out of Kenya. The fact that women were not included in the national ID system until 1978 further reveals the exclusionary nature of such systems, in this instance along gendered lines.

While, in theory, these ID systems have been mandatory such that anyone should be able to demand and receive an ID, in practice, Kenyans from border communities must be “vetted” before receiving their ID. They must return to their paternal family village to be “vetted” by the local chief as to their community membership. Given the contested nature of Kenya’s borders, many Kenyans who may be ethnically Somali or Masai can face significant difficulty in proving they are “Kenyan” and obtaining the necessary ID. The vetting process can also serve to significantly delay applications. Nanjala explained that some ethnically Somali Kenyans who struggled to gain access to legal identification and therefore were excluded from basic entitlements had resorted to registering as refugees in order to access services.

Given the history of legal identity systems in Kenya, Huduma Namba may offer a promising break from the past and may serve to better include marginalized groups. Huduma Namba is supposed to give a “360 degree legal identity” to Kenyan citizens and residents; it includes women and children; and it is more than just a legal identity, it is also a form of entitlement. For example, Huduma Namba has been said to provide the enabling conditions for universal healthcare, to “facilitate adequate resource allocation” and to “enable citizens to get government services”. However, Nanjala also emphasized that Huduma Namba does not address any of the pre-existing exclusions experienced by certain Kenyans, especially those from border communities. Nanjala noted that the Huduma Namba is “layered over a history of exclusion,” and preserves many of the discriminatory practices experienced under previous systems. As residents must present existing identity documents in order to obtain a Huduma Card, vetting practices will still hinder border communities’ access to the new system, and thereby hinder access to the services to which Huduma Namba will be tied.

Over the course of the conversation Nanjala drew on her rich knowledge and experience to highlight what she sees as a number of ‘red flags’ raised by the Huduma Namba project. These go to the need to properly examine the true motivations behind such digital ID schemes and the actors who promote them. In brief, these are:

  • The false promise of the efficiency argument, being that “efficient’ technological solutions and data will fix social problems. This argument ignores the social, political and historical context and complexities of governing a state, and merely perpetuates the ‘McKinseyfication’ of government (being an increasing pervasiveness of management consultancy in development). Further, there is little evidence that such efficient solutions will actually work, as was seen in relation to the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) rolled out in Kenya in 2013. Such arguments detract attention from examining why problems such as poor infrastructure, healthcare or education systems have arisen or have not been addressed. Nanjala noted that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made the risks of this clear: while the Kenyan government has spent over $6million on the Huduma Namba system, the country has only 518 ICU beds.
  • The fact that the government is relying on threats and intimidation to “encourage” citizens to register for Huduma Namba. Nanjala posited that if a government is offering citizens a real service or benefit, it should be able to articulate a strong case for adoption such that citizens will see the benefit and willingly sign up.
  • The lack of clear information and analysis, including any cost benefit analysis or clear articulation of the why and how of the Huduma Namba system, available to citizens or researchers.
  • The complex political motivations behind the government’s actions, which hinge primarily on the current administration’s campaign promises and eye to the next election, rather than centring longer-term benefits to the population.
  • The risks associated with unchecked data collection, which include improper use and monetization of citizens’ data by government.

While much of the conversation addressed clear concerns with the Huduma Namba project, Nanjala also discussed how human rights law, movements and actors can help bring about more positive developments in this area. Firstly, this year’s decision by the Kenyan High Court, which was brought by the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and Nubian Rights Forum, held that the Huduma Namba scheme could not proceed without appropriate data protection and privacy safeguards, was an inspiring example of the effectiveness of grassroots activism and rights-based litigation.

Further, this case provided an example of how human rights frameworks can enable transnational conversations about rights issues. Nanjala reminded us to question why it is that the UK can vote to avoid digital ID systems while British companies are simultaneously deploying digital ID technologies in the developing world, that is, why digital ID might be seen to be good enough for the colonized, but not the colonizers. And as digital ID systems are being widely promulgated by the World Bank throughout the Global South, Nanjala identified the successful south-south collaboration and knowledge exchange between Indian and Kenyan activists, lawyers and scholars in relation to India’s widely criticized digital ID system, Aadhaar. By learning about the Indian experience, Kenyan organizations were able to more effectively push back against some of the particular concerns with Huduma Namba. Looking at the severe harms that have arisen from the centralized biometric system in India can also help demonstrate the risks of such schemes.

Digital ID systems risk reducing humanity to mere data points, and so, to the extent that they do so, should be resisted. We are not just data points, and considering data as the “new” gold or oil positions our identities as resources to be exploited by companies and governments as they see fit. Nanjala explained that the point of government is not to oversimplify or exploit the human experience, but rather to leverage the resources that government collects to maximize the human experience of its residents. In the context of ever increasing intrusions into privacy cloaked in claims of making life “easier”, Nanjala’s comments and critique provided a timely reminder to focus on the humans at the center of ongoing debates about our digital lives, identities and rights.

Holly Ritson, LLM program, NYU School of Law; and Human Rights Scholar with the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights Project.

https://vimeo.com/51589652
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November 9, 2020 Youssef Farhat Event Summary  

UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

INEQUALITIES

UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

Philip Alston served as UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from June 2014 to April 2020. The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor, advise, and report on how government policies are realizing the rights of people in poverty around the world.

During his mandate, Professor Alston carried out 11 official country visits and authored 12 thematic reports to the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council. His thematic and country reports are available below. He also issued a large body of press releases and communications to states and other actors.

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Attempted Digital Surveillance as a Completed Human Rights Violation

TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Attempted Digital Surveillance as a Completed Human Rights Violation

Why Targeting Human Rights Defenders Infringes on Rights

On March 1, 2019, this briefing paper on the spyware industry was submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression as a response to the Special Rapporteur’s call for submissions concerning the surveillance industry and human rights. 

This submission was made to underscore the need for further guidance on the prevention and remediation of such infringements of the rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression, and to encourage the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression to address these issues in his report on commercial spyware.

Briefing Paper

The research presented in this briefing paper:  

  • Uncovered a gap regarding the application of international human rights law to attempted digital surveillance of human rights defenders, as opposed to completed surveillance. 
  • Explains that attempted digital surveillance of a human rights defender is evidence of the unlawful targeting of that individual on the basis of their opinion. It not only gives the targeted individual a reasonable basis to fear that they are subject to surveillance; it also provides notice that existing due diligence frameworks, export control regimes, and other regulatory measures have failed to protect against human rights violations. 

The Global Justice Clinic states that when attempts to infect human rights defenders’ digital devices with commercial spyware are discovered, the targeted individuals should have the opportunity to seek protection and remedy, and such instances should prompt governments and companies to strengthen the safeguards against such abusive conduct.

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Government Control and Neglect of Women Living in Poverty

INEQUALITIES

Government Control and Neglect of Women Living in Poverty

American Poverty and Human Rights Series

On February 27, 2018, the Center hosted a workshop and a public panel to discuss the unique ways in which poverty affects women across the United States.

Panel

Opening remarks
Nikki Reisch, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law

Keynote address
Khiara M. Bridges, Boston University School of Law; and author of The Poverty of Privacy Rights

Panelists
Martin Guggenheim, NYU Law Family Defense Clinic
Chanel Porchia-Albert, Ancient Song Doula Services
Cherisse Scott, SisterReach
Melissa Torres-Montoya, National Network of Abortion Funds
Melissa Upreti, UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women

Workshop

Participants included women from the following organizations and institutions:

  • Ancient Song Doula Services
  • Black Mamas Alliance/Feminist Women’s Health Center
  • Boston University School of Law; Center for Human Rights and Global Justice,
  • NYU Law (host & co-convener)
  • Center for Reproductive Rights (co-convener) 
  • Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice, Berkeley Law (co-convener)
  • Columbia Human Rights Institute
  • Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic 
  • CUNY Law (co-convener)
  • Human Rights Watch
  • National Advocates for Pregnant Women (co-convener)
  • Reproductive Justice Clinic
  • SIA Legal Team (co-convener) 
  • UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women
  •  US Human Rights Network

Members of the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights’ team were also invited to discuss the role of civil society in engaging with UN special procedures.

Both events were convened in partnership with the Center for Reproductive Rights; CUNY Law School’s Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic; the SIA Legal Team and Berkeley Law School’s Center for Reproductive Rights and Justice; National Advocates for Pregnant Women. The panel was co-sponsored by the NYU Law chapter of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice and NYU Law Women.

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February 27, 2018 Youssef Farhat Event Summary  

With TPS set to terminate, GJC files a Freedom of Information Lawsuit against DHS and USCIS

HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT

With TPS set to terminate, GJC files a Freedom of Information Lawsuit against DHS and USCIS

National Immigration Project et al. v. DHS et al. (Haiti TPS FOIA)

On November 20, 2017, the Trump Administration terminated TPS for Haiti, stating that the conditions caused by the earthquake no longer exist. With TPS set to terminate in July 2019, the Global Justice Clinic, together with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers’ Guild, filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against DHS and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement to obtain records documenting the reasons behind the government’s decision to terminate TPS for Haitians. The lawsuit was filed in January 2018 with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and NYU School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic provided legal counsel.

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Temporary Protected Status (TPS) provides protection from deportation or removal and enables the beneficiary to apply for a work permit. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) designates countries for TPS if they are experiencing armed conflict, have suffered a natural disaster, or face other extraordinary yet temporary conditions that make them unable to safely repatriate their nationals living in the United States. DHS designated Haiti for TPS after the 2010 earthquake and subsequently extended it four times. As of November 2017 there were more than 50,000 Haitian people with TPS in the United States, out of a total population of 300,000 people from various countries with TPS.

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January 25, 2018 Youssef Farhat Product  

Center Briefs Top UN Women’s Rights Body on Tax, Tax Abuse, and Gender Equality

INEQUALITIES

Center briefs top UN Women’s Rights Body on Tax, Tax Abuse and Gender Equality

On November 10, 2017, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, together with coalition partners the Center for Economic and Social Rights, the Tax Justice Network, IWRAW-AP, and Professor Kathleen Lahey of Queens University Faculty of Law, hosted a closed briefing on Tax Systems, Tax Abuse, and Women’s Rights in Geneva with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

Report & briefing

This briefing came on the heels of the Paradise Papers leak, the latest in a long line of revelations of abusive tax practices through which wealthy individuals and corporations take advantage of a global network of financial secrecy jurisdictions to deprive states of public tax revenues essential to realizing human rights.

The briefing built on the CEDAW Committee’s pioneering work to hold states like Switzerland to account for the impacts of their tax and financial secrecy policies on women’s rights. Committee members were very engaged in the interactive discussion. The topics examined included how domestic and international tax policies and practices fundamentally affect women’s rights and substantive equality and implicate states’ treaty obligations under CEDAW; why the time is ripe to increase attention to the effects of systemic tax abuse on inequality; and how the CEDAW Committee can continue its leadership in this area.

Several of the organizations hosting this briefing co-authored a shadow report for the CEDAW Committee in 2016 on Switzerland’s financial secrecy policies and a similar submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concerning the United Kingdom’s tax policies and practices.

This post was originally published as a press release on November 10, 2017.

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November 10, 2017 Youssef Farhat Uncategorized