#EarthDay & Global Climate Breakdown: Daily Brief

Today is Earth Day, a wake-up call for how our use of oil, coal and gas is driving a global climate breakdown that violates the right to a clean and healthy environment. Earth Day has its origins in an oil disaster. Just over a year before the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, a rig five miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California experienced a massive underwater blowout. Within a day, a huge oil slick covered 75 square miles of ocean. The spill reached the coast a week later and eventually coated 35 miles of shoreline with oil up to six inches thick. At the time, it was the largest oil spill in United States history. This Earth Day – 52 years later – we know that the environmental destruction wrought by fossil fuels is of a higher order of magnitude than a single oil spill. The combustion of oil, coal and gas drives a global climate breakdown, affecting millions of people around the world. As a result, extreme heat, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and drought are going to become less predictable and more severe. Governments have long given the fossil fuel industry – one of the main culprits of the global climate breakdown – a free pass. By continuing to support the use of fossil fuels as our main source of energy and by authorizing new oil, gas, and coal production, governments are undermining their obligation under international law to prevent further foreseeable harm caused by the climate crisis.

Russian forces have committed a litany of apparent war crimes during their occupation of Bucha, a town about 30 kilometers northwest of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, from March 4 to 31. Human Rights Watch researchers who worked in Bucha from April 4 to 10, days after Russian forces withdrew from the area, found extensive evidence of summary executions, other unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, and torture, all of which would constitute war crimes and potential crimes against humanity. “Nearly every corner in Bucha is now a crime scene, and it felt like death was everywhere,” said Richard Weir, crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The evidence indicates that Russian forces occupying Bucha showed contempt and disregard for civilian life and the most fundamental principles of the laws of war.”

African and Western governments should find a way to bridge their differences to make clear to Russia that rampant violations of international law will have consequences. But they should say it — together. Anything less will encourage Russia and others to disregard international humanitarian and human rights law and kill civilians with impunity. Read this op-ed by HRW's UN director Louis Charbonneau, reflecting on the position of the South African government.

Southeast Asian governments should urgently revamp their response to Myanmar’s abusive junta by coordinating action with the broader international community. Despite adopting a “five-point consensus” on the crisis a year ago, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has failed to fulfill its pledges or take meaningful steps toward pressing the junta to end its human rights violations. “Myanmar’s junta has spent the past year committing atrocities in utter disregard for its commitments to ASEAN,” says Elaine Pearson, HRW's acting Asia director. “The ASEAN countries leading on Myanmar – Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore – should immediately alter their course to focus on protecting people’s rights and freedoms rather than helping the junta remain in power."

There is plenty of evidence that China’s “diplomatic assurances” are not to be trusted. Yet New Zealand’s Supreme Court, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Justice Minister Kris Faafoi have all concluded that the Chinese government is committed to fair trials, opposed to torture, and trustworthy with respect to its “diplomatic assurances” in the case of Kyung Yup Kim. Kim, a New Zealand permanent resident, is sought in alleged connection to a 2009 murder in China. In yielding to Beijing’s request to send him to China for trial, New Zealand risks setting a dangerous precedent: accepting unenforceable promises from a notoriously abusive government and sidestepping obligations to combat torture.

The Supreme Court in Hungary may have largely rejected an attempt to levy punitive fines on 16 civil society organizations for opposing a recent referendum to limit public discussions of sexual orientation and transgender issues, but the court also upheld fines against two groups, setting a dangerous precedent for curtailing civil society advocacy. The referendum, held earlier this month, asked voters leading questions about their support for children’s access to educational and media materials about sexual orientation and transgender issues. It was scheduled alongside national elections, in an apparent attempt to bolster support for the ruling Fidesz party on election day.