Daily Brief Audio Series

Are you an aspiring dictator trying to destroy democracy from within? Do you want to rule unchallenged for life? Are pesky things like respect for human rights and rule of law getting in your way?

Well, today’s your lucky day! Here’s a step-by-step guide to fulfil your dictatorship dreams…

You probably already know you need to restrict independent media. No sense having the public see what critics are saying about you. Especially when it’s true.

The same goes for so-called civil society, those independent organizations that have other ideas – ideas that are not yours, of all things! Restrict civil society, too.

It’s essential that you also undermine the independence of the courts. It’s no good making laws that do your bidding if some jobsworth judge undermines your efforts.

Do what you can to swing elections in your favor. As well as controlling the media, tilt the playing field by misusing voters’ personal data. Privacy, schmivacy.

Declare states of emergency again and again. This lets you govern by decree, so you can bypass parliamentary oversight and consolidate your executive power.

Find scapegoats. You have to make sure people don’t blame you and your ruling party for the nation’s problems. After all, you’re in the most corrupt country and the most impoverished country in the region. You don’t want anyone thinking that’s the fault of those running the place.

Try vilifying migrants and asylum seekers. That always seems to work. You can also target LGBT people. Maybe launch an antisemitic hate campaign while you’re at it.

And if you’re fortunate enough to find yourself running an EU country, you’ve got another handy scapegoat available: Brussels. Don’t let the fact that you’re taking EU money prevent you from repeatedly running public propaganda campaigns attacking the EU and its democratic values.

The point is, you need scapegoats to distract the public from thinking about who’s really behind the mess the country is in.

If, after doing all that, things still aren’t under your authoritarian thumb as much as you’d like them to be, try this. Work on a new law to strangle civil society even further by attacking its funding.

Propose giving sweeping powers to a government-appointed body to go after those groups that still won’t bow to your will. Say it’s a matter of national security. Nevermind how ridiculous that sounds.

Target their leaders, founders, and board members. Make them all submit asset declarations. Subject them to tax audits and financial inspections. Back all of this up in your proposed new law with the threat of nasty punishments for non-compliance.

In other words, do all the things Viktor Orbán and his government have been doing – and now plan to do – in Hungary. 

When a government attacks Amnesty International, you can pretty much guarantee that government has been up to no good.

Authorities have likely been committing serious human rights abuses. Amnesty has been dutifully reporting on them. Now, the government is trying to shoot the messenger. It’s both an admission of guilt and high praise for the organization’s work.

We saw an example of this yesterday, when the Russian government declared Amnesty International an “undesirable organization.”

Stemming from a draconian 2015 law, the designation “undesirable” has multiple impacts. It doesn’t just criminalize the organization’s activities and prohibit it from working openly on Russian territory. That’s essentially been the case for all human rights groups for years anyway.

The bigger issue is it sets out fines and imprisonment for Russian citizens and groups for “involvement” in the activities of “undesirable” organizations. Of course, the law doesn’t exactly specify what “involvement” means. Authorities can bend it to whatever purposes they want.

So, yesterday’s declaration won’t affect Amnesty International’s work very much at all. Indeed, in its reaction to Russia’s announcement, the group rightly pledged to, “redouble [its] efforts to expose Russia’s egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad.”

But it could impact folks in Russia.

As Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard stated: “This decision is part of the Russian government’s broader effort to silence dissent and isolate civil society.”

The announcement gives authorities yet another legal arrow in the enormous quiver they carry when hunting down critics, journalists, human rights defenders, and others.

Under the 2015 law, they’ve been prosecuting people for as little as reposting links to articles related to “undesirable” organizations.

Some 225 groups have already been declared “undesirable.” In practice, authorities can twist it to target many more.

Repression inside Russia has been increasing for years. Criticism of the government – and of Russia’s atrocity-ridden invasion of Ukraine in particular – are brutally punished.

This is an authoritarian system. It accepts no dissent. It allows no questions. And as Russian human rights champion and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Oleg Orlov put it last year: “The state has become all-pervasive.”

With or without yesterday’s announcement, it’s long been clear that, for Russian authorities, the very concept of human rights has become “undesirable.”

North Korea generally only makes international headlines when it lobs a missile near neighbors or sends weapons to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Such things are important news, for sure, but they’re usually presented without much context. Most notably, North Korea’s appalling human rights situation doesn’t get a mention.

Some may think: Well, why should it be mentioned? That’s a separate issue, right?

Wrong. These two things – North Korea’s arms programs and its human rights abuses – are, in fact, deeply linked.

Everyone knows North Korea is a human rights disaster zone. Third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un runs the country with totalitarian ferocity.

All basic liberties are denied. The government forces extreme obedience through torture, executions, brutal imprisonment, forced disappearances, and forced labor.

Backed by brutal repression, forced labor is used to support military programs crucial for arms production. This includes the development and production of missiles and nuclear weapons.

What’s more, the government diverts billions to arms programs at the expense of basic needs. This steamrollers other rights, like the right to food and health.

The government’s extreme human rights abuses and its weapons programs are very much interconnected.

This is something the international community has been gradually recognizing. Of course, the UN Security Council remains deadlocked on such matters. But the UN General Assembly has been taking the lead.

In a December resolution, the General Assembly stressed the link between North Korea’s grave human rights situation and its weapons programs. It called for a special high-level plenary session on North Korea.

That special session will happen at the UN General Assembly tomorrow, 20 May.

Hopefully, UN members will take this opportunity to up the pressure. Specifically, they should consider options for a standing UN body to address the connections between arms and abuses.

The body should further document how North Korea’s systemic rights violations increasingly threaten peace and security, not just on the Korean peninsula but worldwide. It should be staffed by experts in international human rights and humanitarian law, weapons proliferation, and sanctions.

North Korea is one of those situations where international security and respect for human rights clearly go hand in hand. To worry about North Korea’s arms is to worry about North Korea’s abuses.

Let’s hope the UN General Assembly takes another step forward tomorrow in recognizing this situation for what it is.

How could they have allowed that to happen?

This is the question everyone asks, years later, when looking back at mass atrocity crimes in the past. Everything’s so clear when it’s described in history books – war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide…

It’s not that these things aren’t clear at the time exactly. In fact, they are often well-documented in excruciating detail more or less as they happen.

Yet, somehow, when these things are unfolding in real time, some folks seem unable – maybe, more often, unwilling – to accept the evidence of their eyes and ears. Various considerations distract international leaders in particular: prejudices, alliances, politics...

There can never be any justification for the worst kinds of crimes known to humanity, but that doesn’t keep leaders from trying to offer some.

And with that, you move toward the future answer to the future question. The world at the time had leaders who refused to take a stand and defend humanity when it mattered most.

Today, everyone can see Israel has been committing atrocities in Gaza during hostilities since October 7, 2023. We’ve seen systematic destruction of homes, apartment buildings, orchards and fields, schools, hospitals, and water and sanitation facilities. Israel has also openly used starvation as a weapon of war.

These actions amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity including extermination, and acts of genocide.

Now, the Israeli government’s latest plan has made its intentions even clearer. They want to demolish what remains of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population (about 2 million people) into one tiny area.

Israeli government ministers couldn’t make things any more obvious. They say Israel is “finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip.” They threaten that Gaza will be “completely destroyed” and say its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries.”

Some Israeli officials say the Palestinian exodus will be “voluntary.” However, it’s hard to call it voluntary, when Israel has deliberately destroyed the area’s ability to sustain human life.

If implemented, the plan would amount to an abhorrent escalation of extermination. In fact, Israel’s plan is so obviously extreme and has been made so extremely obvious, it should trigger international action under the Genocide Convention’s “duty to prevent.”

The 1948 Genocide Convention is an international agreement that embodies the spirit of “never again.” It says a “duty to prevent” genocide arises as soon as a state learns, or should normally have learned, of a serious risk that genocide may be committed.

One hundred and fifty-three countries have signed up to the Convention. These include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Yet, these are some of the very countries that have been supporting the government of Israel most throughout its carnage in Gaza, not least by continuing to provide Israel with weapons even after the atrocities were undeniable.

Israel’s latest plan should finally, at long last, shake London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and Washington to their core. It should make them see beyond everyday politics, to their responsibility to humanity and history – and to their legal obligation to act.

Without that, the question one day may indeed be, “How could they have allowed that to happen?” And everyone will know the answer.

Water, water, every where,
And all the land doth sink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.*

The Maldives faces two problems with water today: too much of it, and not enough.

Rising sea levels due to climate change are a threat to the very existence of the country, a string of low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean.

At the same time, many communities in the Maldives find it increasingly difficult to get safe, clean, fresh water. This is true on the more remote islands especially. There, infrastructure like piped water and desalination plants tend to be crumbling or nonexistent.

Also on those outer islands, poverty rates are higher. Relying on bottled water for drinking is costly – too costly for many.

And the problem is only getting worse with climate change. Rising sea levels bring ever more salts into the ground water. Rainfall patterns are increasingly unpredictable. Meanwhile, the population is rising. There are more and more clean water shortages.

The government of the Maldives has an obligation to ensure people’s right to water, but it’s been missing the mark. Even their monitoring of the issue across the country has been patchy at best.

Authorities haven’t always been engaging with the people most affected by water shortages. While the government has looked abroad for financing of climate adaptation projects, they often seem to forget to talk with local people about those measures.

As a result, the design, implementation, and maintenance of foreign-funded water projects isn’t always informed by local knowledge as it should be. And it fails to protect the rights of remote and poorer communities experiencing water shortages.

One notable example comes from a new Human Rights Watch report. It details how a US$28.2 million project to address water shortages in the country’s outer islands hasn’t met expectations.

The initiative was supported by the Green Climate Fund, the world’s largest fund dedicated to climate, and the United Nations Development Programme. It aimed to provide 32,000 people on 49 islands access to reliable, safe water through means like desalination and rainwater harvesting.

However, residents interviewed describe how some of these water projects were carried out hastily and remained only partially completed, years behind schedule. On one island, local council members said up to 60 percent of the population still relied on bottled water for drinking.

The Maldives government can and should do better. Other countries that help finance such climate projects can and should, too.

The challenges arising from climate change and sea-level rise are only growing – in the Maldives and elsewhere.

With more “water, water, every where,” governments need to ensure there’s also some to drink.

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* with apologies to poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge for taking liberties with his late-18th-century classic, , “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”