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United Nations Sets Up Inquiry Into Racism After George Floyd Death

June 21, 2020 Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters. , , ,
Geneva - The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday condemned discriminatory and violent policing after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month and ordered a report on "systemic racism" against people of African descent. The 47-member-state forum unanimously adopted a resolution brought by African countries. The mandate also asks U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to examine government responses to peaceful protests, including alleged use of excessive force, and deliver findings in a year's time. Philonise Floyd, the brother of the Black man whose death under the knee of a white officer roused world protests against racial injustice, urged the forum on Wednesday to investigate U.S. police brutality and racial discrimination.

UN Should Establish A Commission Of Inquiry On Systemic Racism And Law Enforcement In The US

June 16, 2020 By E. Tendayi Achiume, Just Security. , , ,
On Wednesday, June 17, 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Council will hold an “Urgent Debate” on systemic racism in law enforcement. The proximate catalyst for this debate is the recent police killing of George Floyd and many other Black people in the United States, and the breath-taking national and transnational uprising of the past two weeks against systemic racism in law enforcement. The Urgent Debate is more than opportunity for discussion—it’s an opportunity for meaningful action. In a letter to the President of the UN Human Rights Council, I, along with the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, have urged the Human Rights Council to ensure the following outcomes from the debate

Over 600 Groups And Families Of People Killed By Police Call For UN Investigation

June 9, 2020 Coalition, ACLU. , , ,
The undersigned family members of victims of police killings and civil society organizations from around the world, call on member states of the UN Human Rights Council to urgently convene a Special Session on the situation of human rights in the United States in order to respond to the unfolding grave human rights crisis borne out of the repression of nationwide protests. The recent protests erupted on May 26 in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was only one of a recent string of unlawful killings of unarmed Black people by police and armed white vigilantes. We are deeply concerned about the escalation in violent police responses to largely peaceful protests in the United States, which included the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and in some cases live ammunition, in violation of international standards on the use of force and management of assemblies including recent U.N. Guidance on Less Lethal Weapons.

BAP Calls On United Nations To Address U.S. Human Rights Crisis

May 30, 2020 the Black Alliance for Peace. , , ,
The extrajudicial murders of African/Black people, such as Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, by agents of the U.S. government and armed civilians have sparked urban rebellions in cities across the United States. Yet these murders cannot be understood outside of the context of the U.S. state’s ongoing assault on the human rights of African/Black people. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweet demanding lethal violence—“...when the looting starts, the shooting starts...”—requires the United Nations to intervene. Trump’s threat comes as the U.S. state has tragically failed during the COVID-19 pandemic to recognize and protect the human right to health of poor and working-class people, including Africans and undocumented migrants.

US Blocks UNSC Draft Resolution Denouncing Paramilitary Incursion Into Venezuela

May 23, 2020 By Ricardo Vaz, Venezuela Analysis. , ,
Russia, China and other countries criticized violations of Venezuelan sovereignty. The United States rejected a Russia-proposed UN Security Council (UNSC) draft condemning a recent coup attempt in Venezuela. During a virtual session of the UNSC on Wednesday, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy presented a resolution calling on member states to reject the “use of force… terrorism in all its forms and manifestations… [and] the use of mercenaries.” On May 3 and 4, Venezuelan forces neutralized two speedboats carrying armed groups off the country’s Caribbean coast. US special forces veteran Jordan Goudreau claimed to have orchestrated the 60-man incursion together with retired Venezuelan Major General Cliver Alcala, which was aimed at overthrowing the Maduro government.

US Blocks Vote On UN’s Bid For Global Ceasefire

May 10, 2020 Telesur English. , , ,
International diplomats were stunned and frustrated Friday after the United States again blocked a United Nations resolution to call for a global ceasefire during the COVID-19 pandemic, only because the Trump administration objected to an indirect reference to the World Health Organization (WHO). The Security Council has been wrangling for more than six weeks over the resolution, which was intended to demonstrate global support for the call for a ceasefire by the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. However, the main source for the delay was the U.S. refusal to endorse a resolution that urged support for the WHO’s operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. objected to any mention of the WHO in the resolution.

What Trump’s Funding Cuts To WHO Mean For World

April 19, 2020 By Adam Kamradt-Scott, Consortium News. , , ,
US President Donald Trump has announced the U.S. is cutting its funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) – a decision that will have major implications for the global health response to the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. contributes more than $400 million to the WHO per year, though it is already $200 million in arrears. It is the organization’s largest donor and gives about 10 times what China does per year. Trump has accused the organization of mishandling and covering up the initial spread of Covid-19 in China, and of generally failing to take a harsher stance toward China. What will Trump’s decision to cut funding mean for the organization?

The Wrong Side Of History: America’s ‘Veto’ And ‘Abstention-Imperialism’

April 18, 2020 Maj. Danny Sjursen USA (ret.), Popular Resistance. , , ,
On Tuesday, March 17, 1970, Charles Woodruff Yost, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, entered the international body’s headquarters building on the far east side of Midtown Manhattan.  He was about to make history.  The UN was already 25 years old, but nonetheless, the organization’s top superpower had yet to exercise its profound Security Council veto power.  Within a few hours, Yost was set to change all that.  In the interest of what greater good would this patrician, cultivated, career diplomat-scholar wield the veto: Freedom? Liberty? Human dignity? Or the rights of small nations?  Hardly.  No, this day America’s global ambassador brandished the voting "nuclear option" to protect from censure an illegal, racist, white-settler-minority regime - Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe) - that even then waged war, and maintained a state of emergency, to disenfranchise its black majority (some 95% of the populace).

What Does U.N. Secretary General’s Call For Ceasefire Mean For Countries In Conflict?

April 18, 2020 By Samira Sadeque, Inter Press Service. , , ,
United Nations (March 25, 2020) - Conflict experts are concerned the global ceasefire called for by the United Nations amid the coronavirus outbreak may not work and could lead to a rise in violence. Coronavirus or COVID-19 continues spreading, having passed 400,000 cases globally and claiming more than 17,000 deaths. Countries around the world are putting in measures to ensure they can contain the disease. Many countries such as Canada, United States, and Kenya have closed their borders to non-citizens and/or non-essential travels. On Monday, the U.N. secretary general António Guterres appealed for a global ceasefire. “This is crucial,” he said, “to help create corridors for life-saving aid, to open precious windows for diplomacy, to bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.”

We Need Solidarity, Not Sanctions

April 16, 2020 John Scales Avery, Transcend Media Service. , , ,
According to the United Nations Charter, only the Security Council may impose sanctions. No individual nation may do so. Nevertheless, the United States currently imposes economic sanctions on Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela, Belarus, Burundi, Central African Republic, China, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. Besides violating the United Nations Charter, these unilaterally imposed sanctions also violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which collective punishment is a war crime. Article 33 states that “No protected person may be punished for an offence that he or she did not personally commit.”

The Economic Benefits Of A Global Ceasefire

April 14, 2020 David Swanson. , , ,
There doesn’t seem to be any dispute with the findings of various studies, that investing public dollars in most other things (education, green energy, infrastructure, healthcare, etc.), or not taxing the money from working people in the first place, produces more jobs than military spending. In a generally wonderful new book by Clifford Conner called The Tragedy of American Science, the author claims that if a government produces more jobs through non-military spending, private capital will produce fewer jobs, more than eliminating the benefit. Only military spending, he claims, produces jobs nobody else would produce, because military spending – like Great Depression-era jobs digging and then re-filling ditches – produces nothing useful.

UN Ceasefire Defines War As A Non-Essential Activity

April 11, 2020 By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies, Pressenza.com. , , ,
At least 70 countries have signed on to the March 23 call by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a worldwide ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like non-essential business and spectator sports, war is a luxury that the Secretary General says we must manage without for a while. After U.S. leaders have told Americans for years that war is a necessary evil or even a solution to many of our problems, Mr. Guterres is reminding us that war is really the most non-essential evil and an indulgence that the world cannot afford—especially during a pandemic. The UN Secretary General and the European Union have also both called for a suspension of the economic warfare that the U.S. wages against other countries through unilateral coercive sanctions.

Global Ceasefire: List Of Countries Committed

April 2, 2020 World Beyond War. , , ,
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres proposed this global ceasefire: Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19. The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith.  It attacks all, relentlessly. Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world. The most vulnerable — women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced — pay the highest price. They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19. Let’s not forget that in war-ravaged countries, health systems have collapsed. Health professionals, already few in number, have often been targeted. Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are doubly vulnerable. The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.

Eight Countries Under Unilateral Sanctions Ask UN Chief For Help

March 28, 2020 Edith M. Lederer, Apnews.com , , ,
United Nations — Eight countries under unilateral sanctions, mainly from the United States and European Union, urged U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday to request the immediate and complete lifting of those measures to enable the nations to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. In a joint letter obtained by The Associated Press, the ambassadors from China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria and Venezuela urged the U.N. chief to “reject the politicization of such a pandemic.” The ambassadors, who said they were under instructions from their foreign ministers, did not name any countries responsible for what they called “illegal, coercive measures of economic pressure.” But the United States has imposed sanctions on all of the nations except China and the European Union has imposed sanctions on all but Cuba.

Israel Violating Law When It Comes To Coronavirus And Palestinian People

March 24, 2020 Staff, Middleeastmonitor.com , , , ,
Israel is legally responsible for providing health services to ensure the safety of Palestinians in the occupied territories during the fight against the coronavirus, a senior United Nations official has announced. “The legal duty, anchored in Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, requires that Israel, the occupying power...
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