The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a magnificent document.  Unfortunately, it has generally been treated as just words on a page, a set of noble ideals which the U.N.'s member states are free to embrace, or to ignore.

If it had a more robust status as fundamental international law, then it would be easier for those member states that are ready and willing to intervene to bring an end to the genocide in Darfur and Chad, for example.

The Declaration was drafted soon after the end of World War II, in a world different from ours, socially and politically and technologically, in many important ways.  The problem has not yet been adequately recognized and addressed, that the economic activities of one state can adversely affect the health and well-being of citizens of other states, for environmental reasons.

In 1986, the Chernobyl disaster damaged the health of people and animals in many states to the west of the Soviet Union, all too often mortally.  Were damages assessed?  Was the Soviet Union forced to recompense anyone?

Chernobyl was an accident, a crime of negligence, a kind of multiple manslaughter.  But now, by contrast, it needs to be recognized that when states carry on business as usual, refusing to control emissions of GHGs, thus contributing to global warming and making the dangers of its effects all the more likely and all the more severe, they are contributing to the poverty, poor health and premature death of people and animals and plants outside their borders.  Inasmuch as it is no accident, the guilt is worse.

The following excerpts from the Declaration could be foundational for a new interpretation of international law, demanding:

1., that the grave dangers of global warming be recognized;

2., that the current economic activities of a number of states which contribute greatly and uncontrolledly to the emission of GHGs -- those states being named -- be acknowledged and published; and

3., that those states, whose activities will certainly endanger the peoples, animals and plants of many, if not all, states, well outside their borders, and who refuse to control those activities, be condemned and held liable.  

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Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
. . .
Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
. . .
Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
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Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

There was a time when murder was not illegal.  Then, in Babylon, the impossible happened and murder was cause for severe punishment so civilization could thrive.

There was a time when slavery was not illegal.  Then, in the United States, the impossible happened and slavery was cause for emancipation so democracy could thrive.

There was a time when pollution was not illegal.  Now, in the United Nations, the impossible happens and pollution is cause for embargo so humanity can survive.

Yes, Shawn, I share your feelings.  Apparently, as Grist has commented in a number of ways, though it is in the air more generally too, more and more people are connecting real, effective action in the face of global warming with morality, questions of human rights, and of what our responsibilities are to one another.

The out-going Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has received a good bit of criticism for his administration's record.  Deservedly or not, I could not say, though I think on balance he has done well.  The Bushies and their allies seem to have been aiming at him for a long time, especially Senator Norm Coleman; their disdain for the U.N. in general is notorious; Cheney's contempt for Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors in Iraq in 2002 and 2003 was disgraceful.  But Annan would really like to see the U.N. be reformed, and become a truly assertive and effective organization in all manner of crises.  In that regard, he is not far from the way of thinking of many Americans, including many supporters of Bush.

But Bush's foreign policy has been such a catastrophe, and so bitterly offensive to so many, that Annan knows no reform will work right now, if it looks at all American, or "Americanist," in inspiration.  So, sadly, Bush and the neo-conservatives may very likely have doomed all the world to the effects of global warming, inasmuch as they provoked everyone's resentful anti-American inaction.

Thanks, Sunflower, for reminding us of those precious historical precedents that you list.

Biodiv, Little Dog writes much better than I.  She has already published a few well-received volumes of sonnets and ballads, and is now working on her first play, which she tells me is a bedroom farce in the style of Euripides.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

   is still the US.  The hope is that BushandCo Inc will decide they can make money over doing something, and that in the long run, the do somethings will gain a competitive economic advantage (you may say I'm a dreamer....).

   Nice to see a report about this, but ummm, Gary, China is still a developing country (based on a per capita income about 1/33 of the US).  

   The recent ASEAN meeting included some discussions of sustainable growth, a term that at least is becoming de-rigor for discussion in the region.

   The other elephants are getting ready to move out....

patrick