Amid Human Rights Crisis, Indigenous Communities Demand Protections
Tribes displaced by the climate crisis urge action from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Biden administration.
Today, five U.S. Indigenous communities facing forced relocation imposed by the consequences of climate change called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to honor international human rights obligations by protecting them and other vulnerable communities. Leaders from the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, and Grand Bayou Village in Louisiana, along with Alaska's Kivalina community highlighted the U.S. government's failure to allocate funds, technical assistance, and other resources to support their communities' adaptation efforts to a changing climate, and denounced U.S. efforts to block remedies and reparations for victims of human rights abuses imposed climate change.
The climate crisis is making the planet unlivable, displacing communities worldwide. Rising sea levels, soil erosion, catastrophic storms, and fossil fuel extraction have altered lands occupied for generations by Indigenous peoples. In the U.S. alone, hundreds of Indigenous peoples have been forced to either relocate to new lands or scramble to find solutions that will allow them to stay in their homes. Despite being aware of these risks, the U.S. government has failed to allocate funds, technical assistance, and other resources to support the Tribes' rights to self-determination to implement community-led adaptation efforts. Due to this insufficient action, Tribes now face the loss of sacred ancestral homelands, the destruction of sacred burial sites, and the endangerment of their cultural traditions, heritage, health, lives, and livelihoods.
"The United States government has failed to protect the individual and collective human rights of the Indigenous Tribes in Louisiana and Alaska from the climate crisis," said Maryum Jordan, Climate Justice Attorney for EarthRights International, which supports the Tribes. "Yet the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights specifies that States should take measures to slow the negative consequences of climate change, devoting whatever resources necessary to address it. The Commission is also clear that Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. In not taking effective action on their behalf, the U.S. has violated the rights of these Tribes."
"Prior to the hearing, we learned that this is only the fourth time in the organization's history that the subject of climate change will be publicly presented as a complaint before the commissioners," said Rachel Gore Freed, Vice President of Programs at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), also supporting the tribal leaders through the complaint process. "This is indicative of the gravity of this issue and just how vital it is that we call attention to it in an international forum. These tribes are making history by calling out the dismal record of both state and federal governments in respecting their right to self-determination and providing equitable solutions to this crisis."
The Tribes call on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to:
Facilitate interactions between them and a government delegation, including representatives from the Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and representatives from the governments of Alaska and Louisiana.
Recognize that climate-forced displacement is a human rights crisis and conduct an In Loco visit to their communities.
Produce a comprehensive report or resolution on climate-forced displacement and the obligations of States to provide Indigenous and other vulnerable communities protection and mitigation from the effects of climate change.
The Tribes also urge the commission to make the following recommendations to the U.S. federal government:
Immediately provide federal aid directly to the Tribes to rebuild and bolster the protection of their homes, ancestral lands, and traditional sites (including burial sites) from pending storms and the ongoing impacts of the climate crisis.
Recognize the self-determination and inherent sovereignty of all of the Tribes, including those federally recognized and those who have not received federal recognition, in all relevant government policies related to addressing climate change and disaster aid.
Grant federal recognition to the Tribal Nations in Louisiana so that these Tribes can access federal resources that will support their self-governance in light of the various climate impacts that affect them.
Recognize the tribes' collective rights to the land, subsistence, and cultural identities and their collective right to return to and maintain access to their ancestral homelands.
Develop a federal relocation institutional framework that is based on human rights protections to adequately respond to the threats facing Tribal Nations, including the rapid provision of resources for adaptation efforts that protect the right to culture, health, safe drinking water, food, and adequate housing.
Background
The Jean Charles Choctaw Nation of Louisiana are descendants of three historic Tribes who inhabited southern Louisiana and the southeastern part of what is now the United States. The Tribe was originally located on Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, an area in southern Terrebonne Parish that has lost most of its land mass. Now only approximately 18 of 700 total tribal citizens live on the island, while others form a diaspora in nearby communities. Before 2021's Hurricane Ida, approximately 80 tribal citizens lived on the Island. The Jean Charles Choctaw Nation is a state-recognized Tribe and has been seeking federal recognition since the 1990s. Since 2002, the Tribe has been actively working to implement Tribal-led resettlement to bring both island residents and the diaspora together in one place to ensure their safety and cultural survival.
The Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe (PACIT) has inhabited their traditional territory in the southernmost end of Louisiana along and around Bayou Pointe-au-Chien for generations. Several villages where Pointe-au-Chien members historically lived are no longer inhabitable due to land loss and saltwater intrusion. As a consequence, many tribal citizens have been forced to relocate to family properties further north in the current Pointe-au-Chien village, nearby communities, or beyond. PACIT is a state-recognized tribe and has been seeking federal recognition since the 1990s. Today, Pointe-au-Chien Indians continue to maintain a subsistence and agrarian livelihood - fishing and catching oysters, shrimp, and crabs and growing vegetables. Saltwater intrusion has limited the ability of tribal members to engage in large-scale agricultural practices and has made the land unusable for herding and trapping.
The Grand Caillou/Dulac Band is a Tribe of 1,098 citizens who have historically lived in and around the ancestral village of Grand Caillou/Dulac in southern Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. The Grand Caillou/Dulac Band, as part of the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees, was recognized by the state of Louisiana in 2004 and has been working to gain federal recognition since the 1990s. Like other tribal communities in southern Louisiana, the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band has traditionally sustained itself through trapping, fishing, and farming in lands and waters that were historically fertile. But the diversion of the Mississippi River and other development projects, oil and gas extraction, erosion, salt-water intrusion, and the climate crisis has threatened these practices. Land loss and increasingly severe storms now put the community at frequent risk of disaster and flooding.
Grand Bayou Village, home of the Atakapa-Ishak Chawasha Tribe, is located in the southernmost part of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, south of New Orleans, and is accessible only by boat. The Atakapa-Ishak Chawasha does not have formal state or federal recognition as an Indian Tribe. In the last century, the Mississippi River levee systems, sea level rise, and destruction of wetlands caused by oil and gas exploration have caused the lands around the village to erode and subside. Saltwater intrusion has killed local forests and medicinal plants and made it impossible to carry out traditional gardening. Major storms, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, flooded the community and destroyed homes, causing many families to move elsewhere. Today, only 14 families live full-time in Grand Bayou - in homes built on 16-foot pilings. The community is routinely at risk from coastal land loss, flooding, and storms.
The Native Village of Kivalina in Alaska is a federally recognized Tribe and includes approximately 400 Inupiaq people. The community is located on a barrier reef island between the Chukchi Sea and the mouths of the Wulik and Kivalina Rivers. No roads lead to or from the community, which is only accessible by small planes or boats. Kivalina is approximately 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 1,000 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. Inupiaq communities have resided in this region for thousands of years. Historically, the island where Kivalina sits had been used by Inupiaq people for seasonal hunting and fishing, not permanent habitation. But the government forced the Tribe to permanently settle on the Island in the early 1900s. Reports of residents wishing to move because of the risks of erosion date back as early as 1910. To this day, the community has not been able to relocate.
The Tribes are supported by the Lowlander Center, EarthRights, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Alaska Institute for Justice, and the Indian Legal Clinic at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Conner School of Law.
EarthRights International (ERI) is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization that combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment, which we define as "earth rights." We specialize in fact-finding, legal actions against perpetrators of earth rights abuses, training grassroots and community leaders, and advocacy campaigns. Through these strategies, EarthRights International seeks to end earth rights abuses, to provide real solutions for real people, and to promote and protect human rights and the environment in the communities where we work.
If Biden 'Must Step Aside,' Why Aren't Democrats Filling the Streets to Demand It?
So far, one journalist noted, "the loudest voices trying to force him out of the race are elites: major media columnists and wealthy donors."
The number of congressional Democrats urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the race for the White House grew on Tuesday, but many of their colleagues—along with other elected officials and voters—remain supportive of the aging Democratic leader's effort to beat former Republican President Donald Trump a second time.
Since Biden's poor debate performance last month sparked concerns about whether he can defeat Trump and effectively serve another term, the president has remained defiant, insisting that he is determined to stay in the race—as he made clear with a Monday letter to Democrats in Congress that he also shared on social media.
Not only does the movement to convince Biden that he "must step aside" before the Democratic National Convention in August appear to be failing, "it's failing in a very predictable way," according to David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect.
"Though polling has consistently registered massive public concern with Biden's age and his ability to withstand the rigors of a high-stakes campaign, let alone another term in office until he turns 86 years old, the loudest voices trying to force him out of the race are elites: major media columnists and wealthy donors," he wrote Tuesday. "They lack democratic legitimacy and the public's respect, even as they are expressing the popular will. And they have given Biden the opportunity to parry their attacks simply by employing the politics of resentment."
"There is one group trying to change this. A very new organization (it literally started last Friday afternoon) founded by a handful of Democratic organizers called Pass the Torch is trying to motivate ordinary Democrats to speak out about the need for a stronger ticket to defeat Donald Trump," Dayen pointed out. While the group has a petition and is talking with convention delegates, he added, "an effort like Pass the Torch will really only derive legitimacy from having a large number of rank-and-file voices behind it."
Reflecting on Biden and Trump's disastrous debate in a Tuesday opinion piece for Common Dreams, writer and retired mental health worker Phil Wilson asserted that "members of a sane society would be thundering angrily through the streets given the choice between a smoldering ghost and an aspiring Nazi monster."
Wilson continued:
Who chose these two? Why are 50 million people curled up on couches, wrapped around plastic bowls of popcorn while these terrible, inept, and heartless fools cough up lies and trivial asides? We reflect upon levels of dementia and Nazi wannabe evil as if they were existential givens. Of course we all must decide on November 5th which genocidaire we prefer, the one who bombed the children of Gaza or the one vowing to deport up to 20 million innocent people. Do we pick the one who can barely remember his own name or the guy with a swirling vortex of hatred orbiting his eyeballs?
"This election is a farce—the dying throes of a criminal society, the death spasms of a plundering oligarchy that once devoured most of the world and now cannibalizes its own," he concluded.
Also writing for Common Dreams on Tuesday, University of Essex professor Peter Bloom argued that "the recent Trump-Biden debate served as a grotesque apotheosis of 'great man' politics, laying bare the dangerous fallacy of entrusting democracy to the outsized personalities of flawed individuals."
"The future of democracy, in the U.S. and beyond, depends on our ability to move beyond the cult of personality and reclaim politics as a collective endeavor," According to Bloom. "The alternative—a continued descent into gerontocratic oligarchy thinly disguised as populism—is too dire to contemplate. As we watch two aged politicians compete for the chance to lead a nation in crisis, let it serve as a wake-up call. The era of great men is over. The real work of rebuilding our democracy is just beginning."
Biden's campaign and supporters continue to frame his reelection as crucial to the fight to save U.S. democracy—particularly given that a victorious Trump would be armed with new king-like powers, thanks to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
As John Nichols, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, noted Monday, Biden himself "says that the country is at 'an inflection point,' where the future of American democracy is at stake."
"This requires more than putting in your best effort in a controlled setting," Nichols wrote, describing Biden's Friday rally in Wisconsin as "serviceable" but far from what is needed. "It requires an absolutely determined candidate and a big, bold, risk-taking campaign that inspires Wisconsinites, and voters nationwide, to defeat Trump and Trumpism. If Biden really is determined to stay in this race, he owes it to himself, his party, and his country to be all in."
The president has received similar advice from progressives in Congress. Since the debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020—has stood by Biden but also stressed that he must "do better," for which the senator has received some criticism.
Progressives in the House were noticeably quieter—as Slate's Alexander Sammon noted last week, "There's no real upside for Squad members to put themselves in the line of fire during an already bitter public deliberation"—until multiple members of the informal group confirmed support for Biden on Monday.
"The matter is closed," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told reporters Monday evening, citing her weekend conversation with Biden and his repeated statements over recent days that he has no intention of stepping aside. "He is in this race and I support him."
Rep. @AOC: President Biden has made clear that he is in this race. The matter is closed. Biden is our nominee. He is in this race and I support him. He is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions. Not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to… pic.twitter.com/MOvUu3VQU5
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 8, 2024
"Now what I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions, that has committed 34 felony crimes, and not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee," she continued.
Ocasio-Cortez explained that she has "communicated" to Biden that winning the election will require Democrats to "pivot and increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country," including rent and mortgage relief as well as the expansion of Medicare and Social Security.
"And if we can do that and continue our work on student loans, secure a cease-fire, and bring those dollars back into investing in public policy, then that's how we win in November," she added. "That's what I'm committed to and that's what I want to make sure we secure."
With lawmakers back on Capitol Hill following the Independence Day recess, Democrats in both chambers held caucus meetings on Tuesday. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters, "As I've said before, I'm with Joe," Politicoreported that "many typically chatty senators almost entirely refused to talk with press about their caucus' conversation."
House Democrats met earlier in the day. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who ended his longshot primary challenge to Biden and endorsed him in March, told reporters, "If this has been vindication, vindication has never been so unfulfilling."
"I made my case eight months ago and I think it's time for others to share their perspectives," he said. "I'm deeply disappointed in a political system that has resulted in this dynamic that we now face."
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) joined the small but growing contingent urging him to step down, saying: "I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country. That's why I am asking that he declare that he won't run for reelection."
As the Pass the Torch campaign highlighted on social media Tuesday, some congressional Democrats are worried that Biden remaining at the top of the ticket could have a negative downballot impact.
At least one congressman who reportedly urged Biden to exit the race over the weekend, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), appeared to change course. He declined to comment on what he privately told Biden but said: "The president made very clear yesterday that he's running... We have to support him."
After House Democrats' meeting, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) toldPolitico, "My personal takeaway is that Joe Biden has tremendous support from the Democratic caucus, and we're going to move forward."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, suggested in a Monday statement that even as public and private conversations are taking place within the party about the best way forward, nobody should forget the core differences between what Democrats and Biden represent compared to Trump and his Republican Party.
"Make no mistake, the foundation of our democracy is at stake in this election," said Jayapal.
"Any reporter or pundit who is asking about or talking about the aftermath of President Biden's debate performance and his health," she continued, "should also be spending at least the same amount of time and energy talking to Republicans about why they are still supporting a convicted felon who incited an insurrection and wants to be dictator on day one."
"Republicans should be calling for Donald Trump to step down as a candidate for president," she added. "The press should be covering for the American people the dozens of lies he told at the debate and the horrific statements he continues to make about immigrants and women. They should be asking every single Republican member why they support the democracy-destroying Project 2025."
While Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025—spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, one of the sponsors of the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin next week—the Biden campaign and other critics have called "bullshit" on the frequently dishonest former president's claims.
"After trying and failing to cover up his deep ties to Project 2025 authors and Heritage Foundation leadership, Trump is putting his MAGA besties on full display," Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said of the convention sponsorship Tuesday. "Donald Trump can't hide from Project 2025—it's his agenda, his vision, and his dangerous and extreme plan for America's future."
New Ally Joins Fight to Defend Rooftop Solar in California
"It's outrageous that California regulators keep attacking rooftop solar and it has to stop," said one attorney in the case.
A leading U.S. green group on Tuesday joined the legal challenge to a California rule banning solar contractors from installing or maintaining photovoltaic battery storage.
The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) joined an amended lawsuit filed in San Diego County Superior Court against a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regulation enacted last year in accordance with the wishes of Pacific Gas & Electric and two other investor-owned utilities.
The amended lawsuit supplements a complaint filed by CalPIRG, the Solar Rights Alliance, the California Solar & Storage Association, and a solar contractor adversely affected by the new CPUC rule. Climate campaigners and Democratic state lawmakers have previously launched challenges to the regulation.
CBD said the new rule "would increase the cost and administrative burden of installing rooftop solar and storage, vital technologies that make communities more resilient to utility blackouts and the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency."
Roger Lin, a CBD senior attorney, said in a statement: "It's outrageous that California regulators keep attacking rooftop solar and it has to stop. They're undermining California's climate goals and putting clean energy further out of reach for working-class families."
"This licensing trick is straight from the utility playbook and will cause electricity rates to skyrocket while worsening the climate emergency," Lin added. "People are dying from extreme heat and California desperately needs smart, resilient energy solutions. Instead, the board is propping up a brittle electricity grid that devastates critical habitats and promotes environmental injustice."
The new suit came on the same day that the California Energy Commission (CEC) announced nearly $19 million in new grants meant to assist communities in their efforts to automate the approval of residential solar energy permits.
"We are thrilled to be able to disburse funds to over 330 cities and counties across California to make it easier for residents to go solar," CEC Chair David Hochschild said in a statement, calling the program "a win for residents, building departments, solar businesses, and our environment."
UN Experts Say 'Targeted Starvation Campaign' by Israel Has Led to Famine Across Gaza
The starvation of Palestinians in Gaza "is a form of genocidal violence," said 10 rights experts.
While the United Nations still has not formally declared a famine in Gaza after nine months of Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid, 10 top U.N. experts on Tuesday said they have seen enough.
"We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza," said the experts.
Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food, was joined in the statement by other experts including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, and Paula Gaviria Betancur, special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons.
They said the recent deaths of three children in various parts of the enclave led the experts, who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations as a whole, to declare a famine has taken hold.
"Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on May 30, 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah," said the experts. "Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3, 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare."
"With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza," they continued.
At least 34 Palestinians in Gaza—the majority being children—have now died from malnutrition since October, when Israel began its bombardment of the enclave in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced there would "be no electricity, no food, no fuel" allowed in to Gaza.
Israeli officials said in response to Tuesday's statement that it has increased the aid allowed into Gaza recently, but hundreds of delivery trucks remain stranded in Egypt and a floating pier built by the U.S. has not significantly improved the humanitarian crisis.
The U.N. experts said that with the first death of a child from malnutrition and dehydration, it should have been considered "irrefutable that famine has taken hold."
"When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4, respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza," they said. "The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel's genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths... Inaction is complicity."
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which is backed by the U.N., said last month that Gaza is at high risk for famine and that nearly half a million people were facing "catastrophic" food insecurity, with an extreme lack of food.
In May, Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier, who had previously hesitated to say Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, said Israel's "sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory" ultimately convinced him that Israeli officials are "engaged in genocide."
In March, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to ensure its military refrain from violating the Genocide Convention by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people in Gaza, saying that "the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further" and that "famine is setting in."
A woman named Ghaneyma Joma told Reuters on Monday at a hospital in Khan Younis that she feared her son would soon die of starvation.
"It's distressing to see my child... lying there dying from malnutrition because I cannot provide him with anything due to the war, the closing of crossings, and the contaminated water," she told the outlet.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S. government, the biggest international funder of Israel's military and a persistent defender of its actions in Gaza, to ensure that a cease-fire agreement is reached and that Palestinians receive necessary humanitarian aid.
"The intentional starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza can only occur with the active complicity of the Biden administration in Israel's campaign of genocide," said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the group. "This complicity must end, and the Palestinian people must be offered a future in which they are free of occupation and can live in dignity."