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Saving the Deep Blue Sea Is Up to All of Us
As we have begun to unravel the mysteries of the deep sea over the past two decades, the wisdom behind the international community’s commitments to protect it is clearer than ever. Now is time to act.
Sep 24, 2024
This week’s United Nations General Assembly marks nearly 20 years since the body first resolved to restrict bottom trawling on the world’s seamounts, submarine mountains that rise thousands of feet above the sea floor and comprise some of the most biologically rich marine ecosystems on the planet.
Led by Palau and other small island nations with generations-long ties to the ocean, the ensuing decades witnessed a raft of subsequent agreements that expanded protections for more of the deep sea—the dark, cold waters below 200 meters—culminating last year with the adoption of a treaty to protect marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.
These are important achievements that should be celebrated. But, we have been involved in diplomacy long enough to know that such agreements are often just the beginning of a long and winding journey to full implementation.
Today, for instance, not only does bottom trawling continue on seamounts, it occurs in ever deeper waters, despite scientific evidence of the severe damage it causes to corals and other habitats. In fact, the UN’s most recent World Ocean Assessment found that “fishing, especially bottom trawling, constitutes the greatest current threat to seamount ecosystems”.
A similar story is unfolding elsewhere in the deep sea. Not long ago, the crushing pressure and near total darkness of the mesopelagic layer of the ocean, sometimes referred to as the “twilight zone” (200-1000 meters deep), was thought to be inhospitable to life.
However, technological advances like submersibles and remotely operated vehicles, now offer a window on a world that is alive with deep water fish, squid, and shrimp. It is estimated that this marine realm holds up to 95 percent of all ocean fish by weight and as many as 10 million different species—a level of biodiversity akin to tropical rainforests.
We also now know that the deep sea environment is critical to the health of the ocean’s wider food web, including fish stocks that countless people around the world depend on for food and employment.
Moreover, new research has revealed that the mesopelagic’s staggering biomass plays an indispensable role in the climate system by keeping enormous amounts of heat-trapping gasses out of the atmosphere in a process known as the carbon pump.
However, as overfishing, pollution, and rapidly warming waters continue to take a toll on global fish stocks, nations have increasingly been looking at authorizing their fleets to exploit the deep sea in order to meet the insatiable demand for fish products used in fertilizer, aquaculture, and dietary supplements.
The danger of over-exploitation doesn’t end 1000 meters down. Mining companies have long looked to extend their reach from the land into the deep sea. Today, for example, the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority, which regulates deep-sea mining, is working on finalizing rules to manage commercial operations on the ocean floor.
It has already permitted exploratory mining voyages in the Pacific’s vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where the ships dredge the sea floor 4000-5000 meters below the surface for nodules of nickel, manganese, copper, and cobalt that without government subsidies would never turn a profit.
As elsewhere, the activities could cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem and potentially release carbon that has been stored safely for millennia. If approved, full-scale mining could commence in a few years.
Remarkably (and not without irony), research funded in part by a corporate mining interest recently discovered the presence of “dark oxygen” in the same area of the seabed. It has long been understood that oxygen was created by living organisms in the presence of light through the process of photosynthesis.
However, a study published over the summer suggests that the electrochemical properties of the aforementioned nodules can generate oxygen in total darkness. The findings could have far-reaching implications that help us understand the origins of life and demonstrate the high stakes involved with mining.
As we have begun to unravel the mysteries of the deep sea over the past two decades, the wisdom behind the international community’s commitments to protect it is clearer than ever. Our imperative task today is to fully implement them before it is too late.
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On the Need to Dismantle the Settler-Colonial Bloc at the UN
WEOG, the UN grouping anchored by the Anglo countries, Israel, and European states, wields disproportionate power to undermine human rights and international law.
Sep 08, 2024
What do two South Pacific countries, two North American countries, one country in the Middle East, and (until recently) one country in southern Africa have in common with Europe? The answer is rooted in centuries of imperialism and conquest in the ideologies that have sustained them — and in the four-letter acronym “WEOG.”
Five countries — the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel (and for several years during apartheid, the South African regime) — are part of the UN diplomatic grouping known as “WEOG,” together with 20 European states.
WEOG stands for the “Western Europe and Other Group.” The “WE” for Western Europe is self-evident. But the “other” in the group is more coded, representing states founded by European settler colonialism.
WEOG is one of the five official “regional groupings” of the United Nations. But while the other four are all defined by regional boundaries (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean), WEOG is cross regional and represents something else: the white world.
The White World’s Bloc
This will instantly shock the casual reader, but for practitioners and academics in the world of international relations, it’s a familiar concept. The West has long centered its approach to international relations on race. Indeed, the study of international relations began in the West as “race relations.” And Foreign Affairs, the leading U.S. publication on international relations, was originally the Journal of Race Development.
That approach was never horizontal, but rather one in which whiteness was centered and supreme. While sometimes obscured by a more genteel façade, below the surface the same dynamics continue today.
The message is clear: the defense of settler colonialism (and its inherent atrocities) trumps all other values, all other interests, and all other rules. The wagons must be circled. The colonial project must be protected. Human rights and international law be damned.
Of course, WEOG avoids any such direct racial billing, instead describing itself as a group of “western democracies.” The problem they have, however, is that their membership includes some states that are not (geographically) western, and some that are not democracies. Israel, former member South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand are all situated outside the West.
And as for democracies, original WEOG members Spain, Portugal, and Greece were governed during their membership by dictatorial regimes until the mid-1970s. South Africa and Israel were both admitted under apartheid regimes. And the United States had a formal system of racial segregation until the mid-1960s and was therefore hardly a “democracy” for a significant part of its population.
In other words, WEOG is not now and has never been a group of “western democracies.”
At other times, WEOG has been described as a principally anti-communist or anti-Soviet alliance. But there have been plenty of countries in the global South that opposed the Soviet Union and communism but were never admitted to WEOG. And while the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, WEOG has continued on the same course for over three decades since, proving that this is not principally a Cold War alliance either.
Institutional Inequity
Those tempted to view this as a matter of mere academic interest should first consider that WEOG wields disproportionate power in the UN. WEOG countries represent only about 11 percent of the global population. They are the second smallest UN group — with 29 members compared to the 54 members of the Africa Group, for example.
Nevertheless, three out of five permanent members of the Security Council are WEOG members, and the group enjoys an additional two elected seats on the Council beyond the five permanent members, for a total of seven out of 15 seats. Similar patterns of structural inequities privileging WEOG are reflected in the composition of other intergovernmental bodies as well.
They are also grossly over-represented in the UN’s senior management team. The post of head of political affairs is unofficially reserved for an American, as is the head of UNICEF and of the World Food Programme. The head of peacekeeping is reserved for the French, and humanitarian affairs for the British. And of the nine Secretaries-General in the organization’s history, four have been from WEOG countries.
The group also benefits from the formidable sticks and tempting carrots of the U.S. empire. Regardless of who occupies the rotating chair of the group, the dominant actor remains the United States, the group’s “first among equals.” Even though it sometimes claims to be an “observer,” the United States conveniently accepts full membership when electoral slates for UN bodies are decided.
This disproportionate influence is brought to bear across the UN agenda. The imperial, colonial, and white supremacist roots of WEOG run deep, and they directly impact the policy positions taken by the group (especially the “OGs”) in UN voting. Voting patterns bear this out especially in the defense of colonialism, apartheid, and political Zionism, and in opposition to Indigenous rights, the anti-racism agenda, Palestinian rights, and to the right to development.
This colonial logic is evident in WEOG’s opposition to guaranteeing people control over their own national development, to efforts to control mercenaries (often deployed to deny peoples’ self-determination), and to moves addressing the devastating impact of unilateral coercive measures (like sanctions) imposed by Western governments on countries of the global South.
Members of WEOG actively oppose anti-colonial and post-colonial perspectives on trade, debt, finance, and intellectual property. And when the UN moved to recognize the human right to food in 2021, only the United States and Israel, both WEOG members, voted no. Virtually every effort by formerly colonized countries to break from the exploitative economic relations and destructive racial legacies imposed by their former colonial masters is resisted by WEOG states.
Colonial Values
A clear demonstration of the true nature of the sub-group can be found in its position on the UN’s official global program to combat racism, known as the Durban Declaration.
The global Durban Conference that drafted the declaration in 2001 was boycotted by Israel and the United States — and both the subsequent Durban II review conference and the Durban III meeting were boycotted by Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Israel, and the United States, along with a few European states. The group’s opposition is regularly registered in voting, in diplomatic demarches, and importantly, in positions taken in annual budget negotiations.
Worse still, the United States, Israel, and a hodge-podge of pro-Israel lobby groups, often with the complicity of some European nations, have carried on a decades-long campaign of disinformation to discredit the Declaration, going so far as to call it antisemitic, which is especially ironic given that the Declaration specifically commits the UN to combatting antisemitism.
The Declaration’s real offense? It directly challenges institutionalized racism, including in these countries, and sets out a program of remedial measures. Needless to say, the settler-colonial pedigree of these countries, and their long histories of institutionalized racism, put them squarely in the bullseye of the Declaration, a position that they cannot and will not tolerate. In their view, human rights critique is for the countries of the global South — not for the wealthy, white world of WEOG.
The world saw the same positioning again when the UN General Assembly convened on September 13, 2007 to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, after 20 years of debate. The Declaration was adopted with the overwhelming majority of states voting in favor, a handful abstaining, four countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) voting against. Israel skipped the vote altogether.
Obviously, the shared history (and continued policies) of these five countries in persecuting, dispossessing, and exterminating the Indigenous peoples of the lands they colonized stands in direct contradiction of the provisions of the UN Declaration, and this realization was front and center when they joined forces to oppose it in 2007.
The settler-colonial agenda of the alliance is also evident in voting on Palestine. While most countries of the world recognize the State of Palestine, WEOG is once again the outlier.
The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several European states (and, of course, Israel) have still not recognized Palestine. Israel and the United States (which also uses its veto in the Security Council to block Palestine’s full UN membership) consistently vote against UN resolutions supporting the human rights of the Palestinian people, while Canada often votes no or abstains, and Australia and New Zealand frequently abstain. Apartheid South Africa, during its tenure, was one of Israel’s closest allies and routinely supported it in the UN, while post-apartheid South Africa would become one of Palestine’s closest allies.
Indeed, perhaps most revelatory of the strident commitment of these countries to the defense of settler-colonialism is their lock-step support of Israel, even as Israel perpetrates history’s first live-streamed genocide against the indigenous Palestinians. WEOG countries that had previously made human rights and international law key centerpieces of their international public positioning (however cynically) have turned on a dime to openly distort, devalue, and dismiss these rules in order to buttress Israeli impunity.
Some have even crossed the line into direct complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, exposing themselves both legally and politically. The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, and several other European states have provided arms, financial investments, intelligence support, and diplomatic cover for Israel’s crimes, even while they are being committed.
Calls for Reform
The message is clear: the defense of settler colonialism (and its inherent atrocities) trumps all other values, all other interests, and all other rules. The wagons must be circled. The colonial project must be protected. Human rights and international law be damned.
But the UN has been on a constant trajectory of change, peaking in the mid-1970s after the entry of a large number of newly independent states — and again now, as the unipolar moment of the United States begins to fade.
Calls for reform are growing. And if the UN is to survive, the vestiges of the colonial era will need to give way to more equitable diplomatic, political, and economic arrangements. The principles of the organization, including self-determination, human rights, and equality will need to play a more central role in intergovernmental processes.
And WEOG will need to find its place in a diplomatic museum, alongside the top hats, all-male meetings, and smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear.
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Canada, Australia, and New Zealand PMs Do What Biden Won't: Demand Gaza Cease-Fire
Leaders from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand emphasized that the ICJ's provisional decision is "binding," the need for humanitarian aid "has never been greater," and an Israeli assault on Rafah "would be catastrophic."
Feb 15, 2024
With mounting fears of an Israeli assault on Rafah and the Gaza Strip's death toll already topping 28,500, the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand on Thursday issued a joint statement with demands including a cease-fire, while U.S. President Joe Biden continued to resist mounting pressure to do the same.
Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia, Justin Trudeau of Canada, and Christopher Luxon of New Zealand began by urging the Israeli government not to attack Rafah, warning it "would be catastrophic," given the "already dire" humanitarian crisis across Gaza and approximately 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into the city.
"A sustainable cease-fire is necessary to finding a path towards securing lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians."
The trio—who had previously put out a joint statement in December—highlighted the "growing international consensus" that there must be a cease-fire after over four months of a war that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, which killed over 1,100 people.
As the BBCreported Thursday, French President Emmanuel and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have also expressed opposition to attacking Rafah, while Ireland and Spain have asked the European Commission "to examine 'urgently' whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations in Gaza under an accord linking rights to trade."
According to Albanese, Trudeau, and Luxon:
Israel must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community. The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas.
An immediate humanitarian cease-fire is urgently needed. Hostages must be released. The need for humanitarian assistance in Gaza has never been greater. Rapid, safe, and unimpeded humanitarian relief must be provided to civilians. The International Court of Justice has been clear: Israel must ensure the delivery of basic services and essential humanitarian assistance and must protect civilians. The court's decisions on provisional measures are binding.
Since the court last month ordered Israel to "take all measures within its power" to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention as the South Africa-led case moves forward, Israeli forces have killed thousands of more people in Gaza.
"A sustainable cease-fire is necessary to finding a path towards securing lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians," the three leaders argued. "Any cease-fire cannot be one-sided. Hamas must lay down its arms and release all hostages immediately. We again unequivocally condemn Hamas for its terror attacks on Israel on October 7."
"Ultimately, a negotiated political solution is needed to achieve lasting peace and security," they concluded. "Australia, Canada, and New Zealand remain steadfast in their commitment to a two-state solution, including the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in peace, security, and dignity."
Officials from the United States, Qatar, and Egypt have been negotiating a possible exchange of hostages taken on October 7 and Palestinians imprisoned in Israel as well as a pause in fighting. On Wednesday, The New York Timesreported that "those talks are still underway in Cairo, but, according to Israeli news outlets, Mr. Netanyahu told Israel's representatives not to return to Cairo."
Netanyahu has not publicly confirmed the move but said in a statement Wednesday that "strong military pressure and very tough negotiations" are "the key to freeing more of our hostages." He added: "Indeed, I insist that Hamas drop its delusional demands. When they do so, we will be able to move forward."
While Biden has publicly called out Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and privately expressed frustrations with Netanyahu—reporting the White House contests—his administration has also bypassed Congress to arm Israeli forces and asked federal lawmakers for a $14.3 billion package on top of the $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel.
Like the trio of prime ministers, Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti stressed in Thursday statement that Israel's looming "full-scale attack on Rafah would be catastrophic," though she added that "the U.S. is likely the only government in the world that could sway the Israeli government to not move forward with this plan."
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