31–40 of 152 posts
If you declare too many things to a "human right" it removes wiggle room for good policy making. Also, the US already has stronger rules against vehicle pollution than the EU (in terms of pollution that directly damage health like NOx and PM). If it's going to become a "human right" then countries who propose it should be leading it in the first place.
Just look at who sits on Human Rights council.
As a US tax payer, I'd like to see the expense of supporting that entity move to some other nation state...we get zero value out of having it in CONUS, and it can't move the needle on anything.
> "At national level, this right has been shown to empower people, particularly those most vulnerable to environmental damage or climate change, to drive change and hold governments to account" Right, so one of the consequences would be that the US gives a bunch of activists permission to use the legal system to harass anything that they like — not just new projects, but everything that exists in the world. Perhaps w…
> "At national level, this right has been shown to empower people, particularly those most vulnerable to environmental damage or climate change, to drive change and hold governments to account" Right, so one of the consequences would be that the US gives a bunch of activists permission to use the legal system to harass anything that they like — not just new projects, but everything that exists in the world. Perhaps w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It matters as much as recognizing anything as a human right formally matters. U.N. is not good at enforcing human rights really, but it's better than nothing, and diluting it further is a step to "nothing" in my opinion.
It's not better than nothing. Entirely corrupting the definition of human rights by routinely putting the worst human rights offenders on the human rights council, is worse than doing nothing. It gives sanction to those human rights offenses by pretending those nations deserve to be on the human rights council, that they have earned equal representation on such a matter. The UN would be doing the same thing if this c…
This article is weirdly devoid of relevant information about the objections. They mention legal concerns from Washington but don’t explain them for some reason. I’m also very confused about this line about halfway down the article: > The United States is not currently a Council member but is vying for a seat and can still join debates as an observer. Are they saying that the US isn’t even a voting member of the counc…
> They mention legal concerns from Washington but don’t explain them for some reason.
Odds are they haven't actually been spelled out because they amount to "it'll cause huge disruptions to business because they'll all suddenly be suable for their decades of environmental damages". The government is maximally vague on these things so it's harder to actually refute.
China has been denying people human rights daily, what does the UN do to them?
It's just as relevant as your comment.
A healthy environment for people is arguably a human right.
A clean environment is not, and pathetic mental health arguments do not cut it else everyone gets whatever makes them happy.
Biodiversity is also not a human right. Have we lost our minds and not understand English words? I guess the UN has become joke and the US and Britian are correct to ignore it.
It's pretty disgusting behaviour give the billions of people missing real human rights still.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
China is a disgusting bully. They’re intentionally rattling people in Taiwan by flying war planes at them to “stress them out”. The UN is a joke. Something should be done.
This is unhelpful whataboutery. China isn't directly relevant. I could just as truthfully point out that the USA is a disgusting bully and that would be unhelpful too. We wouldn't think it reasonable if someone on trial for embezzlement asked the jury to acquit because there are other people out in the world committing murder. We only put up with it in news and politics because we have normalized and accepted propaga…