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22 November 2013
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his address to the high-level segment of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change taking place in Warsaw, Poland, that ‘climate change threatens current and future generations’. He also said that ‘all of us in this room share a momentous responsibility (…) We must rise to these challenges with wisdom, urgency and resolve to address climate change’. He expressed deep concern that the scale of efforts being undertaken by the international community are still insufficient to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
Source: United Nations | Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon | Latest Statements | Warsaw, 19 November 2013 - Secretary-General's remarks to the Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP19/CMP9) High-level Segment
21 November 2013
The United States and Afghanistan have agreed on a bilateral security agreement that would allow for a lasting American troop presence through 2024. On the controversial issue of American searches of Afghan homes, the draft states that American counterterrorism operations will be intended to ‘complement and support’ Afghan missions. It underscores that Afghan forces will be in the lead and that any American military operations will be carried out ‘with full respect for Afghan sovereignty and full regard for the safety and security of the Afghan people, including in their homes.’
The draft also states that United States military personnel would be subject only to American military law, and that Afghanistan pledges not to turn them over to any international tribunals. It does, however, grant Afghanistan jurisdiction over contractors.
Source: The New York Times | Pact May Extend U.S. Troops’ Stay in Afghanistan
20 November 2013
The New York Times reports that the United States is considering plans to place the chemical components of the weapons on a barge at sea where they would be dissolved or incinerated.
Officials from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is operating in Syria to locate and identify the weapons, would monitor the destruction, which would be carried out following safety standards set by legislation in the United States and the European Union. By destroying the weapons in international waters, the effort would not require approval by any particular country.
Earlier, Albania and Norway turned down an appeal by the United States to destroy the weapons on its territory. A US official said that the United States has not given up on finding a country that would accept the 1,000 tons of precursors and other chemicals in Syria’s arsenal.
Source: The New York Times | Options Narrowed, U.S. Is Said to Weigh Destroying Syrian Chemicals at Sea
19 November 2013
A piece in the New York Times draws attention to the risks raised by the decision of the Security Council to authorise the United Nations Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to ‘neutralize armed groups’, contrary to prior passive peacekeeping forces. This brigade is comprised of 3,000 soldiers from South Africa, Tanzania, and Malawi.
It notes that the Congolese government walked out on peace talks with rebels, as a result of such one-sided support from the UN. Additionally, this authorisation could affect peacekeeping operations worldwide, as there are almost 100,000 peacekeepers stationed from the Western Sahara and Haiti, to Cyprus and Kashmir. Humanitarian aid organisations are considered such operations will put their workers at risk because armed groups will no longer distinguish soldiers and those that provide food and shelter to civilians during war. Furthermore, countries which traditionally send many troops to serve as peacekeepers, such as India and Uruguay, feel uneasy about this new direction, as prior peacekeeping posed little risk of casualties. A UN official, speaking anonymously, was concerned about the precedent which would be set by this authorisation and stated that the Security Council was ‘careful to say it was not a precedent, but every time you say that that’s exactly what you’re making.’
Source: New York Times | New U.N. Brigade’s Aggressive Stance in Africa Brings Success, and Risks
18 November 2013
On 14 November 2013, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) held in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland v. Kaveh Puid case that a member state which is prohibited from returning an asylum seeker under the Dublin II Regulation to a country where the applicant would be at risk of being ill-treated, is not, in principle, obliged to assume responsibility for that application.
In those circumstances, as already stated in 2011 in C-411/10 N.S. and C-493/10 M.E. and others, and reiterated by the CJEU in its current ruling, the member state intending to send the asylum seeker back to another country must continue to examine the responsibility criteria set out in the Dublin Regulation to see if another member state can be made responsible.
If no other country can be identified as responsible for examining the application, the member state where the asylum seeker is located must assume responsibility for examining the application. The member state must also assume responsibility if the process of determining responsibility takes ‘an unreasonable length of time’.
Source: Court of Justice of the European Union | Judgment in Case C-4/11 | Press Release No 147/13 | Bundesrepublik Deutschland v Kaveh Puid | Luxembourg, 14 November 2013