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World News, Blase Kornacki, Abby Okrent, Jennifer Rohlender, Mauro Zinner
World News, Blase Kornacki, Abby Okrent, Jennifer Rohlender, Mauro Zinner
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The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (“FAO”) announced that there is an increased risk of the bird flu spread- ing to North Africa and East Africa. The FAO warns that East Africa in particular will have difficulties containing the flu. The close proximity between humans and animals in East Africa creates an ideal situation for spreading the flu to people. A number of African countries have already responded to predictions of avian flu. For instance, Congo-Brazzaville banned poultry imports. South Africa’s Department of Health placed an urgent request for the flu medicine Tamiflu to be approved for use in the …
Water Privatization And Obstacles To Achieving Millennium Development Goal Seven's Targets For Sustainable Drinking Water, Maria Vanko
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Militant uprisings in Cochabamaba, Bolivia in 1999 occurred after the private water provider implemented a 300 percent fee increase. In 2003, tariffs increased 700 percent while the water operator’s negligence led to cholera outbreaks in West Manila, Philippines. Increased prices make safe water unaffordable for vulnerable populations, forcing families to make trade-offs between water, schooling, food, and healthcare. Private industry is also less likely to participate in areas where recovery of their investment is riskier.
The Anti-Prostitution Pledge: Limiting Speech And Development, Rachel Moshman
The Anti-Prostitution Pledge: Limiting Speech And Development, Rachel Moshman
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 (“Global AIDS Act” or “GAA”) places two limitations on organizations that are eligible to receive funding under this Act. First, funding may not be used to “promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking.” Second, any organization that receives funding must have a “policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking . . .” The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2003 (“TVPA”) has similar requirements. It states that no funding can be made available to “promote, support, or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution,” and that any organization receiving funding …
Keeping Cell Phones Affordable: Regulating The Private Sector's Contribution To Development, Rachel Moshman
Keeping Cell Phones Affordable: Regulating The Private Sector's Contribution To Development, Rachel Moshman
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
One of the targets of Millennium Development Goal Eight, “Develop a Global Partnership for Development,” is to cooperate with the private sector to “make available the benefits of new technologies – especially information and communications technologies.” International development professionals, such as Jeffrey Sachs, have listed numerous benefits that can be brought to the developing world through cell phone technology, including communicating with long-distance family members, increasing communication between different villages, finding employment opportunities, having more options in emergency situations, allowing fisherman and farmers to check market prices before leaving the village, and allowing quick and easy transfer of funds. Cell …
The Millennium Development Goals And Hiv/Aids, J.C. Sylvan
The Millennium Development Goals And Hiv/Aids, J.C. Sylvan
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
In the countries hardest hit by the epidemic, the problem is compounded by the reality that many national health care systems, which will bear the burden of improving available treatments, are themselves in crisis. In years past, many developing countries, encouraged by international financial institutions and trusting in privatization, cut their health care budgets. As a result, health care has been chronically under-funded in many of these countries. According to a recent report by the UN Millennium Project, “[p]overty, misplaced priorities, and years of externally imposed restrictions on social spending have left health services for over two billion people dysfunctional, …
Conditional Cash Transfers: Progress Towards The Millennium Development Goals, Blase Kornacki
Conditional Cash Transfers: Progress Towards The Millennium Development Goals, Blase Kornacki
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Conditional cash transfer programs are transforming Latin America’s approach to social welfare. CCTs provide money to families living in extreme poverty in exchange for the commitment to invest in human capital. The programs aim at replacing the “traditional supply-side mechanisms” with “demand-side interventions to directly support beneficiaries.” Traditional mechanisms battled poverty with subsidies or direct investments in public goods, whereas the new approach channels support directly to the people and promotes investment in human capital, using market approaches as an incentive to use social services such as primary and secondary education and local health centers.
Protecting Children And Their Mothers: The Millennium Development Goals Push Lofty Heath Targets, Frank Pigott
Protecting Children And Their Mothers: The Millennium Development Goals Push Lofty Heath Targets, Frank Pigott
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 (“UN report”) shows that child mortality is strongly related to poverty level, as poor countries have less access to advances in child survival treatments than wealthier countries. Five diseases are responsible for fifty percent of all deaths of children under five – pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and AIDS. The data suggests that nutrition is the most important preventative measure, because malnutrition weakens the immune system. According to the UN report, safe water, better sanitation, education, and higher income levels can also increase a child’s life expectancy. Other measures to reduce child mortality …
Establishing Sound Chemicals Management A Prerequisite For Achieving The Millennium Development Goals, Kelly Rain
Establishing Sound Chemicals Management A Prerequisite For Achieving The Millennium Development Goals, Kelly Rain
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Modern society could not maintain its current standard of living without chemicals; however, sound chemicals management is necessary to prevent harm to human health and the environment. The United Nations Environment Programme – along with governments, relevant intergovernmental groups, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders – has begun the process of establishing a Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (“SAICM”). The importance of this process is far-reaching, demonstrated by the fact that hazardous chemicals hinder the achievement of development targets, such as the Millennium Development Goals (“MDGs”).
Access To Justice And The Right To Adequate Food: Implementing Millennium Development Goal One, Marc J. Cohen, Mary Ashby Brown
Access To Justice And The Right To Adequate Food: Implementing Millennium Development Goal One, Marc J. Cohen, Mary Ashby Brown
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
The first MDG adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 is to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,” with a target of “[reducing] by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.” The 1996 World Food Summit (“WFS”) had similarly agreed on “reducing the number of undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015.”
Making Law Work: Environmental Compliance & Sustainable Development By Durwood Zaelke, Donald Kaniaru, And Eva Kružíková Cameron May Ltd., 2005, Cari Shiffman
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
The compilation, produced by the Secretariat of the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (“INECE”), along with the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, at the University of California in Santa Barbara, is a two volume collection of literature by both academics and practitioners that details the strengths and weaknesses of environmental compliance within legal systems. Editors Durwood Zaelke, Director of the INECE Secretariat, Donald Kaniaru, Managing Partner of Kaniaru & Kaniaru Advocates in Nairobi, Kenya, and Eva Kružíková, co- founder and …
Promoting Gender Equality Through Global Education Targets- The Third Millennium Development Goal, Nikka Thakker
Promoting Gender Equality Through Global Education Targets- The Third Millennium Development Goal, Nikka Thakker
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Achieving this goal by 2015 seems optimistic; the first half of the goal was not fulfilled since a gender gap still exists in primary and secondary education. In a report released in 2003, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (“UNICEF”) urged that “accelerated action” must be taken to get more girls into school over the next two years, otherwise other MDGs, including goals to reduce poverty and improve the human condition, would also not be realized. By keeping the girls away from the classroom, they will lack the knowledge necessary, for example, to keep themselves out of poverty and …
The Carbon Emissions Market Bottoms Out In One South African Community, Rachel Moshman
The Carbon Emissions Market Bottoms Out In One South African Community, Rachel Moshman
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Through Flexible Mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol, countries and private companies are able to buy credits for carbon emissions reduced in other countries to compensate for the carbon emissions they are not reducing themselves. The Clean Development Mechanism (“CDM”) encourages developed countries and private companies to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries in exchange for carbon credits that will be counted as a reduction in the funder’s overall carbon emissions output.
World News, Jane Garrido, Catherine Landers, Cari Shiffman
World News, Jane Garrido, Catherine Landers, Cari Shiffman
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Health experts in Kenya have warned that the continued usage of leaded fuel in the region could increase the number of deaths from respiratory illnesses. Top environmental scientists with the United Nations Environment Programme (“UNEP”) concluded that Nairobi, Kenya is one of the most highly polluted cities in the world, in part due to the vehicles and leaded fuel used in the city. Leaded fuel exacerbates the problem by destroying the catalytic converters in vehicles, which normally act as pollution guards.
Inuit Circumpolar Conference V. Bush Administration: Why The Arctic Peoples Claim The United States' Role In Climate Change Has Violated Their Fundamental Human Rights And Threatens Their Very Existence, Juliette Niehuss
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
In 2003, at a series of climate talks in Milan, Italy, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (“ICC”), the main representative body for over 150,000 Inuit peoples within the Arctic rim, announced that the Alaskan and Canadian Inuit were developing a human rights petition against the United States to be submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (“IACHR”). The Inuit are claiming that the United States has effectively violated their fundamental human rights and threatened their very existence by refusing to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and by reneging on its international commitments to address climate change.
The Financial Service Industry And Climate Change: Insurance And Reinsurance, Cari Shiffman
The Financial Service Industry And Climate Change: Insurance And Reinsurance, Cari Shiffman
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Rising greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions – a major driver of climate change – could negatively impact human activity and natural resources. Even small fluctuations in temperature or precipitation could have amplified effects for humans and ecosystems. With global energy consumption estimated to increase 150 to 230 percent by 2050, the demand for solutions to climate change will intensify. As both a source of emissions and a potential provider of solutions, business has a pivotal role to play.
The Legal Implications Of The Israeli-Palestinian Water Crisis, Juliette Niehuss
The Legal Implications Of The Israeli-Palestinian Water Crisis, Juliette Niehuss
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
While the non-oil economy of the Middle East is largely agricultural, it is based in an arid, untamable desert environment. Water is naturally scarce in the region, and there has always been conflict over possession and use of water resources. Recent history has shown that while water supplies in the Middle East are limited, maldistribution and overuse of water resources by Israel has aggravated development, and ultimately peace, between Israel and Palestine, and the region as a whole. Specifically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be attributed, in part, to disputes over scarce and valuable water resources of the Jordan River basin …
Protecting A Hidden Treasure: The U.N International Law Commission And The International Law Of Transboundary Ground Water Resources, Gabriel E. Eckstein
Protecting A Hidden Treasure: The U.N International Law Commission And The International Law Of Transboundary Ground Water Resources, Gabriel E. Eckstein
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
Today, ground water is the most extracted natural resource in the world. It provides more than half of humanity’s fresh- water for everyday uses such as drinking, cooking, and hygiene, as well as twenty percent of irrigated agriculture. In Europe, between sixty and ninety-nine percent of drinking water comes from ground water; in the United States, that number is between one-half to ninety-seven percent. Overall, water use today is increasing four to eight percent per year, far outpacing the global population growth of 1.4 percent annually.
The Challenge Of Battling Privatization: A Case Study Of Swedish Water Companies, Erin Webreck
The Challenge Of Battling Privatization: A Case Study Of Swedish Water Companies, Erin Webreck
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
In 2003, during the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan, Koichiro Matsuura, Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (“UNESCO”), called for the creation of a World Cooperation Facility. The Facility, comprised of a network of organizations, would help resolve water conflicts and aid in transboundary water governance. Director General Matsuura’s proposal came in response to the increasingly complex and multifaceted system of global water management, a system sorely needing regulation. As transnational corporations have become involved in water privatization projects worldwide, their actions often gen- erate intense criticism from the affected local communities as …
Facing Arbitration For Environmental Regulation: Arbitration Under Chapter 11 Of The North American Free Trade Agreement Between Methanex Corporation And The United States Of America, Rekhao Rao
PEEL Alumni Scholarship
In 1999, the Governor of California released Executive Order D-55-99 that ordered the removal of Methyl Tertiary- Butyl Ether (“MTBE”) from California gasoline at the earliest possible date, but no later than December 31, 2002. In March 2002, the Governor extended the phase out for another year, until March 2003. MTBE is a chemical made of oxygen, but often is added to gasoline to boost its octane content, specifically to meet clean fuel requirements. The oxygen content in gasoline helps the gasoline burn more completely and reduce the harmful emissions from automobiles. MTBE has been used by the United States …