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	Safeguarding our democracy by standing with civil society by Hugh de Kretser Human Rights Law Centre Australia   Oct. 2014   Safeguarding our democracy by standing with civil society, by Hugh de Kretser.   When people are free to speak their minds and hold their leaders accountable, governments are more responsive and more effective…If you want strong, successful countries, you need strong, vibrant civil societies: President Obama, remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative 23 September 2014, New York.   Across the globe, civil society advocacy is increasingly being threatened by laws and practices that criminalise protest, prevent association, threaten funding and curtail independence. While the most extreme conduct is occurring in nations like Russia, China and Egypt, the trend isn’t limited to repressive states or transitioning democracies.   In September, Hungarian authorities raided the offices and staff homes of an NGO that distributes Norwegian aid money against the backdrop of government claims of foreign political interference. In Canada, there are fears of politically motivated audits of environmental NGOs, and late last year, the Spanish Government sought to introduce anti-protest laws creating massive fines for minor offences.   Here in Australia, the past two years have seen a range of federal and state laws, policies and statements that signal a clear undemocratic trend towards stifling criticism and protest and restricting NGO advocacy.   Anti-protest laws have been introduced or passed in Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania. The NSW and federal Governments cut funding to Environment Defenders Offices after a campaign by the Minerals Council. Other community legal centres and Aboriginal legal services have had funding cut for law reform and policy advocacy. In 2012, the Queensland Government imposed gag clauses on NGOs.   In this environment, many government-funded NGOs are avoiding or watering down criticism of governments for fear of having their funding cut in retribution (highlighting the importance of non-government funding for organisations like ours).   Globally, the fight back is happening. Initiatives like the Community of Democracies, the Open Government Partnership, resolutions from UN Human Rights Council and the establishment and work of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and association, are all seeking to reverse this trend.   Organisations like the Human Rights Law Centre across the globe are fighting for the core human rights that are vital to enable civil society and democracy to operate; freedom of speech, freedoms of assembly and association and voting rights.   In September, I was invited to join 28 other civil society leaders from around the world in a two week US Government “Standing with civil society” program that explored the importance of civil society freedom and that built the capacity of the participants to advance it. The program culminated in addresses by President Obama at the Clinton Global Initiative and the Open Government Partnership in New York.   President Obama recognised that criticism by NGOs can make governments uncomfortable but noted that “open and honest collaboration with citizens and civil society over the long term – no matter how uncomfortable it is – makes countries stronger and it makes countries more successful, and it creates more prosperous economies, and more just societies, and more opportunity for citizens”.   As I write this, my colleague Anna Brown, along with 16 other human rights advocates, is attending a workshop in Kenya on litigating rights to peaceful assembly and association with Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and association.   This global experience puts Australia’s democratic success in context. Australia has strong and stable democratic institutions and practices and a strong and vibrant civil society. But we can’t take our success for granted. The struggle for basic democratic rights in other nations reinforces not only the importance of what we have and its universality, but also the vital need to resist attempts to wind back what we have achieved over many years.   Sep. 2014   Queensland Police in charge of assessing threats to Premier"s safety keeping files on protesting unions, by Mark Willacy. (ABC News)   Police in charge of assessing threats to the Queensland Premier"s safety have been keeping files on groups opposed to the State Government"s policies.   The threat assessments compiled by the state"s Security Intelligence Branch were obtained under right to information, with many of the documents heavily redacted.   But uncensored sections spell out the "tactics and motivations" of unions protesting against public sector cuts and environmental groups demonstrating against issues such as coal seam gas projects.   "What we’re seeing is an extraordinary use of the Queensland Police Service to keep very close monitoring of the political opponents of this government," said Alex Scott, the general secretary of Queensland"s Together public sector union.   "What is more frightening is what has been redacted from this report than what"s actually included in it."   The original Queensland Special Branch was disbanded in 1989 in line with a recommendation by Queensland"s landmark Fitzgerald Inquiry.   The Special Branch had been accused of being a political tool, used by the Bjelke-Petersen government to harass and investigate political opponents.   The Security Intelligence Branch was formed under Labor in the mid-1990s, and is tasked with assessing threats against people "assessed to be at risk" from politically motivated violence.   The threat assessments released under Right to Information found that "the majority of conventional protesters are compliant with police and are generally non-violent".   But the Security Intelligence Branch assessed that demonstrators were capable of a different kind of damage to the Newman Government.   "IMGs [issue motivated groups] pose the greatest risk of embarrassment to the Premier and his Government by their continued and varied methods of protest and often intend to embarrass the Premier rather than physically harm him," one assessment said.   The police went on to warn that protests at a planned Government summit in Mackay in May 2013 could "have the potential to cause embarrassment and bring unwanted attention onto the Queensland Government and the [Queensland Police Service]".   Civil libertarians say the documents raise serious questions.   "The police haven"t borne the lessons of history in mind and we"re heading down that slippery slope where they"ve gone beyond a legitimate threat assessment into something that"s in great danger of becoming the political wing of the Premier"s department," said Andrew Sinclair of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties.   This potential for embarrassing the Government described in the threat assessments had already led to the Premier changing his lunching plans.   During a visit to Townsville in early 2013, Mr Newman was told that 25 nurses from the Queensland Nursing Union were picketing outside the restaurant he was going to for lunch.   The Security Intelligence Branch reported that "subsequently the Premier changed plans and found an alternate venue for lunch".   Mr Sinclair warned that saving the Premier from potentially embarrassing media coverage is not the job of his police protectors.   "I would have thought the idea of 25 nurses walking around carrying some pieces of paper with words on it that the Government didn"t want to hear, or didn"t want to have put in the media, isn"t something that should find itself in a threat assessment," he said.   http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-17/police-in-charge-of-protecting-newman-keeping-files-on-unions/5751222   Tasmania anti-protest bill contravenes Australia’s human rights obligations, say UN experts.   A group of independent United Nations experts have urged lawmakers in Tasmania to refrain from adopting legislation against protests that disrupt businesses, saying the proposed bill would contravene Australia’s human rights obligations.   Among other things, the experts said that the legislation could silence legitimate and lawful protests, is disproportionate, and targets specific issues such as the environment.   “If passed, the law would almost certainly run afoul of Australia’s human rights obligations, which Tasmania is also obliged to uphold. State governments in Australia need to ensure the legislation they adopt is in line with the country’s international obligations under international human rights law,” they said in a news release.   The Tasmanian government argues the law is necessary to prevent businesses being disrupted by protesters, especially as Tasmania has been the focus of debate and demonstrations on environmental concerns.   The bill, which is now before Tasmania’s Upper House, prohibits protests, whether on private or public property, that hinder access to business premises or disrupt business operations.   It imposes mandatory penalties, including fines up to 100,000 Australian dollars ($93,000) for organizations and up to 10,000 Australian dollars ($9,300) for individuals. Repeat offenders face a mandatory minimum prison sentence of three months.   “The law itself and the penalties imposed are disproportionate and unnecessary in balancing the rights to free expression and peaceful assembly and the government’s interests in preserving economic or business interests,” said David Kaye, the recently appointed Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.   “The bill would have the chilling effect of silencing dissenters and outlawing speech protected by international human rights law.”   Maina Kiai, the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, noted that in democratic societies, protests are key to raising awareness about human rights as well as political and social concerns, and of holding not just governments, but also corporations accountable. “The bill, if adopted, would impede that very function,” he stated.   Michel Forst, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, expressed concern that the law would curtail human rights defenders’ legitimate right to express their opinions, especially when these are at odds with the government or industry.   “Moreover, by listing specific industries, such as forestry, agriculture, or mining, it specifically targets environmentalists; this is shocking,” he added.   The experts, who report to the UN Human Rights Council, noted that in March 2014, Australia co-sponsored Council resolution 25/38 that recognizes that peaceful protests can make a positive contribution to the development and strengthening of democracy, and urges States to facilitate peaceful protests by providing access to public space.   “Given this, the experts pressed the government and legislature of Tasmania to be consistent with Australia’s international commitments and withdraw the bill,” stated the press release. 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	A bumpy road to Paris by Down to Earth, agencies   Dec 2014   Cop-out, by Chandra Bhushan. (Down to Earth)   Hopes were pinned on the latest UN climate summit at Lima. It was supposed to prepare the ground for a new climate deal that will replace the existing Kyoto Protocol at Paris in 2015. But the Lima talks pave the way for an inconsequential Paris treaty, which will make it nearly impossible to restrict global temperature rise to below 2C. An analysis by Chandra Bhushan from the Centre for Science and Environment in India.   In the early hours of December 13, as I was leaving San Borja in Lima, the venue of the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the negotiators from 195 countries had just been handed over a draft text from the co-chairs for consideration. Twenty-four hours later, by the time my flight landed in Amsterdam, the deal was done and the final text was out. The text, titled Lima Call to Climate Action, this time was from the president of the COP.   In the last 24 hours of the Lima talks, co-chairs were sidelined, their draft decision was rejected, and the COP president Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who is also Peru’s environment minister, was asked by the Parties to prepare a new text, taking into consideration the views of different groups of countries. Ultimately, the Parties accepted the text proposed by the president.   In between the presentation of the two texts—one by the co-chairs and the other by the COP president—both developed and developing countries made compromises. They always do. But the question is who benefited and who lost from these compromises? Will these compromises help achieve an effective climate deal in Paris in 2015?   For the sake of clarity, Lima Call to Climate Action does not promise any new commitment from the Parties either on emissions cuts or on finance and technology transfer. It is nothing more than a template for the Parties to continue their negotiations at Paris, where a new global deal on climate change is to be signed to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol from 2020.   Dissension galore   From day one of the Lima talks, the fight was on Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)—climate action plans that countries have agreed to submit before the Paris meeting. Lima COP was to finalise the kind of information that Parties should submit on INDCs so that their contributions could be compared and evaluated. The fight was on what all will go into the information and how the information would be used. (See ‘The Lima diary’) Developed countries insisted that INDCs were only about emissions cuts, or mitigation. Developing countries, on the other hand, wanted INDCs to include actions they would take in adapting to the changing climate as well as finance and technology support they would need from developed countries to undertake mitigation and adaptation. Developing countries also wanted the Lima text to reflect their desire to have strong commitments on “loss and damage” in Paris.   At the 19th Climate Conference in Warsaw in 2013, Parties had agreed to establish an international mechanism for “loss and damage” to help vulnerable developing countries cope with impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events. However, as per the Warsaw decisions, the discussion is scheduled to take place in 2016, a year after the Paris agreement. Developing countries, mainly the least developed and small island nations, however, want stronger commitments, especially financial, in Paris for loss and damage. They did not want this decision to be left for 2016 and, therefore, wanted the Lima text to reflect this.   This fight over what would go into INDCs took an ugly turn and almost derailed the talks in Lima. Developing countries accused the co-chairs—Artur Runge-Metzger from Germany and Kishan Kumarsingh from Trinidad and Tobago—of partisanship and doing the bidding of the developed countries, especially the members of the European Union.   There were other issues in INDCs as well. The vexing issue was related to the ex-ante review of INDCs. The EU had proposed that well before the Paris COP, countries should submit their INDCs, which should be formally reviewed for equity and ambition. It also wanted a review of how all INDCs add up to meet the goal of limiting global warming to less than 2oC.   In the beginning of the second week itself, India made it clear that it did not want any review of INDCs as it feared that such a review would be an unnecessary intrusion into its “national sovereignty”. In simple terms, India considers INDCs as domestic pledges and does not want anyone to say whether its pledges are equitable or ambitious or not. India was supported by the Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDC)—a group that includes developing countries as varied as Bolivia, Saudi Arabia and China.   The US also desired such a position. So none of the big polluters, except the EU, had any interest in the ex-ante review of INDCs.   Result: a compromised deal   To partly meet the demand of developing countries, the Lima text includes adaptation and loss and damage. For instance, it affirms (not decides) that the Parties will strengthen adaptation action under the Paris agreement in 2015.   The text also recalls and welcomes the progress made in Lima on Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, but makes no other commitments.   Major compromises were, however, made on INDCs.   INDCs remain primarily about mitigation but countries have the option to include adaptation component. The final text does not mention finance or technology transfer in relation to INDCs.   There has been a major dilution of the provision of information that Parties will submit on INDCs. In the text proposed by the co-chairs, it was a decision paragraph. It stated that the Parties shall provide a certain set of information on their INDCs that will allow clarity, transparency and understanding as well justify how their INDCs are fair and ambitious in light of their national circumstances.   In final text, however, it has been converted into an agreement paragraph. That is, Parties, instead of deciding, will now only agree on what information to submit. The list of information to be submitted, though remains the same as the text of the co-chairs, has been made optional. Instead of “shall” it has become “may include”.   This gives option to Parties to submit information of INDCs as they think appropriate. For instance, some may think it is inappropriate to justify their INDCs for fairness or ambition, while the others may not.   Parties can now communicate their INDCs by October 1, 2015. Earlier there was a proposal for Parties to submit their contributions latest by May/June 2015 so that it could be analysed and reviewed by all.   There is no ex-ante review of INDCs; not even a non-intrusive and facilitative dialogue, as proposed by the co-chairs, for clarity, transparency and understanding of the contributions of different Parties.   However, all the INDCs will be published on UNFCCC website and a synthesis report will be prepared by November 1, 2015, on the aggregate effect of INDCs communicated by all Parties.   Obligations of rich countries diluted   The text produced by the co-chairs did not mention Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR), which puts the obligation to reduce current emissions on developed countries on the basis that they are historically responsible for the current levels of greenhouse gases. The final text contains an explicit commitment for an ambitious agreement in 2015 that reflects the principle of CBDR but weakens it by adding “in light of different national circumstances”. Todd Stern, lead US climate negotiator, has gone on record to say that he and Xie Zhenhua, Chinese chief negotiator, had thrashed out this deal on CBDR on the last night in Peru. They took the line—CBDR, in light of different national circumstances—from the recent US-China climate pact and inserted it into the final Lima text.   Countries like India have claimed satisfaction over the inclusion of CBDR in the final text. But its linking with national circumstances will have far reaching implications for developing countries. For one, they will not be able to demand strong emissions cuts from developed countries nor demand finance and technology support from them. The inability of the US Senate to pass an ambitious climate deal can now be justified as “national circumstances”. The EU can use recession as an excuse when its commitment on finance or technology transfer will come up for negotiation.   Developed countries managed to evade a stronger decision on the issue of increasing their emissions cut ambition from now till 2020, both in the texts of co-chairs and COP president. They avoided any decision on providing means of implementation, including technology, finance and capacity building support for developing countries so that they too could increase their mitigation ambitions from now till 2020.   So, now it is up to Paris to decide whether the world will do more to cut emissions between 2016 and 2020, or remain content with the highly inadequate pledges of developed countries. One must keep in mind that developed countries made no commitment on finance and technology transfer for the post-2020 period either.   Who won, who lost   It is clear that developing countries got some choice words, but no money or technology from the developed countries. The big polluters among the developing countries managed to avoid any serious commitment to reduce emissions by diluting the INDCs.   Developed countries, however, gained substantially. They made no commitments to reduce emissions in the pre-2020 period more than what they have already committed (and they have committed very little), nor did they promise money and technology to help developing countries to increase their mitigation commitments during the period. With weak provisions on INDCs, they managed to avoid mitigation as well as financial commitments for the post-2020 period.   It is important to understand that one of the success criteria for the Lima COP was how much money developed countries would put on the table for the Green Climate Fund—a fund set up to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.   By the time the marathon talks finished in Lima, developed countries had pledged only $10 billion as climate finance for developing countries for the next four years. The ridiculousness of the number can be gauged from the fact that if $2 were levied as a tax on every international flight ticket, it would generate $2.5 billion a year. The biggest win for developed countries was that they managed to dilute and compromise the principle of CBDR, the cornerstone of climate negotiation. But in this win, the planet has lost big time.   A bumpy road to Paris   Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, described the new definition of CBDR as an “important breakthrough”. “It’s very clear that from now on when you speak about the responsibility and capacity of countries to address climate change there will be a third point, national circumstances, that need to be included.” This statement of Figueres is the most important outcome of the Lima COP.   Developed countries managed to dilute the differentiation between them and the developing countries further by linking CBDR with national circumstances, and thereby reinterpreting the Convention. Under UNFCCC, actions that countries would take on addressing climate change are based on equity and CBDR. They, in turn, are based on the responsibility of a country in causing climate change and its capability in solving it. By bringing national circumstances in the equation, developed countries have put themselves at the same level as developing countries. Developing countries had so far used “national circumstances”—such as poverty reduction and achieving certain level of development—not to take absolute emissions reduction targets. Developed countries can now use similar arguments—high level of mitigation costs, recession and low growth rate—to justify their inaction. Now, no country will take ambitious action and the world collectively will fail to meet the climate goals.   Similarly, INDCs have been so compromised in Lima that an effective deal in Paris is now nearly impossible.   Under the Lima formulation, every country will now decide what it wants to do to reduce its emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. As their actions will now reflect “national circumstances”, they will not compulsorily be asked to explain how their efforts are fair and ambitious; if they want they can explain on their own volition. They will also not face any rigorous assessment process ahead of the Paris summit. No questions asked, none answered is the final decision from Lima. But this final decision has left the world with a fait accompli.   Just before the Paris COP, when it would become clear to everyone that the INDCs of countries are a big let down and are not adding up, there would be nothing that the Parties could do to rectify the situation in Paris as there will be neither time nor any process to jack up the ambition of countries. Paris will become a lame duck COP.   http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/cop-out http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/why-us-china-climate-deal-neither-historical-nor-ambitious http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/can-world-agree-equitable-climate-deal-paris   November 25, 2014   Rich Countries Pony Up (Some) for Climate Justice, by Oscar Reyes and Foreign Policy In Focus.   It’s one of the oldest tricks in politics: talk down expectations to the point that you can meet them.   And it played out again in Berlin as twenty-one countries—including the United States—pledged nearly $9.5 billion to the Green Climate Fund, a UN body tasked with helping developing countries cope with climate change and transition to clean-energy systems.   The total—which will cover a four-year period before new pledges are made—included $3 billion from the United States, $1.5 billion from Japan and around $1 billion each from the United Kingdom, France and Germany.   That’s a big step in the right direction. But put into context, $9.5 billion quickly sounds less impressive.   Floods, droughts, sea-level rises, heat waves and other forms of extreme weather are likely to cost developing countries hundreds of billions of dollars every year. And it will take hundreds of billions more to ensure that they industrialize more cleanly than their counterparts did in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia.   Developed countries should foot a large part of that bill, since they bear the greatest responsibility for causing climate change.   The Politics of Responsibility   Determining who pays for what is an integral part of achieving an international climate deal. And so far, pledges from rich countries have tracked far behind previous requests and recommendations.   Back in 2009, developed countries signed the Copenhagen Accord, which committed them to move $100 billion per year by 2020 to developing countries. A year later, the UN climate conference in Cancún called for the Green Climate Fund to be set up to channel a “significant share” of the money developing countries need to adapt to climate change.   Earlier this year, the G77—which is actually a grouping of 133 developing countries—called for $15 billion to be put into the Green Climate Fund. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres set the bar lower, at $10 billion. The failure to reach even that figure is likely to put strain on negotiations for a new multilateral climate agreement that is expected to be reached in December 2015.   But it’s not just the headline figure that’s important. Plenty of devils are likely to be lurking in the details.   Delivering on the US pledge requires budgetary approval from a hostile Congress, although a payment schedule stretching over much of the next decade could make that more politically feasible than it initially sounds.   More concerning are the conditions attached to the US pledge, which include a threat that some of the money could be redirected to other funds—likely those run by the World Bank—if “the pace of progress” at the Green Climate Fund is inadequate. Given that the United States is advocating rules on how the fund makes decisions that would tip the balance of power in favor of contributor countries, the threat is far from innocuous.   France will provide a significant proportion of its share as loans rather than grants, while the small print of the UK contribution is likely to reveal that part of its money comes as a “capital contribution,” which can only be paid out as loans.   Those restrictions could limit the scope of activities that the fund can finance, since much of the vital support and infrastructure needed to support community resilience in the face of climate change is too unprofitable to support loan repayments.   Future of the Fund   Looming over these issues is the larger, unresolved question of what the fund will actually finance. Some donor countries—including the United States—are pushing for a fund that would support transnational corporations and their supply chains, helping them turn profits from investments in developing countries.   Despite its green mandate, the Green Climate Fund may also support an array of “dirty energy” projects—including power generation from fossil fuels, nuclear power and destructive mega-dam projects. That’s the subject of an ongoing dispute on the fund’s twenty-four-member board and a persistent complaint from a range of civil society organizations.   That battle is not yet lost.   Despite its shortcomings, the Green Climate Fund has great potential to support a global transition to renewable energy, sustainable public transport systems and energy efficiency. And with its goal of spending 50 percent of its funds on “adaptation” activities, it could also serve as a vital lifeline for communities already facing the impacts of climate change.   An important milestone was passed with the billions pledged to the Green Climate Fund. But achieving a cleaner, more resilient world will take billions more—along with a commitment to invest the money in projects that mitigate climate change rather than cause it.   * This article is a joint publication of TheNation.com and Foreign Policy In Focus. Visit the related web page
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