In the recent case of 'Chagos Marine Protected Area', a five-member tribunal constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) held in its hands the fate of the Chagos ...Archipelago. One of the questions before the tribunal was whether it had the jurisdiction to declare that the British occupation of the Chagos Archipelago and the forcible removal of the Archipelago's indigenous population violated the fundamental right to self-determination. The answer hinged on a technical, procedural point: Does the applicable law provision of UNCLOS, Article 293(1), expand the jurisdiction of UNCLOS tribunals?
The Outlook for Population Growth Lee, Ronald
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
07/2011, Volume:
333, Issue:
6042
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Projections of population size, growth rates, and age distribution, although extending to distant horizons, shape policies today for the economy, environment, and government programs such as public ...pensions and health care. The projections can lead to costly policy adjustments, which in turn can cause political and economic turmoil. The United Nations projects global population to grow from about 7 billion today to 9.3 billion in 2050 and 10.1 billion in 2100, while the Old Age Dependency Ratio doubles by 2050 and triples by 2100. How are such population projections made, and how certain can we be about the trends they foresee?
Summary Background The UN will formulate ambitious Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, including one for health. Feasible goals with some quantifiable, measurable targets can influence ...governments. We propose, as a quantitative health target, “Avoid in each country 40% of premature deaths (under-70 deaths that would be seen in the 2030 population at 2010 death rates), and improve health care at all ages”. Targeting overall mortality and improved health care ignores no modifiable cause of death, nor any cause of disability that is treatable (or also causes many deaths). 40% fewer premature deaths would be important in all countries, but implies very different priorities in different populations. Reinforcing this target for overall mortality in each country are four global subtargets for 2030: avoid two-thirds of child and maternal deaths; two-thirds of tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria deaths; a third of premature deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs); and a third of those from other causes (other communicable diseases, undernutrition, and injuries). These challenging subtargets would halve under-50 deaths, avoid a third of the (mainly NCD) deaths at ages 50–69 years, and so avoid 40% of under-70 deaths. To help assess feasibility, we review mortality rates and trends in the 25 most populous countries, in four country income groupings, and worldwide. Methods UN sources yielded overall 1970–2010 mortality trends. WHO sources yielded cause-specific 2000–10 trends, standardised to country-specific 2030 populations; decreases per decade of 42% or 18% would yield 20-year reductions of two-thirds or a third. Results Throughout the world, except in countries where the effects of HIV or political disturbances predominated, mortality decreased substantially from 1970–2010, particularly in childhood. From 2000–10, under-70 age-standardised mortality rates decreased 19% (with the low-income and lower-middle-income countries having the greatest absolute gains). The proportional decreases per decade (2000–10) were: 34% at ages 0–4 years; 17% at ages 5–49 years; 15% at ages 50–69 years; 30% for communicable, perinatal, maternal, or nutritional causes; 14% for NCDs; and 13% for injuries (accident, suicide, or homicide). Interpretation Moderate acceleration of the 2000–10 proportional decreases in mortality could be feasible, achieving the targeted 2030 disease-specific reductions of two-thirds or a third. If achieved, these reductions avoid about 10 million of the 20 million deaths at ages 0–49 years that would be seen in 2030 at 2010 death rates, and about 17 million of the 41 million such deaths at ages 0–69 years. Such changes could be achievable by 2030, or soon afterwards, at least in areas free of war, other major effects of political disruption, or a major new epidemic. Funding UK Medical Research Council , Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation , Centre for Global Health Research , and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) global monitoring plan under the Stockholm Convention contributing laboratories were offered to take part in a series of interlaboratory ...assessments on persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The results of two rounds of these assessments are reported. The target compounds were polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine pesticides, polybrominated diphenylethers, one polybrominated biphenyl and hexabromocyclododecane diastereomers. The matrices distributed were a test solution, fish, sediment, human milk, and air extracts. The number of participants in each round was well over 100, showing the interest of laboratories worldwide. The results showed that many laboratories still struggle to obtain acceptable standard deviations of around 25% for their determinations. In particular for organochlorine pesticides serious improvement in quality is required. Acceptable results were obtained for the air extracts and for the determination of polybrominated diphenylethers in various matrices.
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•Two interlaboratory studieson persistent organic pollutants with over 100 participants worldwide.•Results that many laboratories should improve their performance, especially for organochlorine pesticide analysis.•Managerial issues and priority setting are as important for good results as chemical parameters and analytical settings.
The purpose of this study was to investigate food waste reduction strategies at the consumption stage in restaurants and addresses United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3. Interviews ...with Thai restaurant managers found that managers attributed much of the problem to business competitiveness and cultural traditions of Thai diners which included being wasteful and holding beliefs about food abundance. A 2 ×2 between subjects’ field experiment was then conducted with 178 diners at a casual-dining restaurant. The two intervention treatments were based on symbolic consumption and communication message theories. The cultural norm of presenting gourmet carved vegetables for the side dish had a strong effect on actual plate waste (measured in grams). In contrast, a specific zero waste sustainability message had a moderate effect on plate waste. The findings have implications for the casual-dining restaurant sector worldwide, together with industry associations, event planners, hotel managers and university educators.
•The preparation and serving of gourmet style food carvings is a global phenomenon built upon cultural traditions in Asian countries.•Restauranteurs in Thailand continue to prepare gourmet style food carvings for diners, based on the belief that such presentation is more attractive to diners.•Gourmet food carving of vegetables served in a set meal format produces substantially more waste than uncarved vegetables.•A specific sustainability message can reduce plate more than a general sustainability message.•Contrary to restauranteur beliefs, gourmet food carving in a set meal format is perceived by diners to be less attractive than uncarved foods.
Global adaptation after Paris Magnan, Alexandre K.; Ribera, Teresa
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
06/2016, Volume:
352, Issue:
6291
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Besides achieving major decisions on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation, the 2015 Paris climate change Agreement (1) also initiated a process to "establish a global goal on adaptation" ...(Article 7.1), a crucial step that encourages parties to the agreement to go beyond the restrictive and historic funding-focused lens that structured United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks on adaptation until now (2-4). Suggesting that global adaptation is as important as global mitigation is an important shift in international climate negotiations that highlights the importance of not uncoupling 21st-century mitigation and adaptation storylines. After all, one cannot define the "well below +2 degree C" long-term temperature goal as sustainable without providing evidence on societies' ability to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of such warming (5). Although this represents great progress, we discuss three key challenges around the development of a global adaptation framework within the UNFCCC: defining a global goal, identifying tracking criteria, and anticipating political barriers. A major underlying condition is that the framework must make sense from both a negotiation and a scientific perspective.
The United Nations Global Compact Rasche, Andreas; Waddock, Sandra; McIntosh, Malcolm
Business & society,
03/2013, Volume:
52, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article reviews the interdisciplinary literature on the UN Global Compact. The review identifies three research perspectives, which scholars have used to study the UN Global Compact so far: a ...historical perspective discussing the Global Compact in the context of UN-business relations, an operational perspective discussing the composition and impact of its participants, as well as a governance perspective discussing the constraints and opportunities of the initiative as an institutionalized arena for addressing global governance gaps. The authors contrast these three perspectives and identify key empirical as well as conceptual scholarly contributions. The remainder of this article contains focused summaries of the articles selected for this Special Issue. All articles are introduced and evaluated against the background of the three research perspectives.
“There is no doubt that inhumane prison conditions and lack of access to health care often pose serious health risks to detainees, violating their right to health”, Steve Cockburn, Head of Economic ...and Social Justice at Amnesty International, told The Lancet. Edwards also flagged to the UN Human Rights Council the challenge posed by severe overcrowding, which impacts all aspects of prison life, and voiced that, “detaining persons in overcrowded cells is a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment”. ...Edwards criticised authorities for a lack of focus on rehabilitation, and recommended measures to replace pre-trial detention with house arrest for pregnant women, replace prison sentences with unpaid community service work, and reduce the length of a sentence to be served for people incarcerated in degrading conditions.
The United Nations 'Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development' lays out 17 Sustainable Development Goals to address a range of global issues related to the future of the ...planet and human well-being. Critics, however, argue that the Agenda, a complex product of multi-stakeholder governance, in its drive to accommodate many competing voices, is overloaded with weakly defined, overlapping and contradictory issues, concepts and buzzwords. These serve to gloss over actual concrete global problems and forces, concealing an underlying free-trade ideology. In this paper, using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we draw attention to the nature of the documents used to communicate the Agenda. These documents comprise an edifice of self-referential texts that rely heavily on infographics, bullet points, charts and tables. Such formats appear to helpfully simplify, distil information and break things down into workable components. But, we show, through the affordances of these formats, the the vagueness of buzzwords, contradictions and lack of clear causalities can be glossed over, presenting the Agenda as a highly technical, engaging, and above all moral process. These formats are important, therefore, for the legitimization and rhetorical power of the Agenda, necessary for its take-up by governments and organizations around the world.
This pilot study sought to map the alignment of publications in JBI Evidence Synthesis to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 (global health and well-being) and to understand JBI ...authors' awareness of and engagement with the goals. This will contribute to a larger-scale analysis to assist the JBI Collaboration in engaging with and working toward achieving the SDGs.
In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 SDGs as the central framework for sustainable development worldwide. However, in the wake of the global pandemic, the 2030 SDG agenda is in jeopardy due to multiple cascading and intersecting crises. The Global Commission on Evidence has urged the evidence community to consider how it might more meaningfully contribute to the evidence architecture. As we pass the midway point to the SDG 2030 target date, it is timely to reflect on the contribution of those in the evidence synthesis community to achieving these important global objectives.
A 2-phase study was conducted utilizing desktop audit methods. SDG 3 targets were mapped across systematic and scoping reviews published in JBI Evidence Synthesis using established key terms, followed by a brief author survey and thematic analysis.
The results of this pilot study indicate that 28.5% of syntheses published in JBI Evidence Synthesis address 11 of the 13 targets of SDG 3. SDGs are not currently a priority consideration for most JBI Evidence Synthesis authors, but there is a desire to learn more and integrate the goals into their prioritization processes.
While this was only a small pilot study, it is indicative of a need to reset and recommit to mutual global agendas to transform the evidence ecosystem, and to maximize the limited resources available in order to truly have a global impact on health outcomes.
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