Law of the Sea meeting turns into South China Sea Dispute

The delegate of Vietnam opened the meeting with criticism towards China for illegally placing vessels and commencing deep-sea mining in the continental edge of Vietnam. Vietnam accused China of infringing sovereignty as they invade the economic zone and shelf of Vietnam including the use of military ships to fire canons at Vietnamese fishing vessels. A delegate of the Philippines fully supported statements by Vietnam. The delegate of the Philippines also emphasized that maritime zones are declared and mapped so that there is greater certainty of sovereign rights and jurisdiction. These mappings, he continued, should be based on charts, historical evidence of sovereignty as well as conventions.

A delegate of the People’s Republic of China responded to these remarks explaining that commissions on the limits of the continental shelf give China sovereignty over the region. In particular the Xisha Islands that are an inherent part of China’s territory despite Vietnam’s claims that historic evidence gives Vietnam sovereignty over the islands and surrounding waters. China explained to the meeting that as Chinese companies started gas exploration drilling in the region armed Vietnamese boats attacked the operation undermining stability of the waters. The delegate of Russia expressed that this bilateral dispute is inappropriate to discuss on the Law of the Sea multilateral platform, Sri Lanka agreed with Russia in hope that the states would in their own time find a peaceful solution.

Delegates of Malaysia, India and Kenya all expressed concerns for long-term sustainable fisheries and conservation of the natural sea environment. A delegate of Pakistan shared that there are over 1.5 million seafarers each year, many of whom are migrating by sea and there continues to be significant safety concerns. Despite the ever increasing human, technological and financial capacity of the world today, legal frameworks and human rights regarding international waters continues to be a fragmented system needs to be repaired.

 

Meeting Title: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – 175^th Meeting
Speakers: Delegates on behalf of: Vietnam, India, Philippines, Kenya, Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Costa Rica, Russia, Japan, El Salvador, Somalia, Haiti, an Cyprus; Director of the Secretariat
Location: United Nations HQ, Conference Room 1, New York
Date: 13 June 2014
Written by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark

 

Voices of Women, Children and Youth with Disabilities at the UN

The moderator, Nancy Maguire started the panel discussion by highlighting the importance to acknowledge that the ‘disability’ group is not like one homogenous group and is subject to different perspectives and experiences on the basis of where they are from.

Ambrose Murangira, then shared his personal experience in Uganda. He highlighted the discriminatory practices from childhood to the community level; and faced these challenges by performing, cooperating with his friends and leading his cause. Teachers are also very important in influencing young people. Apart from disability organizations, it is important that all people take the responsibility of ensuring that the disabled community gets their rights. The post 2015 agenda in his opinion, would give this cause the right platform to be heard.

Andrea Mazzarino shared her research on children with disabilities in Russian and Japanese state orphanages. In the case of Russia, the children are abandoned by the sate. According to UNICEF at least, 305,000 children lived in Russian orphanages, which is 2-5% of Russia ‘s total child population. The children with disabilities are victims of violence, neglect and isolation in Russian orphanages. Although a vast majority of these children have one living parent, due to the doctors stating that the children will never be able to develop like normal children under immense pressure from the society, those parents give up their children. In the case of Japan, 25% of 39000 Japanese children live in state institutions; group homes for independent living and foster care have a disability. The lack of inclusion in the educational system has severed consequences in the overall development of these children.  She recommended, that these children should be provided adequate support from communities, parents and foster parents, collectively and to create independent mechanism to ensure institutionalization is used as the only resort.

Finally Rashmi Chopra, shared her research and study on women and girls with disabilities. Women with disabilities are profoundly vulnerable to abuse and often their choices are not heard and abuses remain hidden. The social stigma and exclusion impacts their multiple rights such as health education and a family life. Chopra highlighted the stories of three women from Zambia and India, respectively. Mary and Charity from Zambia were both victims of HIV AIDS and rape. They were abused by their husbands and got limited schooling. Rekha from India suffered from an intellectual disability. Her mother, without any consent and knowledge from Rekha, sterilized her, to protect her from sexual violence. These cases represent the vulnerability of disabled women and girls to abuse and violence.

Meeting Title: Voices of Women, Children and Youth with Disabilities: from Uganda, Zambia, India, Japan and Russia
Speakers: Nancy Maguire, UNICEF Global Youth Council Member; Ambrose Murangira, Executive director, Uganda National Association of the Deaf; Andréa Mazzarino, ACLS Public Fellow, Europe & Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch; Rashmi Chopra, Fellow, Disability Rights Division, Human Rights Watch.
Date: 11 June 2014
Location: Conference room 5, United Nations Headquarters, New York.
Written by WIT Representative– Aslesha Kaur Dhillon

 

Acceleration Sustainable Energy Deployment through Support for Energy Innovation

On the first day of the Sustainable Energy for All Forum, the second session focused on catalysing investment through innovative business models.

Mr. Zindler, a representative of the Bloomberg team, started by introducing his field, which focuses on new energy technologies and investment in clean energy. Mr Zindler highlighted the current challenges for policymakers, especially in developing countries. Firstly, it is difficult to find the appropriate level of support for renewables, given the uncertainty over costs. Allocating support costs equitably, integrating renewables into the grid and preparing for cost parity are equally difficult. Therefore, he would like to come up with ideas about promoting innovation for policies and financials, efficiently in the near future.

Mr. Sarkar followed by highlighting the current challenges in terms of energy efficiency implementation in the developing world since different countries use different financial instruments. Therefore, he introduced three implementation models to tackle the challenges and financing gap categorized under the Energy Efficiency Fund (EE Fund), namely the public model, private model and public private partnerships (PPPs). He emphasized that PPPs has a possibility of bringing in new sources of financing for funding public infrastructure and service needs. Some countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Korea and India are already implementing the EE Fund. This fund would be able to support energy efficiency, renewable energy and promote economic development and energy security.

Mr. Roders, who moderated the meeting, concluded the session with an example – introducing the innovative programming for climate change, which is a performance-based financing for projects and sectors. One of the advantages of this programming is that it catalyses the engagement of the private sector, including PPS, risk-mitigation and structured financing tools, global certification, standards programs and SME Small Grant Program.

 

Meeting Title: Accelerating Sustainable Energy Deployment through Support for Innovation
Speakers: David Rodgers, Senior Climate Change Specialist, Climate and Chemicals, GEF; Ethan Zindler, Head of Policy Analysis, Bloomberg New Energy Finance ; Ashok Sarkar, Senior Energy Specialist, World Bank
Location: UN Headquarters, Trusteeship Council
Date: 4 June 2014
Written By WIT representative: Samantha Kong
Edited by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

 

OWG for Sustainable Development Goals: Focus Areas 15 & 16

Focus Area 15: Means of implementation/Global partnership for sustainable development 

Focus area 16: Peaceful and inclusive societies, rule of law and capable institutions

H.E. the Ambassador of Bolivia on behalf of G77 and China acknowledged that the implementation process of the SDGs would determine the success of the program. The G77 delegates reiterated their support of Bolivia’s statement that the MDGs were weakened by the ill-defined implementation programs, particularly for the 8^th MDG, and therefore action-orientated targets are key to maximising outcomes.

Delegates commonly asked that focus area 15 address; the removal of tariff boundaries, debt relief, market and trade access, prevention of elicit arms trade and human trafficking. H.E. the Ambassador of Denmark, Ambassador of Switzerland and representatives on behalf of Norway, Germany, France, and Australia, affirmed the need to engage with civil society, media and private sectors alongside multiple levels of governance for successful implementation worldwide.

State ambassadors and those representing the G77, Caricom, and the Non-aligned Movement have emphasised the role of peace as indispensable to the achievement of sustainable development for all states. In particular, H.E. the Ambassador of Croatia, focused on Croatia’s recent experience of war and corrupt governance, which has cemented their firm believe that factors of Sustainable Development are lead by safety, freedom of speech, inclusiveness, and institutions that are both accountable and capable.

Representative of Zimbabwe who spoke on behalf of the Southern African Counties expressed that the primary focus should instead be on the eradication of poverty, which would, in turn, provide peace to states. Representatives of Denmark, Egypt, Cuba and Brazil shared their concerns for inclusive societies and rule of law as a whole focus area and consider instead mainstreaming these targets throughout the paper amongst other focus areas.

Meeting Title: Eleventh session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (9^th meeting: Focus Areas 15 and 16)

Key Speakers:Co-Chair H.E. Ambassador of Hungary Csaba Kőrösi, Co-Chair H.E. Ambassador of Kenya Macharia Kamau and delegates on behalf of: Bolivia, China, Barbados, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Benin, Lesotho, Colombia, Guatemala, Nauru, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Netherlands, UK, Australia, United States, Canada, Romania, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Sweden, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Switzerland, Germany, France, Singapore, Palau, Liechtenstein, Nigeria, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Latvia, Austria, Portugal, Cuba, Morocco, Egypt, Paraguay, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, India and Vanuatu

Location: United Nations Headquarters, New York

Date: May 9^th 2014

Written by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark

 

Biodiversity: The Need for Action

United Nations, New York Headquarters, 3 February 2014

During a side meeting on Biodiversity, representatives from various countries shared their perspectives on the importance of a biologically diverse planet. The ambassador to Germany, Mr. Thoms, shared the perspective that our earth, ocean, forests, and mountains hold many peoples spirituality. They also are the source of our economic capital and to exploit it for the short term will only lead to our degradation and vulnerability as people in the long term. 

India’s representative, Mr. Tyagi shared that overall, India’s percent of GDP from use of natural resources is 17%, but the poorest in the country receive 47% of their GDP from the environment. The poor in India, as in many other countries, rely more heavily on the environment than the population as a whole. Many other countries shared a similar concern, that with poverty eradication as a large part of the Post 2015 Development agenda, we must make a stand for biodiversity.

One solution to these problems was presented by Mr. Santos. Brazil has created a program called Bolsa Verde, translating roughly to green stipend. With the attention to social inclusion, sustainable resources, and poverty, Mr. Santos shared that the program goes to areas of extreme biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, provides stipends and training for people. The populations work on their land to bring back biodiversity and learn environmental conservation models of care. 

Mr. Jumeau from the island Seychelles, spoke from the perspective of the small islands and developing world, “This is not just about conservation, it is in many cases the economic viability of our resilience as independent sovereign states.” Ms. Sendashonga, the facilitator, said although biodiversity is a no-brainer, we must come up with targets and actions to make this goal a future for humanity. 

Meeting Title: Why Biodiversity is Essential for Social and Economic Aspects of Sustainable Development: Perspectives and Country Experiences from Developing and Developed Countries

Speakers: Mr. Katsuhiko Takahashi (Minister, Permanent Mission of Japan), Mr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias (Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity), Ms. Cyriaque Sendashonga (Global Director of IUCN), Ronald Jean Jumeau (Sychelles Ambassador for Climate Change and SIDS Issues), Mr. Jean-Francis R. Zinsou (Ambassador, PR of the Permanent Mission of Benin to the UN), Mr. Heiko Thoms (Ambassador to Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN), Mr. Ajay Tyagi (Joint Secretary to the Govn’t of India in the Ministry of Environment and Forests), Mr. Sergio Rodrigues dos Santos (Minister-Counsellor, Brazilian Mission to the UN), Mr. Jechul Yoo ( Director General, Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea)

Written by WIT Representative: Stephanie Harris