Recently, the UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation as a Human Right went on a fact-finding tour of the United States and released a press statement. “I call for legal action to change the status of unrecognized and terminated tribes to enable all American Indians to gain the respect, privileges, religious freedom, and land and water rights to which they are entitled,” she stressed, calling on the US to ensure that water and sanitation are available at a price people can afford. said UN independent expert Catarina de Albuquerque, who is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to examine human rights obligations for access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
It is significant to see that the langauge of the California Green Party plank on Water Planning includes a declaration that the GPCA"Uphold the water and land rights established under the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo and the sovereign claims of Native American bands, tribes, rancherias, reservations, Mission Indians, and non-federally recognized bands and tribes." The Green Party of California supports the efforts of all Native Americans to their claims and rights to land and resources as paramount in all water rights issues. Further, it proposes to cut through the legal and administrative processes of the Interior Department by acknowledging the rights of those bands and tribes who have made claims as remnant tribes and bands.
That being said, the Independent expert deserves criticism for lacking a substantial input process upon which to base her conclusion. She had 8-9 people in Sacramento testify. Her press statement did not reflect the limited input provided and the input provided did not justify the issue of discrimination being the sole focal point, as she raised it in her press statement. Green, Martin Zehr, testified and submitted a 7 page review of the relation between regional water planning and water as a human right. Included in the written review, it was noted that Greens in Detroit have also been active in opposing water shutoffs due to economic distress and the impact of the depression in Detroit.
Also testifying were representatives of the Unitarian-Universalists. Debbie Davis of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water testified concerning the contamination of public water supplies in the Central Valley of California. The effort of the UN Independent expert pales in comparison with the recent publication of the Public Policy Institute of California of the study entitled: MANAGING CALIFORNIA'S WATER: FROM CONFLICT TO RECONCILIATION. I attended the release on the study in Sacramento on February 24th. It is a shame that these two events, that were held so close to each other in time and place, were not able to contribute to the efforts of the other.
Chief Gary Harrison, who organized the Alaska leg of the Peace and Dignity Journeys, was also there to testify. Chief Gary ran with me in 1996 in the Peace and Dignity Journey, a Native American cross-continental spiritual run . He testified and submitted a paper to the UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation.
Chickaloon Village presents its case against Coal Mining to United Nations Expert on the Human Right to Water
February 28, 2011
Monday
(SitNews) Chickaloon Native Village, a federally-recognized Athabascan Indian Tribal government in Alaska, filed a communication to the United Nations Independent Expert on the human right to water and sanitation in conjunction with her first official visit to the United States, which began today.
Chickaloon Village’s submission asserts that the new open-pit coal strip mine in its traditional territory proposed by the Usibelli Corporation would contaminate local drinking water sources as well as rivers, streams and groundwater that support salmon, moose and other animals and plants vital for subsistence, religious and cultural practices. The US Federal Government and the State of Alaska have, to date, not responded to Chickaloon’s firmly-stated opposition to the mine.
The visit to the United States by the Independent Expert, Mrs. Catarina de Albuquerque, a Portuguese human rights expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, includes stops in Washington DC, Boston Massachusetts and Northern California, where she will meet with the Winnemem Wintu and other Indigenous representatives. Her US visit will end on March 2, 2011.
During her visit she will meet with the US State Department and relevant Federal agencies as well organizations, communities and experts to receive information regarding the human right to water and sanitation and the federal and state policies and practices that affect this right. She is expected to make recommendations to the US government at the conclusion of her visit.
Quoting the news release from NAY’DINI’AA NA’ (Chicaloon Village) Traditional Council, the right to water for Chickaloon and other Indigenous Peoples is not limited to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. It is closely linked to a range of other rights including Self-determination, subsistence, health, land and resources, cultural and religious practice and free, prior and informed consent. International standards including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognize Indigenous Peoples’ right to determine their own priorities for development and to exercise free, prior and informed consent regarding activities which may affect their traditional lands and resources, including water.
Coal mining in and around Chickaloon in the early 1900’s had devastating impacts, including contaminating rivers and decimating traditional food sources such as moose and salmon said the NAY’DINI’AA NA’ Traditional Council. The tribes’ long years of effort to restore its culture, subsistence, language, health and ecosystems, including its waterways, will be severely undercut if not nullified by the proposed new mining.
Explaining the reasons behind Chickaloon’s filing, Traditional Chief Gary Harrison stated: “International standards like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognize our inherent sacred right to protect our water and keep it clean for the animals, fish and future generations of our Nation. Our right to water is the same as our right to life. We can’t sit back and allow our human right to water to be violated again”.
Chickaloon is a census-designated place (CDP) in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Anchorage, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 213 at the 2000 census.
Showing posts with label Human Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Rights. Show all posts
Monday, March 07, 2011
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Maude Barlow and Water as a Human Right
My problem with Maude Barlow's presentation is not the concept that water is a common resource. My issue is what would be the legal ramifications regarding allocations to rural areas versus urban areas when water is made a human right. It needs to be said that water allocations will invariably have a disproportional allocation to agricultural use. Disproportional only in the sense that greater quantities and less efficiencies are characteristic of agricultural use. Even after every efficiency measure is applied this will be the case.
California has large scale agricultural use on a scale that is not characteristic of NM. This creates its own political issue as diversions between regions North-South are frequently the source of water conflicts. California has water rights defined in a complex structure that inevitably creates more conflicts than common understandings. The state has been provided with extraordinary power to divert the water resource that has been exercised in numerous large scale aqueducts. The state legislature is the ultimate authority in these diversions and bonds are the source of such funding. One such bond that includes the peripheral canal from the Delta for increased allocations to the Central Valley is currently on the ballot. The Governor is attempting to get this measure off the ballot now. Greens are encouraged to vote NO if this issue makes it to the ballot.
To get back to Maude Barlow, her position of water as a human right is a projected model that appears to be based on models and existing law in underdeveloped nations. One thing I do not understand is her failure to address the fact that US law already classifies water in the state and federal laws as a common resource. The Federal government and the state governments already have authority in interstate streams and rivers. The issue raised in the US against the concept of water as a human right includes the issue of how this would impact on the issue of paramount rights for tribal lands and reserves. That is a distinct issue but such lands are predominately rural with small scale agricultural use. We have seen in NM that when the legal issue of quantification of rights gets put on the table, that pueblos inevitably respond with golf courses as a measure that assures this beneficial use that will be included in the litigation. I would ask how one would distinguish the "human right" through a quantified yardstick. Would this simply be used to expand greenfield development and increase urban use in the same way as the pueblos worked to increase use?
The urban exponential growth in population is not addressed in the issue of water as a human right. It has been addressed through the regional water planning of the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly (MRGWA) through the water budget and its Public Welfare Statement and recommendations. The shortcoming in the planning process has been the subordination of the structural political reforms needed to plan AND implement the regional plans themselves. Urban use can be argued to be more "efficient", and this was the debate often within Urban Users and Economic Development Advocates of the MRGWA in regards to quality of life vs. growth issues. (see page 17 of Executive Summary ) I see more support for the issue of human rights from those who are not users. The structure of political debates in this scenario inevitably repeat the classic urban-rural conflicts. That being the case I am reluctant to see it as a move forward in equitable allocations.
Grafting "water as a human right" onto the historical, statutory and constitutional structure of water management that will continue to exist does not legally guarantee clean water as is its claim. It will not end groundwater mining as is its claim. It will not provide the infrastructure needed to deliver water to users in remote regions or guarantee supplies for expanded urban areas. In terms of the character of the water issue in California, it should be noted that those reservoirs that Maude Barlow projected would go empty have been filled this year with the increased precipitation. Her characterization of a universal crisis is a projection of her political agenda not of the regional supplies available.
Missing in her discussion is the issue of population as a stressor on the carrying capacity of resource supplies. I, too have a political agenda. As a Green, I want us to structure our political entities based on common regional long-term planning. Maude speaks against urbanization but really promotes urban users. She mentions green spaces but fails to grasp the dynamics of aquifer recharge and presumes green spaces are inherently measures for such recharge that will demonstratively increase supplies. Planning will address that through the inclusion of the science in the process. Regional planning in NM demonstrated that it can address this and even resulted in a quantified flow model for the Middle Rio Grande region through the work of Sandia National Labs. The denial of the water resource in underdeveloped nations is a result of political structures weighted in favor of corporate interests as a key element of development. Bottled water is an issue where commercial interests from outside the region are provided access to regional supplies. It is not simply an issue of rich folks robbing poor folks but is fundamentally a product of "outside" users being given access to regional supplies. The West is filled with ghost towns, where gold mines once flourished. After extracting the resource the towns were abandoned. (think Intel here, where the town of Rio Rancho, NM grew exponentially as a result of the Intel chip plant that pumps an average of 3,000 acre-feet per year)
Maude Barlow's presumption that privatization is the underlying cause of water shortages fails to identify the failure of government to represent users as users and the failure to provide political representation in appropriate models to empower adaptive governance by stakeholders. The political issue is not the lack of entitlement or access for the poor, whether they are urban or rural to a common resource. That is primarily a pricing issue and Greens in Detroit have worked around the issue of water shutoffs to address the inequities that have resulted. In that regard, the argument is already presumed that water is a human need and denial of access, whether by private or municipal authorities, is an attack on the basic need for human survival.
The political issue is the failure to structure those entities responsible for water management in such a way as to be reflective of the region's water use. Maude Barlow fails to extrapolate her own critique of government to include its role in facilitating economic growth and increasing the exploitation of the resource. In our own planning process in the Middle Rio Grande, we saw how urban municipalities repeatedly worked to undermine the concept of balancing growth with renewable supplies. To predict a significant change of behavior by urban users and existing political entities based on codification of the concept of "water as a human right" is unrealistic and fails to present a significant change in the scenarios of the future.
California has large scale agricultural use on a scale that is not characteristic of NM. This creates its own political issue as diversions between regions North-South are frequently the source of water conflicts. California has water rights defined in a complex structure that inevitably creates more conflicts than common understandings. The state has been provided with extraordinary power to divert the water resource that has been exercised in numerous large scale aqueducts. The state legislature is the ultimate authority in these diversions and bonds are the source of such funding. One such bond that includes the peripheral canal from the Delta for increased allocations to the Central Valley is currently on the ballot. The Governor is attempting to get this measure off the ballot now. Greens are encouraged to vote NO if this issue makes it to the ballot.
To get back to Maude Barlow, her position of water as a human right is a projected model that appears to be based on models and existing law in underdeveloped nations. One thing I do not understand is her failure to address the fact that US law already classifies water in the state and federal laws as a common resource. The Federal government and the state governments already have authority in interstate streams and rivers. The issue raised in the US against the concept of water as a human right includes the issue of how this would impact on the issue of paramount rights for tribal lands and reserves. That is a distinct issue but such lands are predominately rural with small scale agricultural use. We have seen in NM that when the legal issue of quantification of rights gets put on the table, that pueblos inevitably respond with golf courses as a measure that assures this beneficial use that will be included in the litigation. I would ask how one would distinguish the "human right" through a quantified yardstick. Would this simply be used to expand greenfield development and increase urban use in the same way as the pueblos worked to increase use?
The urban exponential growth in population is not addressed in the issue of water as a human right. It has been addressed through the regional water planning of the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly (MRGWA) through the water budget and its Public Welfare Statement and recommendations. The shortcoming in the planning process has been the subordination of the structural political reforms needed to plan AND implement the regional plans themselves. Urban use can be argued to be more "efficient", and this was the debate often within Urban Users and Economic Development Advocates of the MRGWA in regards to quality of life vs. growth issues. (see page 17 of Executive Summary ) I see more support for the issue of human rights from those who are not users. The structure of political debates in this scenario inevitably repeat the classic urban-rural conflicts. That being the case I am reluctant to see it as a move forward in equitable allocations.
Grafting "water as a human right" onto the historical, statutory and constitutional structure of water management that will continue to exist does not legally guarantee clean water as is its claim. It will not end groundwater mining as is its claim. It will not provide the infrastructure needed to deliver water to users in remote regions or guarantee supplies for expanded urban areas. In terms of the character of the water issue in California, it should be noted that those reservoirs that Maude Barlow projected would go empty have been filled this year with the increased precipitation. Her characterization of a universal crisis is a projection of her political agenda not of the regional supplies available.
Missing in her discussion is the issue of population as a stressor on the carrying capacity of resource supplies. I, too have a political agenda. As a Green, I want us to structure our political entities based on common regional long-term planning. Maude speaks against urbanization but really promotes urban users. She mentions green spaces but fails to grasp the dynamics of aquifer recharge and presumes green spaces are inherently measures for such recharge that will demonstratively increase supplies. Planning will address that through the inclusion of the science in the process. Regional planning in NM demonstrated that it can address this and even resulted in a quantified flow model for the Middle Rio Grande region through the work of Sandia National Labs. The denial of the water resource in underdeveloped nations is a result of political structures weighted in favor of corporate interests as a key element of development. Bottled water is an issue where commercial interests from outside the region are provided access to regional supplies. It is not simply an issue of rich folks robbing poor folks but is fundamentally a product of "outside" users being given access to regional supplies. The West is filled with ghost towns, where gold mines once flourished. After extracting the resource the towns were abandoned. (think Intel here, where the town of Rio Rancho, NM grew exponentially as a result of the Intel chip plant that pumps an average of 3,000 acre-feet per year)
Maude Barlow's presumption that privatization is the underlying cause of water shortages fails to identify the failure of government to represent users as users and the failure to provide political representation in appropriate models to empower adaptive governance by stakeholders. The political issue is not the lack of entitlement or access for the poor, whether they are urban or rural to a common resource. That is primarily a pricing issue and Greens in Detroit have worked around the issue of water shutoffs to address the inequities that have resulted. In that regard, the argument is already presumed that water is a human need and denial of access, whether by private or municipal authorities, is an attack on the basic need for human survival.
The political issue is the failure to structure those entities responsible for water management in such a way as to be reflective of the region's water use. Maude Barlow fails to extrapolate her own critique of government to include its role in facilitating economic growth and increasing the exploitation of the resource. In our own planning process in the Middle Rio Grande, we saw how urban municipalities repeatedly worked to undermine the concept of balancing growth with renewable supplies. To predict a significant change of behavior by urban users and existing political entities based on codification of the concept of "water as a human right" is unrealistic and fails to present a significant change in the scenarios of the future.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
A Call for Amnesty
A Call for Amnesty for All Soldiers that have refused to fight in the Iraq War
After receiving the following from Llowel Downey, I asked for permission to post it in it's entirety. Permission was granted and here it is.
A Call for Amnesty for All Soldiers that have refused to fight in the Iraq War
The Napa County Green Party calls for an immediate Amnesty for all soldiers that have refused to fight in the Iraq War. Marin County Greens have also signed on to this issue. We demand that Congress debate this important issue. This is not just a military issue. This is a human rights issue that involves us all. We demand that this amnesty be given without conditions, including free of all charges on the soldier's record, no dishonorable discharge, return of full medical and education benefits, and the right to stay in the military, without punishment, should the soldier wish to remain.
Amnesty is the right thing do. This war was created with lies and deception. Our elected leaders have ignored the facts and supported this war for years while our soldiers and Iraqi civilians have been and continue to be crippled and slaughtered. Our elected representatives hold responsibility for this war and it is up to them to begin the important step toward national healing by showing compassion to our soldiers and their families. One essential step toward healing is to give amnesty to our soldiers that have refused to fight in this war.
Our soldiers have returned home maimed and psychologically scarred for life. The mistreatment by our government is criminal. Soldiers are not returning to a home with citizens protesting and condemning them. They are returning home and being disgraced by our government and military. One out of every three homeless is a veteran. Veterans and their families are harassed and financially crippled. Veteran families are victim at home while their husbands and wives and children are dying and wounded in Iraq. Our leading military hospital has been disgraced for its treatment of soldiers.
Our soldiers are in the business of handling adversity and disappointment. Handling shame by our government is not one of them. Amnesty is about compassion. Our soldiers who have been fighting an unjust war are deserving of this compassion. Our soldiers deserve amnesty and should not be punished for refusing to fight a war disguised as morally right but criminally wrong. Amnesty is about healing a great wrong suffered on us, and suffered on the world. Why should our soldiers be victim to this great tragedy?
Would we condemn the soldiers if they refused to follow the orders to commit the horrific My Lai Massacre in Vietnam? Would we not offer them compassion and amnesty if they chose to flee the military order? Would we condemn Nazi soldiers who were committing atrocities in labor camps from refusing their orders? Would we not offer them compassion and amnesty?
Quoting St. Augustine, Martin Luther King Jr. said, "An unjust law is no law at all." Are our soldiers who refuse to follow an unjust law and an unjust order guilty of a crime that will forever be on their records? Is it right that they and their families bear the shame of a dishonorable discharge, prison and humiliation? We cannot turn our heads on these brave Americans who have been ostracized and turned into criminals for standing up against deceitful political leaders.
Our country needs healing. Not to give amnesty will be a great shame on the United States. The objection of the military must be overcome. This is one of the challenges of being the military of a democracy. Our soldiers are trained to follow orders. This will have to be one more order they will have to learn to live with. They will have to find the courage within themselves for compassion. There will be soldiers who say it is far greater challenge to stay on the front line and follow the orders. Yes, that is a difficult and terrible challenge. It is also a difficult challenge to go against your life's pursuit, that of a military officer, to go against an order, to threaten the well being of your family. It is a difficult challenge to stand up against your government and refuse the order to fight and kill when you know that the reason for doing so is morally corrupt and criminal. One challenge is not greater than the other.
There can be no conditions for amnesty. Our country needs to find a way back from the horror that this war has inflicted here at home. We have another generation of children who have grown up with this violence. We have another war generation to support. In ten years, we may look back and say that giving amnesty to our soldiers who refused to fight in the Iraq War was the catalyst for healing. We are a nation in grief. Amnesty is a way to restore faith in our democracy and our humanity.
In an address Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke, ‘the first question which the priest and the Levite asked was “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan reversed the question, “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” We also ask, "What will happen to the children of our soldiers and our children if we do not grant amnesty and show compassion?"
After receiving the following from Llowel Downey, I asked for permission to post it in it's entirety. Permission was granted and here it is.
A Call for Amnesty for All Soldiers that have refused to fight in the Iraq War
The Napa County Green Party calls for an immediate Amnesty for all soldiers that have refused to fight in the Iraq War. Marin County Greens have also signed on to this issue. We demand that Congress debate this important issue. This is not just a military issue. This is a human rights issue that involves us all. We demand that this amnesty be given without conditions, including free of all charges on the soldier's record, no dishonorable discharge, return of full medical and education benefits, and the right to stay in the military, without punishment, should the soldier wish to remain.
Amnesty is the right thing do. This war was created with lies and deception. Our elected leaders have ignored the facts and supported this war for years while our soldiers and Iraqi civilians have been and continue to be crippled and slaughtered. Our elected representatives hold responsibility for this war and it is up to them to begin the important step toward national healing by showing compassion to our soldiers and their families. One essential step toward healing is to give amnesty to our soldiers that have refused to fight in this war.
Our soldiers have returned home maimed and psychologically scarred for life. The mistreatment by our government is criminal. Soldiers are not returning to a home with citizens protesting and condemning them. They are returning home and being disgraced by our government and military. One out of every three homeless is a veteran. Veterans and their families are harassed and financially crippled. Veteran families are victim at home while their husbands and wives and children are dying and wounded in Iraq. Our leading military hospital has been disgraced for its treatment of soldiers.
Our soldiers are in the business of handling adversity and disappointment. Handling shame by our government is not one of them. Amnesty is about compassion. Our soldiers who have been fighting an unjust war are deserving of this compassion. Our soldiers deserve amnesty and should not be punished for refusing to fight a war disguised as morally right but criminally wrong. Amnesty is about healing a great wrong suffered on us, and suffered on the world. Why should our soldiers be victim to this great tragedy?
Would we condemn the soldiers if they refused to follow the orders to commit the horrific My Lai Massacre in Vietnam? Would we not offer them compassion and amnesty if they chose to flee the military order? Would we condemn Nazi soldiers who were committing atrocities in labor camps from refusing their orders? Would we not offer them compassion and amnesty?
Quoting St. Augustine, Martin Luther King Jr. said, "An unjust law is no law at all." Are our soldiers who refuse to follow an unjust law and an unjust order guilty of a crime that will forever be on their records? Is it right that they and their families bear the shame of a dishonorable discharge, prison and humiliation? We cannot turn our heads on these brave Americans who have been ostracized and turned into criminals for standing up against deceitful political leaders.
Our country needs healing. Not to give amnesty will be a great shame on the United States. The objection of the military must be overcome. This is one of the challenges of being the military of a democracy. Our soldiers are trained to follow orders. This will have to be one more order they will have to learn to live with. They will have to find the courage within themselves for compassion. There will be soldiers who say it is far greater challenge to stay on the front line and follow the orders. Yes, that is a difficult and terrible challenge. It is also a difficult challenge to go against your life's pursuit, that of a military officer, to go against an order, to threaten the well being of your family. It is a difficult challenge to stand up against your government and refuse the order to fight and kill when you know that the reason for doing so is morally corrupt and criminal. One challenge is not greater than the other.
There can be no conditions for amnesty. Our country needs to find a way back from the horror that this war has inflicted here at home. We have another generation of children who have grown up with this violence. We have another war generation to support. In ten years, we may look back and say that giving amnesty to our soldiers who refused to fight in the Iraq War was the catalyst for healing. We are a nation in grief. Amnesty is a way to restore faith in our democracy and our humanity.
In an address Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke, ‘the first question which the priest and the Levite asked was “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan reversed the question, “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” We also ask, "What will happen to the children of our soldiers and our children if we do not grant amnesty and show compassion?"
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