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> Washington also referred to legal concerns as well as worries that recognising new rights could dilute traditional civil and political rights, according to so
by oytis 5y ago
> Washington also referred to legal concerns as well as worries that recognising new rights could dilute traditional civil and political rights, according to sources following the talks.
Totally makes sense to me really. It's just enables genocidal dictatorships to go full "what about" when called out for their crimes. Yes, we just exterminated a small nation, but look how much U.S. companies pollute!
- girvo 5y agoI mean this as an honest question: why does that matter? Diplomatically, why would any other country care about a genocidal dictatorships pronouncements of hypocrisy? That already happens, and it already doesn’t stop sanctions and other consequences, from my limited understanding of geopolitics.
- oytis 5y agoIt matters as much as recognizing anything as a human right formally matters. U.N. is not good at enforcing human rights really, but it's better than nothing, and diluting it further is a step to "nothing" in my opinion.
- adventured 5y agoIt's not better than nothing. Entirely corrupting the definition of human rights by routinely putting the worst human rights offenders on the human rights council, is worse than doing nothing. It gives sanction to those human rights offenses by pretending those nations deserve to be on the human rights council, that they have earned equal representation on such a matter. The UN would be doing the same thing if this context were to become real. Nobody will be inspecting China, Russia or 37 other dictatorships for environmental human rights abuses.
- oytis 5y agoI agree it is a problem, but by "nothing" I mean the state before UN declaration of human rights, i.e. before 1948. I think we can agree that as of 2021 humanity has made some progress since then?
- Barrin92 5y agonot sure I follow, we can't create new ecological rights because some countries might do better on them than the US, so the only legitimate rights on the planet are the ones that extend the political power of the United States? Because you know the exact thing you're afraid of has actually been done in the name of civil liberties and political rights, how many small nations have been crushed in the name of freedom and democracy in the last half century?
- oytis 5y agoEnvironmental concerns are important, human rights are important too, and they are not comparable. You can't compensate for the lack of human and civil rights by polluting less or buying carbon credits. Putting everything in the "human rights" bucket create an impression that you can.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago> You can't compensate for the lack of human and civil rights by polluting less or buying carbon credits. To an extent, you can – obviously not by buying carbon credits, though. Doing things that actually improve (or, reduce less slowly) the living conditions of humans is comparable to poor living conditions of humans.
- oytis 5y agoI think I have to disagree with that. Human and civil rights are not just about living conditions, it's more about such hard to define thing as respect for human dignity which can be preserved in various conditions.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wizzwizz4 5y agoThe iron fist is distant, its motivations hazy. If it stops mixing radioactive-contaminated materials in with the entire country's meat supply, does it matter why?
- honksillet 5y agoI agree. Even if you keep it within ecology, entities (companies/countries) have been allowed to focus on CO2 emissions while downplaying particulate emissions, water contamination, etc. “Look at my slick PR campaign. We’ve been buying carbon credits! Just don’t test the water downstream from our Chinese factory. “