One of the bitterest betrayals is undoubtedly wealthy countries’ failure to honor commitments to help developing nations tackle the challenges of climate change. Back at the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, a pledge was made to provide $100 billion a year of support to the poorest countries by 2020, yet this target is now unlikely to be met until at least 2023. Commitments in Glasgow to rectify this by providing $500 billion over the next five years have unsurprisingly been met with skepticism.

Africa: bearing the brunt of climate change

The continent most vulnerable to the future effects of climate change is Africa. Three of the 10 countries most at risk from the impacts of the climate crisis are African. One of them – Madagascar – is already on the verge of a climate-induced famine. Moreover, the increased frequency of droughts, floods, and cyclones in many parts of the region is a grave threat in the coming years.

The devastating effects of climate change are estimated to erase up to 15% of the continent’s GDP by 2030. This is a particularly bitter pill to swallow given that Africa contributes just 3.8% of global emissions despite being home to around 15% of the world’s population.

In the lead up to the Glasgow conference, the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo and current Chair of the African Union, Félix Tshisekedi, called on world leaders to put Africa at the forefront of COP26 discussions. “Africa is tired of waiting,” Tshisekedi—who has made the fight against climate change one of his top priorities and whose pledge alongside Boris Johnson to battle deforestation was one of the brighter moments of the COP—warned.

The global struggle against climate change, Tshisekedi underlined as he called on countries to make firm funding commitments toward the African Union’s climate adaptation program, will not be won unless it is won in Africa. Indeed, Tshisekedi’s intervention made it clear that Africa is a unique opportunity in the search for a greener future. With much of the continent’s infrastructure yet to be built, only a small additional investment—an average of 3% of total costs—would ensure that this infrastructure is built green and resilient from the beginning.

Tshisekedi and other African leaders are likely frustrated and disappointed following the COP26. Not only are there doubts over the rearranged funding targets being met, but delegates also fell short in their aims of getting 50% of green climate funding committed to adaption measures in poorer countries. They also came away without any firm commitment over “loss and damage” payments to compensate for destruction caused by the effects of global warming.

Climate solutions lacking funding commitment 

The lack of focus on developing countries at COP26 is particularly frustrating considering the efforts that many of these countries are making. African countries are already spending around 5% of annual GDP on climate initiatives, compared to less than 1% in countries such as the UK. This is despite the fact that poorer nations are still having to pay around five times more on debt repayments than on climate measures.

As Félix Tshisekedi highlighted in the lead-up to the COP26, the African Union has worked together with the African Development Bank to craft an Africa-led plan to climate-proof key economic sectors, dubbed the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program. Many individual African states have stepped into the breach as well: Morocco, for example, has become a world leader in solar energy with the installation of a giant solar plant that has greatly reduced its reliance on fuel imported from the Middle East. Gabon, the second-most forested country in the world, has plans to harness its rainforest energy potential to transition to a carbon negative economy and become a “green superpower.” In Kenya, projects are running in poorly-sanitated areas to turn sewage into biofuel as part of an effort to create a greener circular economy at a local level.

These are just a handful of initiatives that could be scaled up with international support and expertise. This global solidarity, however, has been in short supply. According to 2019 research, only 18% of Green Climate Fund financing has gone to the poorest countries compared to 65% to middle-income nations.

COP26: a missed opportunity

The Glasgow Summit presented an opportunity to redress these imbalances and to allow those nations most at risk from climate change to shape the agenda. Instead, Africa has been given short shrift. Progress has indeed been made on emissions cuts and phasing out fossil fuels. But calls for more far-reaching change from campaigners from developing countries have been left largely unanswered, with commitments too vague and no real guarantee that funding will materialize.

Africa has both an abundance of natural renewable resources and a political will for transitioning to a more sustainable future, making the continent ideally positioned to become a hub for both climate resistance and new green technologies—something which would benefit the entire globe. Research has shown that taking bold climate action could be worth $26 trillion to the global economy and create 65 million new green jobs by 2030, as well as preventing millions of avoidable deaths.

COP26 was a major chance to tap into some of this potential to craft a meaningful plan for tackling the serious challenges ahead. Instead, it feels like a tragically missed opportunity. One can only hope that COP27, slated for next November in Egypt, will prove more fruitful.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com

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The BBC expose has sent shockwaves across the planet, prompting outrage from the UK in the face of Chinese denials that reveal blatant disregard for international law – and touching off an exchange of duelling sanctions between London and Beijing. Coordinating with allies in the EU, US, and Canada, the British government has slapped coordinated sanctions on state-connected Chinese companies as well as senior Chinese officials. China, in turn, has implemented retaliatory sanctions on UK politicians including MPs Iain Duncan Smith and Tom Tugendhat, as well as David Alton and Helena Kennedy in the House of Lords.

While Duncan Smith said the Chinese sanctions were a “badge of honour,” the tit-for-tat over China’s treatment of ethnic minorities has also exposed inconsistencies in the UK’s approach to tackling sexual violence worldwide. Could attention to the plight of the Uighurs present an opportunity to address the enduring impact of other episodes of sexual violence as well?

The UK takes a stand against Chinese state violence

Although ongoing issues over Brexit and the country’s track record on Covid-19 have tarnished global perceptions of the UK, the willingness of British leaders to take a stand against Chinese violations of international law, both on China’s own soil and overseas, offers an opportunity for Britain to claim a new mantle of global leadership – if it is willing to dedicate the energy and resources needed to turn statements of principle into concrete policy.

The UK already announced new rules back in January banning Chinese imports suspected of using forced labour in Uighur camps. While the government ramps up sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes on key Chinese officials, London will also host an unofficial “people’s tribunal” later this year focused on China’s anti-Uighur policies.

In a similar vein, the British government has ramped up its opposition to China’s brutal authoritarian push in Hong Kong. The UK placed an arms embargo and banned extraditions to the territory after Chinese authorities cracked down on protests and imposed harsh new security laws last summer. A new visa scheme allows Hong Kong residents eligible for British National (Overseas) passports to come to the UK and apply for fast-tracked UK citizenship, angering Beijing but drawing plaudits from human rights advocates.

Britain speaking out against overseas state violence – especially sexual violence of the sort deployed by the Chinese state against the Uighurs – is vitally important now, as Covid-19 distracts attention from humanitarian issues. As Nobel Prize winner and sexual slavery survivor Nadia Murad warns, the pandemic has in some cases even exacerbated problems such as sexual violence, sexual slavery, and global sex trafficking.

Historic crimes in Vietnam – a forgotten concern?

That context makes the global outcry over the plight of China’s Uighur population all the more important, but the BBC’s role in uncovering sexual violence in Xinjiang also echoes another exhaustive investigation the broadcaster conducted into systematic rapes and sexual abuse perpetrated by an East Asian government. Like the report on Uighur women, the BBC’s story gave voice to harrowing first-person accounts – only this time, the witnesses were survivors of crimes that occurred over 50 years ago in Vietnam.

As the BBC uncovered, soldiers deployed by South Korea during the Vietnam War were responsible for committing widespread sexual violence targeting Vietnamese women and girls. Over 300,000 Korean troops supported US soldiers in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s; according to campaigners, up to 9,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed and many thousands more were raped by the South Korean military. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese children, known in Vietnamese as “Lai Dai Han”, are believed to have been born as a result of the mass rapes. The Guardian found around 800 survivors were still alive as of 2019.

Despite moves to acknowledge war crimes committed in Vietnam by US troops, both South Korea and Vietnam have swept Seoul’s wartime actions under the rug. Vietnamese survivors and South Korean activists are battling to shed light on this forgotten history and secure justice for survivors, with groups such as Justice for Lai Dai Han (JLDH) campaigning to draw international attention to this brutal legacy.

A number of UK politicians, such as former foreign secretary Jack Straw, have spoken out on behalf of the JLDH, but the issue has not received the concerted involvement the British government has undertaken in regards to other episodes of sexual violence. Given the UK’s close relations with South Korea and its global engagement on the issue, more concrete involvement would boost South Korean and Vietnamese civil society organisations that continue to advocate for accountability to this day.

Allegations against Britain’s own troops

Of course, to truly lead, the UK must also take a clear-eyed view of its own past, and not shirk from investigating allegations levied against British troops. Sadly, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been accused of covering up war crimes allegedly committed by British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the government closed official inquiries into abuse allegations in 2017, a year-long investigation by BBC Panorama and the Sunday Times has since uncovered fresh evidence from witnesses.

Though the new evidence covers not just the killing of dozens of civilians but also of violence, torture, and sexual abuse of detainees allegedly carried out by British troops, the MoD never re-opened the inquiry. Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) found evidence British troops did commit war crimes in Iraq – including murder and sexual abuse – but decided not to pursue a case against the UK government. The inconclusive outcome does a disservice to victims who expect a democracy to hold alleged perpetrators accountable.

While the UK has been admirable in speaking out and taking action against sexual violence against the Uighurs in Xinjiang, more clearly needs to be done. As a starting point, the government should be acting on recommendations from the ICAI on its landmark Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, ensuring the Foreign Office carries on the gender equality work of the Department for International Development (DFID) after last year’s merger between the two.

If the UK can maintain its commitment to put survivors first, it can make a real impact in tackling worldwide sexual violence.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

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None of this is news to the UN, which counts on a small army of celebrity “goodwill ambassadors” from the fields of film, music, and sport to draw attention to a variety of global issues. American entertainer Danny Kaye became the first Goodwill Ambasador for UNICEF back in 1954. Over 400 such “ambassadors”  now work at the international, regional, and national levels. With their ability to reach a global public, stars such as Angelina Jolie and George Clooney drive media coverage and global awareness of issues ranging from HIV/AIDS to humanitarian crises.

Angelina Jolie, for example, first served as a goodwill ambassador for eleven years before becoming a full-fledged United Nations diplomat. A UN special envoy since 2012, she has travelled to the most pressing conflict zones, meeting with and advocating for refugees displaced by crises in Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.

George Clooney has become a leading global advocate for human rights in Sudan and South Sudan, leveraging his fame to call attention to the crimes of former dictator Omar el-Bashir and target state corruption in both countries. As early as 2006, Clooney’s advocacy focused international attention on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, even if his impact on the ground was harder to measure.

Ambassadors or distractions?

Jolie and Clooney are outliers in their levels of commitment to their chosen causes. Not all goodwill ambassadors approach their honorary positions with the same level of attention to detail, as when World Food Programme ambassador Christina Aguilera infamously described Rwanda as “war-torn” nearly 20 years after the civil war had ended there.

The practice of celebrity advocacy is a mixed bag, and opinions among international development professionals vary. While celebrity ambassadors can raise the profile of the UN and its work, they can also confuse or mislead the public regarding the issues they work on. As Ilan Kapoor argued in 2012, celebrity star power can “only further divert public attention away from the real social and economic causes of inequality.” In the most serious cases, these famous spokespeople have even risked undermining the United Nations’ core peacebuilding mission.

Amber Heard: unwitting lobbyist?

In parallel with this year’s UNGA, American actress and UN “Human Rights Champion” Amber Heard signed up to join Cherie Blair (attorney and the wife of the former British PM) and Neil Bush (son of George H.W. Bush and brother of George W. Bush) to campaign on behalf of the “unfairly jailed” Russian businesswoman Marsha Lazareva, who has been charged with embezzlement by Kuwaiti prosecutors.

In reality, Blair, Bush, and a number of prominent political figures are working on behalf of KGL Investment (KGLI), which is currently waging a public relations and lobbying campaign against Kuwait (a UN member state). Lazareva and co-defendant Saeed Dashti, both executives at KGLI, stand accused of funnelling millions of dollars of investor funds into private accounts between 2007 and 2015.

KGLI, which was spun off from the controversial Kuwait & Gulf Link (KGL) logistics conglomerate, has since spent millions of dollars engaging officials in Washington to help Marsha Lazareva and Dashti beat the rap. The campaign has even sought US government sanctions against Kuwaiti officials under the terms of the Global Magnistky Act, relying on the prominent advocates they have engaged to portray Lazareva’s case as a human rights issue.

As reported by the Washington Post in a major exposé earlier this month, claims Lazareva faces a “show trial” are part of a broader struggle over American military contracts, one of which KGL was recently stripped of by US courts. With accusations of financial misconduct coming on top of allegations KGL violated US sanctions against Iran and illegally occupied port facilities in Kuwait, KGL and KGLI are seemingly trying to stem the reputational and legal damage.

It is quite possible Heard did not look closely at the context of the event, but the case appears to be more of a corruption scandal than a human rights issue. By signing up to the campaign, has Heard positioned herself, and by extension the United Nations, against one of its own members?

Priyanka Chopra: misstep with major consequences

Another recent case is even more clear-cut, and more problematic. India’s Priyanka Chopra, a UN goodwill ambassador since 2016, has faced calls to be stripped of the honour after she sent a tweet in support of Indian military airstrikes on Pakistan this past February, with Pakistan’s human rights minister wring to UNICEF demanding she be “immediately denotified” from the role.

Chopra’s tweet had already prompted a firestorm of controversy in February, but in the context of India’s systematic human rights violations in Kashmir, which include allegations of mass arbitrary arrests and communications blackouts, the aggressively nationalistic tone of the tweet took on new meaning. Chopra responded to a Pakistani-American critic who directly accused Chopra of “encouraging nuclear war” by saying she was merely “patriotic” and walking a “middle ground,” but can the actress objectively claim she is a legitimate ambassador for peace? Like Heard, has Chopra called into question the UN’s objectivity by endorsing hostility against a member state?

The more celebrity ambassadors the UN works with, the likelier it becomes that at least some will prove detrimental to the organization’s mission through their words or actions. Ultimately, the UN needs to weigh up the best examples of the position at work against the dangers of getting it wrong, perhaps combining a more selective process with increased training and oversight of activities that could impact their work as UN representatives.

Given the fraught nature of international diplomacy, the impartiality of the global body most responsible for facilitating international cooperation must be beyond reproach.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any institutions with which the author is associated.

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The Bangladeshi government signed a bilateral pact with Myanmar to return the refugees and has made several aborted attempts to follow through—but there are serious problems with these repatriation plans that are exacerbated by the lack of attention and understanding of the situation from the international community. Ahead of the latest attempts to entice refugees to return to Myanmar, Rohingya have held protests and outright refused to go back to their native land without further guarantees.

Before the current crisis, the Muslim Rohingya made up around a third of the population in the Buddhist-majority Rakhine state of Myanmar. They have long faced discrimination in a country that until recently was ruled by the military. Never officially recognized as one of the country’s many ethnic minorities and denied citizenship rights, they have continually faced restrictions in areas such as marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice and freedom of movement.

Although many hoped that things might improve for the Rohingya following the democratization of Myanmar, they instead worsened. A military-led campaign killed around 6,700 in August and September 2017, in what the UN described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Over a million people fled the violence; the vast majority ended up in poorly-maintained camps in Bangladesh.

Prolonged uncertainty

The refugees in Bangladesh remain unsure about what will happen to them. They are justifiably refusing to return to their homeland in Rakhine, where the situation is still unstable and authorities have made minimal preparations for their return, despite claims to the contrary. But life in the Cox’s Bazar camps, in southeastern Bangladesh, is not much better. Facilities are poor and overcrowded, and the Bangladeshi government doesn’t seem to have much of a plan for dealing with the situation beyond convincing the Rohingya to go home as quickly as possible.

For what Human Rights Watch has suggested are political reasons, Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League—which clung to power in extremely controversial elections last December—is reluctant to acknowledge that it may be a long time before many Rohingya refugees are able to return to Myanmar. Dhaka’s decision to consider the Rohingya “forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals” rather than refugees has a number of concrete consequences: for one thing, children in the camps are unable to attend Bangladeshi public schools. Dhaka forbids the Rohingya to build permanent homes, meaning they are forced to live in rudimentary shelters covered by plastic tarp. There have been recent moves to issue temporary ID cards and stop widespread trafficking within the camps, but there is a notable lack of a sustainable long-term strategy.

Worryingly, one of the main solutions the Bangladeshi government has come up with is to relocate a portion of the refugees to a remote island at high risk of flooding and cyclones. Eroding by half a kilometer per year, Bhasan Char is 24 miles from the mainland and accessible only by a 3-hour boat ride. The island is currently uninhabited, but the Bangladeshi authorities have been busy constructing facilities for a population of around 100,000. It’s been called a “prison island” by activists and it’s not hard to see why: reports suggest that each family will be confined to a 3.6m x 1.2m concrete room with bars on the windows, and there will be only two kitchens and one toilet per 64 families.

The Bangladeshi authorities say that the island will only be populated by voluntary inhabitants, but there hasn’t been much sign of willingness to move to Bhasan Char among those in the camps. There are fears about conditions on the island as well as risks from natural disasters. Human rights groups and NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, have expressed concerns about facilities and are worried that authorities may use coercion and force if not enough volunteers put themselves forward.

Where’s the international community?

The truth is that Bangladesh is ill-equipped to deal with this refugee crisis. The country is among the world’s poorest as well as being the 12th most densely populated nation in the world. Consequently, it has struggled to shoulder the burden of roughly a million refugees.

The West has repeatedly expressed outrage over the persecution of the Rohingya, but Dhaka has yet to convince the international community to take concrete actions which might set Myanmar down a path of genuine change. The Trump administration recently reintroduced minor sanctions against Myanmar after they were lifted following the end of military rule in 2011, but these have only extended to travel sanctions for high-ranking military generals. Meanwhile, the decision by the US to suspend all foreign aid funds will only aggravate the shortfalls faced by refugee agencies.

Europe hasn’t fared much better. Though around €139 million of EU aid has been released to deal with the crisis since 2017, this accounts for only around 0.5% of the bloc’s annual aid budget— and the crisis hasn’t featured much on the discussion agenda either at EU level or within individual nations. With the British government preoccupied with Brexit, any serious discussion on overseas matters such as this in the near future seems unlikely.

Elsewhere, Japan and Singapore are still investing heavily in Myanmar while Russia and China continue to support the military while boycotting UN talks on the crisis. A UN fact-finding report released earlier this month also found that defense companies from at least seven foreign countries have supplied Myanmar‘s military with arms since 2016.

Having failed to build an international consensus on how to deal with the Rohingya crisis, Bangladesh’s government has been left hashing out bilateral agreements with Myanmar. Meanwhile, the most important thing – the safety and wellbeing of the Rohingya refugees themselves – risks being overlooked.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any institutions with which the author is associated.

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