UN – Slugger O'Toole

Climate change is no longer a stand-alone issue

Patrick Corrigan on September 23, 2014, 9:23 am

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As world leaders meet today in New York for the UN Climate Summit, Eithne McNulty of Trocaire writes this guest post for Slugger to argue: Climate change is no longer a stand-alone issue, it is the entire context in which the world exists Humans, along with every other species, depend totally on the proper functioning of the planet for the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. A small change to nature’s system can have the effect of knocking the …

Syria: Does Ireland have the resources to deal with intra state conflict?

Mick Fealty on August 29, 2014, 12:23 am

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It’s been an article of recent considered thought in foreign policy circles that inter state war is being replaced by intra state conflict. Today there was panic when the UN announced that forty three peacekeepers had been ‘detained’ by “an armed group”. #454288150 / gettyimages.com There are an estimated 130 Irish soldiers with the 44th Infantry Group at Camp Faouar on the Syrian side of the UN ‘area of separation’, in the Golan Heights. They are part of the United …

Mauritius must get to grips with torture if it wishes to restore confidence

Patrick Corrigan on July 20, 2012, 9:59 am

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The failure to find and convict the killers of Michaela McAreavey has exposed glaring holes in the Mauritius criminal justice system and a worrying reliance on confessions allegedly extracted under torture. The Mauritian jury’s ‘not guilty’ verdict seems to show that they believed Avinash Treebhoowoon’s allegation that a confession statement produced three days after Michaela McAreavey’s murder was a police concoction, only signed by him after days of torture. Treebhoowoon made his first official complaint of ill-treatment at a court appearance …

Haiti: ‘Baby Doc’ escapes justice for past abuses

Patrick Corrigan on January 31, 2012, 12:53 pm

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Given the Slugger community’s interest in Haiti, I thought it worthwhile to note the regrettable decision by a Haitian court not to charge the country’s former dictator, Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, over allegations of torture and murder. Duvalier returned to Haiti this time last year after 25 years in exile in France. Since then, he has been under investigation for serious human rights violations – including torture, disappearances and extrajudicial executions – that took place during his rule from 1971 to …

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics…”

Pete Baker on May 2, 2011, 10:30 pm

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Over a month after US President Barack Obama’s unilateral decision to authorize US forces to use missile strikes “kinetic military action” against Libya without the approval of Congress, and the UN withdraws from Tripoli as its offices, and other foreign missions, are attacked in the aftermath of a NATO air strike on one of Muammar Gadafy’s homes. In addition, “world leaders and security experts have urged renewed vigilance against retaliatory attacks” after President Obama authorised a targeted killing, of Osama bin Laden, on Pakistani soil – …

Dublin Convention on cluster weapons comes into force

Pádraig Belton on August 2, 2010, 9:00 am

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Yesterday, cluster bombs became illegal over much of the world; in no small part because of Ireland. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, in effect from 1st August, was adopted in Dublin on the 30th May 2008 at the Croke Park Conference Centre. Disarmament is something of a niche specialism for Irish diplomacy – it was Minister for External Affairs Frank Aiken who introduced in the UN General Assembly the resolution that became the Non-Proliferation Treaty (which Ireland was the first country …