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For Immediate Release
October, 10 2024, 11:25am EDT
Contact:
Tel: +1-212-216-1832,Email:,hrwpress@hrw.org
COP29 Host Country Agreement Lacks Rights Protections
Azerbaijan Should Guarantee Rights of Civil Society Participants At Climate Conference
In a case that is disappointing but not surprising, the agreement between the government of Azerbaijan and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for hosting the climate conference COP29, is replete with significant shortcomings and ambiguities on the protections for participants’ rights. Human Rights Watch has obtained a copy of this host country agreement, signed in August 2024, which has yet to be made public.
For instance, the agreement states that while conference participants “shall enjoy immunity for legal process in respect of words spoken or written and any act performed by them,” a separate clause requires them to respect Azerbaijani laws and not interfere in its “internal affairs.”
There is no clarity in the agreement about what actions could constitute “interference” with Azerbaijan’s “internal affairs,” and whether Azerbaijan’s laws apply in the UN-run conference zone. Given Azerbaijan’s strict limitations on freedoms of expression and assembly, which violate international human rights law, participants' actions within the zone could be subject to reprisals outside the zone.
Azerbaijan has a longstanding record of severely limiting free speech and peaceful assembly. It uses abusive laws to paralyze independent nongovernmental organizations and silence dissent.
At the 2023 Bonn Climate Conference, UNFCCC member states highlighted that host country agreements should be made publicly available and should uphold international human rights law.
Civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly called for host-country agreements to be made public for participants to have confidence that their rights will be protected when attending climate conferences. Last year, Amnesty International obtained a copy of the COP28 agreement between the government of the UAE and the UNFCCC, and although some positive elements were included, they concluded that overall human rights safeguards in the HCA were insufficient for participants.
Just weeks before COP29, members of civil society, including activists, journalists and human rights defenders, still lack clarity about the protections in place to ensure their human rights are respected at the conference.
It is regrettable that these agreements are shrouded in secrecy, and it shouldn’t fall to civil society organizations to share them publicly. In the interests of transparency and accessibility, the UNFCCC should publish past, current, and future agreements on its website.
More urgently, it should publicly call upon the Azerbaijani government to respect its human rights obligations and facilitate a rights-respecting climate conference.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
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Federal Judge Blocks Alabama's Election Eve Voter Purge
"This ruling strengthens our democracy by safeguarding access to the ballot for all eligible voters including naturalized citizens who were unfairly targeted and removed from the rolls," said one case litigant.
Oct 16, 2024
Citing a U.S. law prohibiting states from removing people from their registered voter lists within 90 days of an election, a U.S. federal judge on Wednesday ordered Alabama officials to pause a controversial voter roll purge until after next month's contest.
U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco—an appointee of former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee—wrote in her preliminary injunction that GOP Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) by launching a campaign purportedly targeting "noncitizens registered to vote."
"Allen blew the [NVRA] deadline when he announced a purge program to begin 84 days before the 2024 general election," Manasco said, adding that the secretary of state "later admitted that his purge list included thousands of United States citizens (in addition to far fewer noncitizens, who are ineligible to vote), and in any event, referred everyone on the purge list to the Alabama attorney general for criminal investigation."
The Biden administration's Department of Justice, along with civil and voting rights groups, last month sued Allen and the state of Alabama over the policy's timing. Individual Alabama voters also filed suit claiming the purge targeted naturalized U.S. citizens.
Allen's program removed more than 3,000 people from Alabama's voter rolls and referred them for criminal prosecution. However, more than 2,000 targeted individuals have since been deemed eligible to vote. Manasco's ruling gave Alabama officials three days to restore the active status of all wrongfully purged voters.
Responding to the decision, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said that "this action sends a clear message that the Justice Department will work to ensure that the rights of eligible voters are protected."
"The National Voter Registration Act's 90-day 'quiet period provision' is an important safeguard to prevent erroneous eleventh-hour efforts that stand to disenfranchise eligible voters," Clarke added. "The Justice Department remains steadfast in our resolve to protect voters from unlawful removal from the registration rolls and to ensure that states comply with the mandate of federal law."
Litigants in the challenge to Allen's voter removal program also welcomed Wednesday's ruling.
"We are pleased with the court's swift action to protect Alabama voters from an unlawful purge and ensure they can fully participate in the upcoming elections," League of Women Voters of Alabama president Kathy Jones said in a statement following Manasco's decision. "This ruling strengthens our democracy by safeguarding access to the ballot for all eligible voters including naturalized citizens who were unfairly targeted and removed from the rolls."
Campaign Legal Center senior legal counsel Kate Huddleston said: "No U.S. citizen should be afraid to vote, and we are proud to have defended Alabamians ahead of the upcoming election. Today's court decision helps protect Alabama citizens' freedom to register and vote without concerns about government interference or intimidation."
Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel at the NAACP, noted that "for over 115 years, the NAACP has been fighting for the right to vote," and while "the suppression tactics may look different... the intent remains the same—silencing Black and other vulnerable voices."
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"Fossil fuel interests lost, and clean air won," one group declared.
Oct 16, 2024
The climate movement on Wednesday welcomed a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, the third temporary win for the Biden administration's environmental policies this month.
Although the right-wing justices have a record of rulings that have alarmed environmental and public health groups, the high court declined to block an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule intended to limit power plants' planet-heating pollution as a legal challenge to the April policy plays out.
"Given its rulings in recent years undercutting environmental protections, the refusal of the majority on the Supreme Court to block this vital rule is a victory for common sense. This warrants a sigh of relief from the millions of Americans experiencing the impact of the climate crisis," said Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Today's ruling rejects the latest abuse of the Supreme Court's shadow docket by industry and some state attorneys general. The high court made the right call," she continued. "The Supreme Court evidently saw through their phony arguments."
"Power producers don't need immediate relief from modest standards that kick in eight years from now. And states have plenty of time to begin their planning process," Hankins stressed. "Now the case goes back to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is moving quickly to decide the merits of this case. We will be helping to defend the standards there. The climate crisis demands that we do."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, similarly said that "the climate crisis is actually an emergency affecting tens of millions of people across the globe every day. Today the court rejected the big polluters' attempt to seek an emergency stay based on their trumped-up allegations. We are in the middle of what will be the hottest year on record, with devastating and deadly extreme storms occurring regularly."
"The EPA's carbon pollution standards for power plants set reasonable targets for utilities and states to cut their carbon pollution, allowing years for them to meet those goals. The Supreme Court's decision rejected the big polluter arguments against slashing carbon pollution and paved the way for less climate pollution in the future," Alt added. "Of course, the fight isn't over. The D.C. Circuit must still rule on the merits. We support the EPA's authority to set commonsense pollution protections to slash climate pollution and protect our kids and communities from climate change and other dangerous air pollution."
The decision came after the justices in early October rejected industry-backed petitions to issue injunctions on new Biden administration rules for methane and mercury. However, conservative Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in Wednesday's decision due to financial conflicts and Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have granted the emergency request from GOP-led states and groups to block the rule.
Additionally, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the states and groups "have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits as to at least some of their challenges," but there is no need for emergency action at this time "because the applicants need not start compliance work until June 2025," so "they are unlikely to suffer irreparable harm" before a final decision.
As The New York Timesreported Wednesday:
The dispute was the latest bid by Republican-led states to undercut the Biden administration's ambitious climate agenda. The challenge carries similarities to a case the Supreme Court considered in the term that ended in July. Three states, Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia, joined with industry groups to challenge an EPA proposal aimed at limiting the flow of air pollution across state lines, asking the Supreme Court to intervene even as the challenge continued to be litigated in lower courts.
In June, the justices paused the proposal, known as the "good neighbor" plan, which requires factories and power plants in the West and Midwest to cut ozone pollution that makes its way into Eastern states.
Although green groups are pushing to preserve the April policy, some have argued that the Biden administration should have gone further with its actions to combat the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
Climate Justice Alliance interim executive director KD Chavez said Wednesday that while the group applauds the path the latest Supreme Court decision "charts for what can be construed as a coal phaseout, this rule is still riddled with loopholes that give a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry to continue operations and experiment on frontline communities by exposing them to the dangers and health effects of unproven technologies such as carbon capture and storage."
"The rule does not go far enough to push the needle towards a fossil fuel phaseout and a just transition for the energy sector, the communities where energy projects are sited, and the workers who could tap into renewable energy jobs," Chavez emphasized. "Frontline communities deserve more, and given this rule won't be applied until next year, we will continue to work to ensure stronger power plant regulations that meet the growing threat of climate catastrophe we all currently face."
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"UnitedHealth would be empowered by Trump's Project 2025 to harm more Americans than virtually any other private corporation, other than fossil fuel companies, that benefits from his plan."
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Responding to UnitedHealth Group's third quarter results this week, People's Action highlighted how the insurance giant would benefit from Project 2025, the right-wing policy agenda that critics fear will be implemented if former Republican President Donald Trump returns to the White House.
"The underlying businesses, which generated more than $100 billion in revenue in the quarter, helped overcome $475 million in total cyberattack impacts in the quarter," Forbesnoted Tuesday, citing the company earnings report. "Net income was $6.06 billion."
In a series of social media posts about those figures, People's Action said: "What they didn't mention? Much of that is public money. Funds meant to care for seniors and people with disabilities are lining the pockets of their executives and Wall Street investors. Money that instead UnitedHealth Group executives use to build mansions or send to Wall Street."
"UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025."
People's Action also linked to its new report laying out how the company and its subsidiary UnitedHealthcare would likely benefit from the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, an initiative that Trump has tried to disavow even though its policy agenda's authors include at least 140 people who served in his first administration.
Specifically, the Tuesday report focuses on Medicare Advantage, an alternative to the government-run healthcare program that is administered by private companies. As Common Dreams has detailed, Project 2025 proposes making the privatized plans the default option for enrollees.
"UnitedHealth would be one of the largest financial beneficiaries of Project 2025, since it is the largest private health insurance corporation in America, the fourth-largest company in the country, and the largest writer of privatized Medicare Advantage plans, with 7.8 million people insured through a UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan," People's Action said.
The group pointed out that "UnitedHealthcare's revenue from Medicare Advantage, an estimated $137 billion, could be expected to double to $274 billion annually as a result of Project 2025."
"Because of UnitedHealth's massive scale, the harm it causes through its denials of care is unprecedented—whether through prior authorization denials, claim denials, and inadequate networks that prevent beneficiaries from receiving care or increase the financial strain of receiving care," the report warns. "UnitedHealth would be empowered by Trump's Project 2025 to harm more Americans than virtually any other private corporation, other than fossil fuel companies, that benefits from his plan."
As People's Action explained:
UnitedHealthcare would be expected to cover 15.6 million people via its Medicare Advantage plans as the eventual result of Project 2025's passage with a Trump victory. The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services found that Medicare Advantage organizations (of which UnitedHealthcare is the largest) improperly denied care (prior-authorization denial) 13% of the time and denied payment for care improperly 18% of the time. Because this is a denial rate per procedure, not per person, an estimated 33% of people covered by Medicare Advantage experience a denial by their privatized insurer annually. With Project 2025's implementation that would mean 5.2 million people would be denied care by UnitedHealthcare alone. This figure is well above traditional Medicare denial rates due to inappropriate denials and denials outside the scope of traditional Medicare rules.
On social media, People's Action shared stories of actual patients, emphasizing that denials impact "people like Jenn Coffey, who constantly battles UnitedHealthcare for prior authorizations for the infusions that keep her alive after multiple fights with breast cancer."
"Robin Ginkel, a teacher who needs back surgery to be able to work again, faces the same fight for care," the organization said.
"We can stop this. Fight back against the full privatization of Medicare by corporations like UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group," People's Action urged. "Join us to deep canvass and protect care for ALL."
Underscoring Medicare defenders' warnings about Trump—who is facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election, for which early voting is already underway—Mother Jonesreported Wednesday that a pro-Trump super political action committee sent out an alarming mailer to older voters in Arizona saying that Medicare had been canceled.
According to David Corn, the magazine's Washington, D.C. bureau chief:
It had a big red stamp that proclaimed, "Medicare Cancellation Notice." Also emblazoned on its front was this: "Warning: Rates are going up and plans are being canceled. Details enclosed." Its return address was the "Department of Medicare Cancellation, Kamala Harris Administration."
That return address should have been a tip-off that this was not an official notification—along with a scrawled add-on in cursive: "I hope you can afford to lose your insurance! —Kamala Harris XOXO."
It's hard to know whether any recipient saw this and received a shock, fearing their Medicare was being cut off. But the group that sent out this official-looking piece of campaign literature, Make America Great Again, Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, was spreading false and misleading information about Medicare and about Harris.
Sharing the reporting on social media, Corn said that it was "rather odious for oligarchs to be scaring folks."
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