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What the First Conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels Must Achieve
Civil society will push states to act in line with their existing legal obligations to phase out all fossil fuels—including by advancing a Fossil Fuel Treaty that can govern a just and rights-based transition.
Apr 23, 2026
Governments and climate leaders gather this month in Santa Marta, Colombia for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. This landmark conference is happening as millions suffer from devastating and unlawful wars, and the global economy reels from oil price shocks. The task for those attending is clear: not to debate whether to phase out fossil fuels but to determine how to do it—rapidly, fairly, and in line with science and the law.
Co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands (April 24–29), the Santa Marta conference will gather more than 50 countries from around the world to work on implementing a managed, financed, and equitable fossil fuel phaseout. That the gathering is happening is itself progress, particularly after decades of obstruction at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where a handful of countries have held climate action hostage and made fossil fuels taboo.
The enthusiasm the conference has generated—and the written submissions it has elicited on strategies to overcome economic dependence on oil, gas, and coal; transform supply and demand; and advance international cooperation and diplomacy—signals a turning point. The momentum for coordinated global action to move away from fossil fuels is unstoppable.
This conference could not come at a more crucial time, as the escalating climate crisis, mounting geopolitical turmoil, and violent conflicts deepen human suffering, upend economies, and lay bare why continued dependence on fossil fuels is a colossal vulnerability. It has never been more urgent to leave behind oil, gas, and coal than it is today.
Phasing out oil, gas, and coal is not just a scientific necessity and a legal obligation, it’s also an opportunity to break free from a destructive system.
The Center for International Environmental Law, along with other civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples, and frontline communities, will be present in Santa Marta. We will push states to act in line with their existing legal obligations to phase out all fossil fuels—including by advancing a Fossil Fuel Treaty that can govern a just and rights-based transition.
The Duty to Phase Out Fossil Fuels
Less than a year ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) clarified that states have obligations under multiple sources of international law to prevent climate harm and protect the climate system. The court also affirmed that states have a duty to cooperate—effectively and in good faith—toward that end. Meeting these obligations requires coordinated action to address the primary driver of climate change: fossil fuels.
The implications are clear. States must cooperate to tackle the policies, norms, and practices that lock in fossil fuel production, facilitate expansion, delay phaseout, and sustain the fossil economy. This includes eliminating mechanisms like Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that allow fossil fuel companies to demand compensation when governments take climate action, potentially making it prohibitive for countries to comply with their phaseout obligations. The law requires ending new fossil fuel licensing and public subsidies; halting the buildout of oil and gas—especially in the ocean; tackling petrochemicals used for products like plastics and ammonia; and rejecting dangerous distractions like carbon capture, offsets, and geoengineering, which only prolong the fossil fuel era and introduce new risks.
Why Santa Marta Must Advance a Pathway for a Fossil Fuel Treaty
A legally binding international agreement focused on fossil fuel supply—a Fossil Fuel Treaty—would provide a framework for countries to cooperate effectively on the phaseout of oil, gas, and coal, and manage the transition in a just and equitable way. In doing so, it would fill a governance gap on fossil fuels, while complementing and supporting existing multilateral processes under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. These processes focus largely on climate action at the national level, including through nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for emissions reduction and adaptation, with support and finance based on historical responsibility and equity.
The Santa Marta conference offers a critical opportunity to build support for the negotiation of a Fossil Fuel Treaty that facilitates reciprocal and collective state action toward a fossil-free future. A treaty would enable countries to align timelines, shape how phaseout unfolds, remove barriers to the transition, and reduce the costs while increasing the benefits of leaving oil, gas, and coal behind.
What a Credible Transition Requires
As States gather in Santa Marta, several issues must be on the table:
Eliminating Barriers to Phase Out
States can’t comply with their legal duties to phase out fossil fuels if they risk being sued by fossil fuel investors for enormous sums of money. Yet, ISDS allows just that, making it prohibitively costly for states to curb fossil fuel production, consumption, licensing, and subsidies as science demands and the law requires. At Santa Marta, we will look for states to recognize ISDS as a structural barrier to phaseout and take steps to dismantle it.
Speculative, ineffective, and harmful responses to climate change, such as carbon capture, offsets, and geoengineering, are additional barriers that delay phaseout and divert resources from proven climate solutions. These dangerous technologies perpetuate the myth that we can “manage” emissions rather than phase fossil fuels out. Instead of subsidizing such approaches, public funds should be directed toward measures that prevent further climate harm by rooting out its source: fossil fuel production and use. Governments must also support strict limits on geoengineering and advance a global non-use agreement.
Moving Toward a Fossil-Free Ocean
The fossil fuel industry is increasingly turning to the ocean as a new frontier for oil and gas development, despite the legal and scientific imperative to phase out fossil fuels. Halting the expansion of offshore oil and gas—starting with an end to new licensing—is a necessary step for states to meet their legal obligations to prevent marine pollution and climate harm, as clarified by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the ICJ.
Marine health is critical to ecological integrity, human rights, and climate stability. Protecting the ocean is vital for all life that depends on it. There can be no fossil-free future without a fossil-free ocean.
Cutting the Industry’s Lifeline
Santa Marta needs to address drivers of fossil fuel supply and demand beyond energy—especially petrochemicals like those used in plastics and ammonia. As demand for fossil fuels declines in the energy and transport sectors, the fossil fuel industry is increasingly relying on petrochemicals to sustain growth. A credible transition requires that states halt petrochemical expansion—especially new plastics and ammonia infrastructure.
Financing the Transition
A just transition away from fossil fuels must be funded by those most responsible for the climate crisis. This means that the largest cumulative polluters act first and fastest to phase out fossil fuels, as well as provide adequate finance and support to low income countries, including debt relief, reparations, and contributions to address mounting loss and damage from climate change. Adequate funds are available if they are just allocated appropriately. Ending the subsidies that prop up the fossil economy, including financing and tax breaks for fossil fuel production and speculative technologies, and defunding militarization and war, would free up billions if not trillions in public finance that could be put toward a just transition.
Delivering a Just, Rights-Based Transition
To chart the path to a livable, fossil-free future for all, the discussions in Santa Marta must be grounded in the law, rooted in human rights, and responsive to demands for justice and accountability. That requires centering communities, honoring the leadership and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, and listening to those on the frontlines of the climate crisis and the forefront of real climate solutions. The rapid and equitable transition away from fossil fuels will not be dictated from on high or administered top-down. To achieve transformational change, we must transform the way we make policy and take action, ensuring meaningful participation by those whose lives and livelihoods, histories, and futures are on the line.
Phasing out oil, gas, and coal is not just a scientific necessity and a legal obligation, it’s also an opportunity to break free from a destructive system. On the journey to a fossil-free future, Santa Marta can be a turning point where a "coalition of doers" commits to a dedicated forum for coordinated action on fossil fuel phaseout, including a follow-on conference to begin negotiating a Fossil Fuel Treaty. Countries must cooperate effectively to leave oil, gas, and coal behind so that, together, we can walk the path ahead.
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Dutch Voters Have 'Turned the Page,' Center-Left Leader Says as Far Right Rebuked in Elections
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," said Rob Jetten.
Oct 30, 2025
The leader of the Netherlands' center-left Democrats 66 Party hailed the results of Wednesday's snap parliamentary elections as proof that "millions of Dutch people have turned a page and said goodbye to the politics of negativity," with the far-right Party for Freedom set to lose 11 seats and its vehemently anti-migration leader, Geerts Wilders, appearing to have no path to a majority.
"We’ve shown not only to the Netherlands, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements," D66 Leader Rob Jetten, who is now likely to become the Netherlands' youngest and first openly gay prime minister.
Full election results may not be known for weeks, but the Dutch news outlet NOS reported Thursday morning that the D66 was in the lead by 15,122 votes, putting Jetten in a likely position to lead talks on forming a new coalition government.
Both D66 and the Party for Freedom (PVV) were projected to win 26 seats in Parliament's 150-seat lower house.
The results represented a precipitous fall from power for PVV, which stunned observers in 2023 with its first-place finish in that year's elections, capturing 37 seats.
Wilders has led the far-right party for nearly two decades, and his surprise victory two years ago earned him the nickname the "Dutch Donald Trump" as he promoted his virulently Islamophobic rhetoric and pushed to eliminate all migration from Muslim-majority countries, end asylum, and revoke Dutch citizenship from people with dual passports.
He also called to revoke climate regulations and pull the Netherlands out of the European Union, but as the New York Times reported in an analysis of the election, Wilders "could not rally the support to turn those extreme stances into reality."
In June, Wilders—whose chants against Moroccan immigrants at a rally in The Hague led to him being convicted of inciting discrimination in 2016—withdrew his party from the governing coalition after failing to get support for his extreme anti-migration proposals.
The PVV's campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections promised those same policies and led other major parties to pledge that they would refuse to form a new coalition with Wilders.
René Hendriks, an election volunteer in the Hague, told the Times that "the Netherlands is a bit fed up" with PVV's leadership.
Jetten's party focused heavily on affordable housing, proposing the construction of 10 new cities to help solve the country's chronic housing shortage. D66 also called for "making smart use of [artificial intelligence] and digital progress" to pave the way for a four-day workweek, ending fossil fuel subsidies, the passage of an Anti-Discrimination Act, and “well-thought-out and effective policies, rather than using strong language" on migration.
D66 did shift to the right on some migration policies, however, backing a proposal requiring refugees to submit their asylum applications outside of Europe.
But Kristof Jacobs, a political scientist at Radboud University, told the Times that the election results suggest the far right in Europe may not be poised to seize power as it campaigns on anti-migration policies.
"We thought it was almost a deterministic thing, that the radical right was always going to become bigger—that they were bulletproof," Jacobs said. “Not so bulletproof after all.”
Far-right movements have recently gained favor with the public in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, although have largely failed at actually achieving power within governments.
Jetten said as the election results came in that "the positive forces have won!"
"I want to get to work for all Dutch people," he said, "because this is the land of us all!”
Meetings to start the process of forming a new coalition government are expected to begin next week.
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Will Popular Pressure Finally Push Western Governments to Stand Up for Palestine?
People's power is proving more than capable of swaying some governments to impose sanctions and sever diplomatic ties with Israel.
Sep 05, 2025
Is it finally happening? Is the West turning against Israel? Or are we, whether motivated by hope or driven by despair, simply engaging in wishful thinking? The matter is not so simple.
In July 2025, a significant number of countries and organizations signed the "New York Declaration," a strong statement that followed a high-level meeting titled, "Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine."
The conference itself and its bold conclusion warrant a deeper conversation. What matters for now, however, is the identity of the countries involved. Aside from states that have traditionally advocated for international justice and law in Palestine, many of the signatories were countries that had previously supported Israel regardless of context or circumstance.
These mostly Western countries included Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, among others. Some of these nations are also expected to formally recognize the state of Palestine in September.
Of course, one has no illusions about the hypocrisy of supporting peace in Palestine while still arming the Israeli war machine that is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. That notwithstanding, the political change is too significant to ignore.
In the case of Ireland, Norway, Spain, Luxembourg, Malta, and Portugal, among others, one can explain the growing rift with Israel and the championing of Palestinian rights based on historical evidence. Indeed, most of these countries have historically teetered on the edge between the Western common denominator and a more humanistic approach to the Palestinian struggle. This shift had already begun years prior to the ongoing Israeli genocide.
But what is one to make of the positions of Australia and the Netherlands, two of the most adamantly pro-Israel governments anywhere?
In Australia's case, media accounts argue that the friction began when the federal government denied an Israeli extremist lawmaker, Simcha Rothman, a visa for a speaking tour.
The precious blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza deserves for history to be finally altered.
Israel quickly retaliated by ending visas for three Australian diplomats in occupied Palestine. This Israeli step was not just a mere tit-for-tat response but the start of a virulent campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wage a diplomatic war against Australia.
"History will remember [Australian Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews," Netanyahu said, again infusing the same logic of lies and manipulation tactics.
Israel's anger was not directly related to Rothman's visa. The latter was a mere opportunity for Netanyahu to respond to Australia's signature on the New York Declaration, its decision to recognize Palestine, and its growing criticism of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Though Albanese did not engage Netanyahu directly, his Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, did. He answered the accusations of weakness by boldly arguing that "strength is not measured by how many people you can blow up."
This statement is both true and self-indicting, not only for Australia but for other Western governments. For years, and numerous times during the genocide, Australian leaders have argued that "Israel has the right to defend itself." Since blowing people up hardly qualifies as self-defense, it follows that Canberra had known all along that Israel's war is but an ongoing episode of war crimes. So, why the sudden, though still unconvincing, shift in position?
The answer to this question is directly related to the mass mobilization in Australia. On a single Sunday in August, hundreds of thousands of Australians took to the streets in what organizers described as the largest pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the country's history. Marches were held in more than 40 cities and towns, including a massive rally in Sydney that drew a crowd of up to 300,000 people and brought the city's Harbour Bridge to a standstill. These protests, which called for sanctions and an end to Australia's arms trade with Israel, demonstrated the immense public pressure on the government.
In other words, it is the Australian people who have truly spoken, courageously standing up to Netanyahu and to their own government's refusal to take any meaningful step to hold Israel accountable. If anyone should be congratulated on their strength and resolve, it would be the millions of Australians who relentlessly continue to rally for peace, justice, and an end to the genocide in Gaza.
Similarly, the political crisis in the Netherlands, starting with the resignation of Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp on August 22, 2025, is indicative of the unusually significant change in European politics toward Israel and Palestine.
"The Israeli government's actions violate international treaties. A line must be drawn," said Eddy van Hijum, the leader of the country's New Social Contract Party and deputy prime minister.
The "line" was indeed drawn, and quickly so when Veldkamp resigned, ushering in mass resignations by other key ministers in the government. The idea of a major political crisis in the Netherlands sparked by Israeli war crimes in Palestine would have been unthinkable in the past.
The political shift in the Netherlands, much like in Australia, would not have happened without the massive public mobilization around the Gaza genocide that continues to grow worldwide. While pro-Palestine protests have occurred in the past, they have never before achieved the critical mass needed to compel governments to act.
Though these governmental actions remain timid and reluctant, the momentum is undeniable. People's power is proving more than capable of swaying some governments to impose sanctions and sever diplomatic ties with Israel, not only through pressure in the streets but also through pressure at the ballot box.
While the West has not yet fully turned against Israel, it may only be a matter of time. The precious blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza deserves for history to be finally altered. The children of Palestine deserve this global awakening of conscience.
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Netherlands Bans Two Israeli Cabinet Ministers Who 'Called for Ethnic Cleansing' in Gaza
As mass starvation in Gaza reaches horrific new levels, European governments are attempting to pressure Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid.
Jul 29, 2025
As Israel's starvation campaign in Gaza accelerates, the Netherlands has banned two far-right Israeli ministers from entering the country after they "repeatedly incited violence against the Palestinian population," and "called for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip."
The officials—National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—are both members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, and they have called for Palestinians to be forced out of Gaza in order to make room for Israeli settlers.
In a letter sent to Dutch lawmakers Monday evening, Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp declared the two ministers "persona non grata," adding that "the war in Gaza must stop."
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that one in three people in Gaza is going multiple days at a time without eating. Meanwhile, acute malnutrition rates have quadrupled over the past month to the point where nearly 1 in 5 children is at risk of death from hunger.
"People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods," said Qu Dongyu, the director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Israel said it allowed 120 aid trucks to enter the strip on Sunday. But according to U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher, that is "a drop in the ocean" compared to what the population needs to survive.
As starvation in Gaza approached what a U.N.-backed report described Monday as the "worst case scenario," Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have doubled down on calls for maximum torment.
After Netanyahu announced that Israel would allow a meager trickle of aid into the strip following international outcry, Ben-Gvir described Netanyahu as "morally bankrupt" for allowing any food into the strip.
"I think at this stage, the only thing you should be sending to Gaza is shells," Ben-Gvir said. "To bomb, conquer, encourage emigration, and win the war."
Last week, at a conference in the Israeli parliament with far-right Jewish settlers, Smotrich discussed plans "to relocate Gazans to other countries," which he said "will serve as a means of facilitating the settlement of the strip" by Jewish Israelis.
In May, Smotrich said, "Within a few months, we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed," and spoke of "concentrating" its civilians in preparation for their mass exodus from the strip.
"They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places," he added.
The Netherlands is not the first country to attempt to punish the far-right ministers.
Earlier this month, Slovenia became the first nation to ban Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from entry, citing their incitement of "extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians" with "their genocidal statements."
The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway have also imposed financial sanctions on the two men.
On Tuesday, the European Commission proposed partially suspending Israel from the $100 million Horizon research program, citing the Gaza famine.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that unless Israel complies with agreements to allow humanitarian aid access, he would support banning Israel from the prestigious research program and potentially take other "national measures to increase the pressure."
"The government's goal is crystal clear," Schoof said. "The people of Gaza must be given immediate, unfettered, safe access to humanitarian aid."
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Hundreds of Thousands Form 'Red Line' Around The Hague
The red line the government has failed to set.
Jun 15, 2025
Hundreds of thousands of people dressed in red marched through the streets of The Hague on Sunday to demand more action against the "genocide" in Gaza.
NGOs such as Amnesty International, Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and Oxfam organized the demonstration, which ran through the city to the International Court of Justice. The protesters were all dressed in red, creating a "red line".
Organisers described it as the country's largest demonstration in two decades. Many waving Palestinian flags and some chanting "Stop the Genocide", the demonstrators turned a central park in the city into a sea of red on a sunny afternoon.
“The Dutch cabinet still refuses to draw a red line. That is why we do it, for as long as necessary,” Marjon Rozema of Amnesty International Netherlands said in a statement.
Protesters walked a 5-kilometer loop around the city center of The Hague to symbolically create the red line that the government has failed to set.
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Even Once Reluctant Scholars Now Agree on Israel's Gaza Assault: It's a Genocide
"Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn't consider it genocide?" said one researcher. "No."
May 15, 2025
Only a tiny number of progressive Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. have used the word "genocide" to describe Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza, and the U.S. public divided, with less than 40% of Americans saying last year that the term described the Israel Defense Forces' bombing of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and other civilian infrastructure.
But for seven leading international experts on genocide, the question is not controversial—even for those who previously rejected the label.
The seven experts were interviewed Wednesday by NRC, a newspaper in the Netherlands, and were unequivocal: Not only have they all come to believe—some earlier than others—that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, but the vast majority of their peers in academia concur.
"Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn't consider it genocide?" said Raz Segal, an Israeli genocide researcher at Stockton University in New Jersey. "No."
Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies, added, "I don't know them."
The interview was published the day before Nakba Day, the 77th anniversary of Palestinians' forced expulsion from their lands when Israel was established, and as the death toll in Gaza reached 53,010. At least 15,000 of those killed have been children, NRC reported.
When it comes to defining the last 19 months in Gaza as a genocide, reported the newspaper, "even cautious voices have changed."
Israeli scholar Shmuel Lederman of Open University of Israel "opposed the genocide label" until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government flouted the International Court of Justice's January 2024 order to prevent genocide by allowing emergency aid into Gaza and halting top officials "incendiary language on Palestinians." Israeli leaders have called Palestinians "human animals" and "Amalek"—an ancient enemy in the Hebrew Bible who Israelites were commanded to exterminate.
Lederman also began to see his government as genocidal after the Israel Defense Forces seized control of the Rafah crossing last year, cutting off the only humanitarian aid route as international experts warned famine was imminent, and as analysts warned the true death toll in Gaza could ultimately be close to 200,000.
"For me personally, the combination of this and the continued destruction of Gaza made the turn from harsh criticism of the crimes Israel is committing in Gaza and warnings that we are getting close to that place, to the perception that the cumulative effect of what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocidal in every sense," said Lederman on the social media platform X on Thursday. "I think the second half of 2024 is the point at which a consensus emerged among genocide researchers (as well as the human rights community) that this was genocide. Those who may have still had doubts—I estimate that they have dissipated following Israel's actions since the cease-fire was broken."
Since March, when Israel reimposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid and broke a temporary cease-fire, nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been killed in bombings, and nearly 250,000 people are now facing "extreme deprivation of food," according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that Israel's deliberate blockade on "food, water, shelter, and sanitation" convinced her the Netanyahu government was carrying out a genocide, while Segal pointed to "openly genocidal statements" by Israeli leaders.
"But for all it is about the sum of what would apply separately as 'ordinary' war crimes," NRC reported. "The picture as a whole makes it a genocide. That is how the term is meant, says [British professor Martin] Shaw: 'holistic.'"
"Apart from social debate, genocide is also the subject of science," reads the article. "And that field of research, genocide studies, does not see it as a yes/no question, but as a process. Not a light switch, but a 'dimmer,' in the words of professor of Holocaust and genocide studies Uğur Ümit Üngör."
NRC noted that the Western media and political debates have been consumed with "misunderstandings and simplifications."
Those who continue defending Israel's actions insist that "it is a military war to destroy Hamas, there is no clear eradication plan, not all Gazans have been killed, it does not look like the Holocaust, the judge has not yet ruled."
As historian Rutger Bregman said on X Thursday, the scholars interviews by NRC make clear: "Genocide is a process, it's not a binary switch. And it's not about matching the Holocaust."
Segal, who is Jewish, told NRC that he is "regularly accused of antisemitism" for speaking out against Israel.
"A German authority in the field that wants to remain anonymous calls the subject 'poisoned' in his country," reported NRC. "You are, he says, called directly [antisemitic] if you mention 'possible genocide.' If these acts are subjected to a country other than Israel, he says, all Germans would immediately sound the alarm and speak of genocidal violence, as happened with the Russian massacre in the Ukrainian city of Botzja. But now, he says, it remains silent."
Dirk Moses, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research, said that portions of the field of research are "in crisis" if experts don't "combat the artificial distinction between [genocide] and military targets" and continue to defend Israel's actions.
"Then parts of the field of research are actually dead," he said. "Not only conceptually incoherent, but complicit."
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Dear Canada: Beware of Peter Hoekstra!
As long as U.S. policy is one of annexation and domination, Hoekstra deserves to be treated as a hostile guest—not an ambassador worthy of distinction or trust.
Mar 08, 2025
On February 22nd, the Michigan Republican Party met in Huntington Place in Detroit to elect a new chair. After the ballots were counted, State Senator Jim Runestand prevailed over President Donald Trump’s choice, “fake elector” Meshawn Maddock. Even though he had delivered Michigan to the GOP column, incumbent Peter Hoekstra didn’t run again. He couldn’t, because as of November he is awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate to be Trump’s ambassador to Canada.
During his three-decade plus career in government, Hoekstra has amassed quite the right-wing record. In the 90s, he was a fierce foe of workplace safety and union reformers. Teamster warehouse director Tom Leedham called Hoekstra “a congressman who tried to eliminate the forty-hour workweek, and gut overtime and job safety laws.” As chair of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, Hoekstra led a witch hunt into the Teamsters that ended up removing Ron Carey, the only reform president ever elected in Teamsters history, from office shortly after the union won a hard fought battle against UPS. Hoekstra proclaimed in 2000 that if he and his allies “had not acted, Ron Carey would still be president of the Teamsters.”
On foreign policy, Hoekstra’s tenure was similarly malicious. After voting for the Iraq War, Heokstra remained convinced well into 2006 that Iraq had possessed weapons of mass destruction. To that effect, he announced that U.S. troops had actually found WMDs that year. Too bad for Hoekstra they turned out to be defunct weapons that predated the Persian Gulf War. The WMD lie remained just that, a lie. He also palled around with David Yarushalmi, an anti-Muslim bigot who once called Blacks “the most murderous of peoples.”
Hoekstra’s views and previous tenure as a diplomat should make his appointment a complete joke, but there’s danger in his appointment as well.
In 2012, Hoekstra attempted to unseat Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenhow. His campaign’s Super Bowl ad featured an Asian woman, bicycling through a rice paddy, who castigated “Debbie Spend It Now” in broken English. A clear attempt to resuscitate the “Yellow Peril,” a journalist called it “the most racist political ad of the year.” Heokstra’s campaign floundered and he lost in a landslide.
Hoekstra’s post-Congress years saw him argue that the CIA’s torture program, euphemistically referred to as “enhanced interrogation,” produced “actionable intelligence.” He took time in 2016 to defame Hillary Clinton advisor Huma Abedin over her “egregious” ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. After co-chairing Donald Trump’s winning Michigan campaign in 2016, Hoekstra was back in government. For his services, he was rewarded with an ambassadorship to the Netherlands, his birthplace.
As Trump’s ambassador, Hoekstra was dogged by reporters over his false 2015 claims that there were Muslim “no-go zones” in the Netherlands, in which cars and politicians were “being burned.” In 2020, the official Twitter account for the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands posted a bizarre image of a graveyard containing German soldiers from World War II. The account said the graves were a “terrible reminder of the cost of going to war and why we must always work towards peace,” seemingly forgetting what side the U.S. was on during the war. The whole thing was reminiscent of when President Reagan went to a graveyard containing bodies of Hitler’s SS to declare the dead Nazis were “victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.”
Hoekstra’s tenure was marked by accusations that he openly interfered in Dutch politics. In 2019 he hosted a party for the far-right Forum for Democracy whose anti-Islam, anti-immigrant views nicely dovetailed with his own. Diplomats are prohibited from interfering in their host countries politics by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Although other political parties in the Netherlands complained, Trump lost the following year’s presidential election and Hoekstra was out. Or was he? Hoekstra’s reward for helping Trump win the Mitten State, is once again, an ambassadorship, but this time to Canada.
Hoekstra’s views and previous tenure as a diplomat should make his appointment a complete joke, but there’s danger in his appointment as well. Given that he has already violated diplomatic protocol via his involvement in the domestic politics of the host country, and that a stated goal of the Trump administration is the annexation of Canada as the 51st state, it stands to reason that Hoekstra will use any available means to further that project as ambassador. In short, he will attempt to undermine Canadian sovereignty under the guise of diplomacy.
Although Peter Hoekstra will almost certainly be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, that’s no reason for him to be treated as just another ambassador in Canada. As long as U.S. policy is one of annexation and domination, Hoekstra deserves to be treated as someone who will undermine Canadian independence in the service of American empire.
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February Strike of 1941: When Citizens Took to the Streets Against the Nazis
Remembering how Amsterdam's working class stood up against Adolf Hitler's extermination of the Jews.
Feb 15, 2025
In three days, Amsterdam organized the only general strike in Europe to protest the first roundup of Jews. People poured into the streets on February 25, 1941—an estimated 300,000 of the 800,000 total who lived in the city.
The first to march were the tram and dock workers. The civil servants followed and word spread through the whole city, even to the small sewing workshop where a woman named Mientje Meijer worked. She and her husband had talked about it, and he came to the window to let her know it was really happening. She stopped her treadle, rose to her feet, and said, “Ladies, all of Amsterdam has come to a standstill because they’ve been rounding up Jews and taking them away. We’ve got to join in.”
The ladies poured out, even the boss, and joined the multitudes: teachers, metal workers, factory employees, shop clerks, people from across the political spectrum. Some were furious that their fellow citizens’ rights had been violated, some wanted to protest the Nazi occupation, and some just hated the Germans. Whatever their motives, they stopped the city in its tracks.
How did they organize so fast? A road builder and a street sweeper who belonged to the banned but well-organized Communist Party decided to call a meeting and take action. They had heard that hundreds of Jewish men had been rounded up on the square between the immense Portuguese Synagogue and the four smaller Ashkenazi ones. The communists gathered with trade union representatives and others at the Noorderkerk in the workers’ part of the city. They enlisted political and moral allies. Soon, a mimeographed leaflet urged everyone to “Strike! Strike! Strike! Shut down all of Amsterdam for a day!” And they did. The Strike even reached a few other cities before the German occupiers reacted with force.
Only limited public protest was heard the year before, at the time when Jews were fired from the civil service, including professors from the universities. Therefore, the Germans were dumbfounded in February 1941 when the Dutch, their Aryan brothers and sisters, took to the streets en masse. But the Nazis recovered fast and ordered the use of rifles and hand grenades to stop the strike.
By the time it was over a few days later, about 200 people had been arrested, nine had been killed, and 50 injured. For the rest of the war, the February Strike remained the only general strike in Europe to protest the roundups. Tragically, it was futile: about 75% of the Dutch Jewish population was mass murdered. Yet the strike remains in our memories as one of the few times ordinary people stood together against the deportation of their Jewish neighbors. It meant something to many Dutch survivors as long as they lived.
I learned about the Strike at the time of its 60th commemoration in 2001. Every year, people gather to remember, right where the first roundups took place. They stand around the statue of the Dockworker who is the symbolic figure of the Strike. Sculpted by a resistance worker who survived, the hefty figure wears a worker’s cap, looking not at us but beyond us, his hands at his sides, open but ready to form fists.
In 2001, the square was crammed with people, some old enough to have been alive at the time, others young families, others men of all ages with yarmulkes, and individuals formally dressed in black who proved to be diplomats. Everyone was quiet, even little children. The commemoration began with a few short speeches and a poem, but the main event was this: people were invited, a few at a time, to approach the Dockworker, stand for a moment, and lay flowers.
The elders approached first, those who might have been present at the Strike. Next the Jewish organizations placed their big wreaths, often laid by children. Similar offerings came from the European Trade Union Federation, from the people of Sweden and the United States, and others. But the vast majority of the flowers were small bouquets tied with ribbons, like a dozen red tulips bound by aluminum foil with a bit of wet paper inside. Some were accompanied by a personal note written in ink in a scrawly hand.
It took an hour and a half on that frigid afternoon to lay all the flowers, and they stayed there unmolested for days. The flowers remained until they were all dead and had to be carried away.
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Calls Grow for 'European Arms Embargo' on Israel After Dutch F-35 Ruling
"Surely it's time to stop all arm shipments to Israel," said one British lawmaker, "and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership."
Feb 14, 2024
While the White House has claimed U.S. President Joe Biden is growing increasingly "frustrated" with Israel's bombardment of Gaza—largely made possible by U.S. military aid—calls are growing in Europe for governments to halt arms exports to stop their own contributions to the mass killing.
After a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel on Monday, ruling that the country was running a "clear risk" of helping Israel to violate international human rights law, several British lawmakers intensified their demands that the U.K. also halt arms exports.
"Selling arms to Israel for its war on Gaza is incompatible with U.K. and international law," said Diane Abbott, a Labour Party member in British Parliament. "[Prime Minister Rishi] Sunak should follow suit and ban weapon sales to Israel."
Natalie Bennett, a member of the Green Party in the British House of Lords, spoke on Tuesday about six-year-old Hind Rajab, whose body was found last week in a car in which her family members had tried to flee Gaza City. The car was riddled with bullet holes, and an ambulance nearby, which paramedics had sent to rescue Hind, had been bombed.
"Is the government challenging the Israeli government about risks to hundreds of thousands of children in Rafah, now in the path of the Israeli offensive?" said Bennett. "Surely it's time to stop all arm shipments to Israel... and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership."
The U.K. provides about 15% of the components of Israel's F-35 bombers—the Israeli Air Force's "flagship asset," according to the Royal United Services Institute—and has licensed more than $594 million in military exports to Israel since 2015.
While the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill, including $14.1 billion for Israel, some European governments are working to end their complicity in Israel's mass killing of at least 28,576 Palestinians so far in attacks that have also wounded at least 68,291 and left at least 17,000 children orphaned.
On February 6, the Walloon regional government in Belgium suspended two licenses for the export gunpowder to Israel, citing the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) interim ruling last month which found that Israel is "plausibly" committing a genocide in Gaza.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in late January that the government had halted all arms sales to Israel in October, when Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7.
José Albares, Spain's foreign minister, also said last month that the Spanish government had done the same, but El Diario reported on Sunday that the country had actually exported $1.1 million in ammunition to Israel in November.
"The suspension of arms transfers to Israel must be comprehensive and permanent, and not just temporary," said Alberto Estévez, a spokesperson on weapons issues at Amnesty International Spain. "The Spanish government has wanted to be an example in this crisis in the face of other much more complicit governments, but it must be more forceful to promote a European arms embargo on Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, in addition to pressuring the United States to stop the supply of arms to Israel and support the imposition of a global embargo on the U.N. Security Council."
On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joined Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in writing to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and demanding an "urgent review" of Israel's compliance with human rights obligations under its trade deal with the European Union.
"Against the background of the risk of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe posed by the imminent threat of Israeli military operations in Rafah, and given what has occurred, and continues to occur in Gaza since October 2023, including widespread concern about possible breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights laws by Israel, we ask that the Commission undertake an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the E.U./Israel Association Agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship," wrote Sánchez and Varadkar.
The two leaders reiterated their call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, which was supported by a large majority of countries in a vote at the U.N. General Assembly in December, "including by 17 E.U. member states."
Varadkar and Sánchez also pointed to the ICJ's interim ruling in South Africa's case last month, in which the country accused Israel of genocidal violence against Palestinians.
The orders of the ICJ, which demanded that Israel ensure that humanitarian aid can reach Gaza residents and that its military is not committing acts of genocide, "are binding," the leaders reminded the European Union.
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2024: a Hot Year for Climate Litigation
There is something fundamentally wrong when young people have to sue their government for the right to a clean and healthful environment.
Jan 27, 2024
It’s official: 2023 was the hottest year on record. There is surprisingly little about it in the news, but lawyers are gearing up for a hot new year in court to do what they can to protect a livable climate. Climate litigation is the new game in town. The first big case was won by Urgenda in the Netherlands in 2019. Formed out of the words urgent and agenda, the Urgenda foundation and 900 Dutch citizens demanded that their government act according to the science. It took six years to win.
In 2021, Neubauer v. Germany resulted in the German government being forced to revise its 2019 climate law and tighten its targets for decarbonization. The German case was unique in that the highest court affirmed the government’s responsibility not only to its current citizens, but also to future generations.
In the U.S., recent successes in climate litigation are encouraging. Early this year, a judge in Oregon denied the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss a complaint agains the federal government by 21 young plaintiffs.
What will our grandchildren think, both of the young people in court and those opposing them?
It was reminiscent of last summer, when 16 young plaintiffs convinced a judge in Held v. State of Montana that their government must take the climate crisis much more seriously. The Washington Post called the decision “one of the strongest decisions on climate change ever issued by a court.” Of course, there is something fundamentally wrong when young people have to sue their government for the right to a clean and healthful environment. It should be any government’s priority and desire to protect the young.
Future generations devastated by climate impacts will look back on this period and see mostly elderly politicians mostly ignoring climate science—or worse, deliberately banning climate science from being considered. The fact that the Montana state prosecutor appealed the ruling within weeks underscored how much damage climate denial has done. What will our grandchildren think, both of the young people in court and those opposing them?
Now that 2023 has been declared the hottest on record, and possibly the warmest in over 100,000 years, you’d think even the most stubborn climate deniers would come to their senses. But of course, it’s not really the deniers we need to worry about. After all, even the well-funded machine that invented climate denial was never really based in denial; in fact, quite the contrary.
As Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes and others have been revealing for years (just watch the film Merchants of Doubt), fossil fuel giants found out decades ago—from the scientists they had hired—that their products were going to heat the planet. They knew their own scientists’ findings would require regulations and incentives that would favor renewable energies like solar and wind. So they simply invented the myth of climate change denial so they could keep raking in the dough.
They also found willing amplifiers of their myth by telling them that any regulation was a communist ploy that would ultimately not only hurt the economy but curtail all the freedoms Americans hold dear. They are not coming to their senses. They are running for office. They are exporting their ideology to Germany, to the U.K., the European Union, and beyond, even though they have started losing.
It is not just elected officials and fossil fuel executives who should be paying attention. Last summer, lawyers from Client Earth wrote a letter to the Global Public Policy Committee (GPPC) representing senior leaders of the world’s largest accounting firms—BDO, Deloitte, EY, Grant Thornton, KPMG, and PwC—pointing out that they are not doing what they pledged to do with regards to transparency around climate risk, neglectful omissions that could potentially expose them to lawsuits as well.
To be sure, climate litigation is only one tool in the toolbox, and its results can be mixed, as BBC reporter Isabella Kaminski recently concluded.
But we have long known that Exxon and other fossil fuel companies lied about what they knew about the danger of climate change, and they have rightly been facing increasing legal trouble. The fact that they keep lying and are even exporting their methods is particularly devastating at a time of mounting climate disruption and a rising death toll from extreme weather events.
The myth of climate denial and the rejection of climate protection measures are sold to voters everywhere under the guise of freedom. But they only protect the freedom of fossil fuel billionaires and polluting industries to keep profiting from harming us all. The truth shines brightly through the fog of deliberate misinformation when climate wins in court.
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