The Chemical Weapons Convention and the Contribution of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to Sustainable Development

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-629
Author(s):  
Trevor Michael Rajah ◽  
Grant Dawson ◽  
Lydia Aylett

Abstract The concepts of disarmament, counter-terrorism, and sustainable development are interdependent and inextricably linked. In order to achieve the goals set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, states must abandon the competitive ‘arms culture’, cooperate to prevent violence by non-state actors, and divert resources towards peace and security. This article examines the past, present and future role of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in furthering sustainable development through disarmament and counter-terrorism. As the Organisation considers its future priorities and focuses on promoting the peaceful use of chemistry and preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons, the links between peace, security, and development will continue to be of critical importance.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabela Battistello Espindola ◽  
Maria Luisa Telarolli de Almeida Leite ◽  
Luis Paulo Batista da Silva

The global framework set forth by the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include water resources in their scope, which emphasizes how water assets and society well-being are closely intertwined and how crucial they are to achieving sustainable development. This paper explores the role of hydropolitics in that Post-2015 Development Agenda and uses Brazilian hydropolitics set to reach SDG6 as a case study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-227
Author(s):  
Mirko Sossai

Abstract In June 2018, the Conference of States Parties of the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (Chemical Weapons Convention) decided to create an Investigation and Identification Team. This is a new mechanism within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Technical Secretariat ‘to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic’. This article analyses the background and main features of this decision and draws some preliminary conclusions on the role of the Investigation and Identification Team and its potential impact for the investigation and prosecution of crimes linked to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Thus, after describing the events surrounding various fact-finding missions in Syria under the auspices of the OPCW and the United Nations, it considers the legal basis to interpret the Chemical Weapons Convention as enabling the OPCW to put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in Syria and elsewhere.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-318
Author(s):  
Roman Girma Teshome

The effectiveness of human rights adjudicative procedures partly, if not most importantly, hinges upon the adequacy of the remedies they grant and the implementation of those remedies. This assertion also holds water with regard to the international and regional monitoring bodies established to receive individual complaints related to economic, social and cultural rights (hereinafter ‘ESC rights’ or ‘socio-economic rights’). Remedies can serve two major functions: they are meant, first, to rectify the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage sustained by the particular victim, and second, to resolve systematic problems existing in the state machinery in order to ensure the non-repetition of the act. Hence, the role of remedies is not confined to correcting the past but also shaping the future by providing reforming measures a state has to undertake. The adequacy of remedies awarded by international and regional human rights bodies is also assessed based on these two benchmarks. The present article examines these issues in relation to individual complaint procedures that deal with the violation of ESC rights, with particular reference to the case laws of the three jurisdictions selected for this work, i.e. the United Nations, Inter-American and African Human Rights Systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Ngaka

AbstractThis paper explores some of the factors that limit the effectiveness of Uganda’s mother tongue-based education policy, where instruction in lower primary classes is provided in the mother tongue. Using socio-cultural and ethnographic lenses, the paper draws from the experiences of a study implemented by a Ugandan NGO in one primary school in Arua district. Findings revealed weaknesses in implementation of the MTBE policy, highlighting deficiencies in the training of teachers, and lack of sensitization of local communities to the value of MTBE. The study also highlights the need for greater involvement of many kinds of stakeholder, and in particular, it focuses on how communities can be encouraged to work together with schools. A clearer understanding of what literacy involves, and how subjects can be taught in poorly-resourced communities, can be gained by considering the contribution of funds of local knowledge and modes of expression that build on local cultural resources. However, the strategies proposed are insufficient given the flawed model of primary education that the present MTBE policy embodies. A reenvisioning of how MTBE articulates with English-medium education is also needed. Substantial rethinking is needed to address target 4.6 of SDG 4 (UNDP, Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld (accessed 30 November 2015), 2015) which aims to ensure that “all youth and a substantial proportion of adults achieve literacy and numeracy by 2030”.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1887
Author(s):  
Marek Więckowski

As there are very marked relationships between tourism and transport, integrated knowledge of these processes is essential if destinations and tourism enterprises are to be developed, an effective tourism policy pursued, and emerging local and global issues and conflicts surrounding tourism resolved. Beyond this, in an era of huge change reflecting the consequences of the COVID-19 viral pandemic, the importance of sustainable transport in tourism’s sustainable development appears to be of critical importance. Adopting this kind of perspective, this paper seeks to achieve a critical overview of conceptual dimensions of sustainability that link up with tourism and transport. To this end, ideas based on the literature and previous discussions are extended to include certain new propositions arising out of a (hopefully) post-COVID-19 world. Proceeding first with a systematic literature review (SLR), this article discusses the importance of transport to the development of tourism, dealing critically with modes of transport and their changing roles in sustainable development under COVID and post-COVID circumstances. The author summarises likely new way(s) of thinking in the aftermath of the pandemic, with the need for this/these to be far more sustainable and responsible, and characterised by a reorientation of behaviour in a “green” direction. It is further concluded that three aspects of transport–tourism relations will prove crucial to more sustainable utilisation—i.e., proximity, slower and less energy-intensive travel, and green transport.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6382
Author(s):  
Harald Heinrichs ◽  
Norman Laws

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was agreed upon by 193 member states of the United Nations in September 2015 [...]


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 4022
Author(s):  
Pernilla Gluch ◽  
Stina Månsson

Over the past two decades, sustainability professionals have entered the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. However, little attention has been given to the actual professionalization processes of these and the leadership conducted by them when shaping the pace and direction for sustainable development. With the aim to explore how the role of sustainability professionals develops, critical events affecting everyday sustainability work practices were identified. Based on a phenomenological study with focus on eight experienced environmental managers’ life stories, and by applying the theoretical lens of institutional entrepreneurship, the study displays a professionalization process in six episodes. Different critical events both enabled and disabled environmental managers’ opportunity to engage in institutional entrepreneurship. The findings indicate how agency is closely interrelated to temporary discourses in society; they either serve to support change and create new institutional practices towards enhanced sustainability or disrupt change when agency to act is temporarily “lost”. To manage a continually changing environment, environmental managers adopt different strategies depending on the situated context and time, such as finding ambassadors and interorganizational allies, mobilizing resources, creating organizational structures, and repositioning themselves.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Gough ◽  
Noel Gough

AbstractThis article explores the changing ways ‘environment’ has been represented in the discourses of environmental education and education for sustainable development (ESD) in United Nations (and related) publications since the 1970s. It draws on the writings of Jean-Luc Nancy and discusses the increasingly dominant view of the environment as a ‘natural resource base for economic and social development’ (United Nations, 2002, p. 2) and how this instrumentalisation of nature is produced by discourses and ‘ecotechnologies’ that ‘identify and define the natural realm in our relationship with it’ (Boetzkes, 2010, p. 29). This denaturation of nature is reflected in the priorities for sustainable development discussed at Rio+20 and proposed successor UNESCO projects. The article argues for the need to reassert the intrinsic value of ‘environment’ in education discourses and discusses strategies for so doing. The article is intended as a wake-up call to the changing context of the ‘environment’ in ESD discourses. In particular, we need to respond to the recent UNESCO (2013a, 2013b) direction of global citizenship education as the successor to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005–2014 that continues to reinforce an instrumentalist view of the environment as part of contributing to ‘a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world’ (UNESCO, 2013a, p. 3).


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10505
Author(s):  
María Mar Miralles-Quirós ◽  
José Luis Miralles-Quirós

On 25 September 2015, the member states of the United Nations approved an initiative in New York called “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” [...]


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 664-681
Author(s):  
Alexander Orakhelashvili

This contribution examines the legal merit of the Decision Addressing the Treat from Chemical Weapons, adopted by the 89th Session of the General Conference of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (‘opcw’) on 27 July 2018. While relating to matters of high political importance, this Decision still raises important issues of the constitutionality of international organizations’ use of their delegated powers. This contribution pursues the detail of this matter, by focusing, among others, on the scope of the opcw’s authority under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the relationship between the opcw and the United Nations.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document