At the start of every year, we celebrate and wonder what the next 365 days will bring. We know that there will be ups and downs, things we didn’t expect, public scandals we never anticipated, tragedies of some sort that will unfold on our television sets, and a whole lot of everyday distractions in between.
For human rights, 2010 started with the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the relief efforts to assist this oft forgotten Caribbean country through aftershocks, storms, political crisis, and cholera. That coverage continued throughout the year, as did the growing assault on free speech, whether it was Google’s attempt to challenge China over censorship or journalists in Iran and human rights activists from Kazakhstan being targeted by governments for their work. The human rights implications of terrorism also made its mark with the US Supreme Court’s ruling on material support provisions for humanitarian groups and the ongoing debate over civilian trials for accused terrorists. By the end of the year, most eyes in the human rights world were turned towards the ongoing election crisis in Cote d’Ivoire and a look at the past year showed that 2010 was generally not a good one for peaceful democracy.
But perhaps it was more the trends of the past year that defined 2010. When sitting down to contemplate the biggest events of the year, I was struck by how many smaller, but thematically related events, were what came to mind. So on that note, here is my brief overview of 2010 and their implications for human rights at large:
Person of the year: Mother Nature
I realize that Mother Nature is not actually a person, but she certainly made her presence felt in 2010. From the historic Snowmageddon storms that struck the US Mid-Atlantic region at the start of the year, the brutally hot summer that set records around the world – including the hottest summer seen in 1000 years of recorded Russian history and the highest temperature ever recorded in Asia (53.5 C/128.3 F in MohenjuDaro, Pakistan) – an extremely active hurricane season in the Atlantic, and catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, China, and Australia, Mother Nature seemed to have a point to prove this past year. And just in case the weather wasn’t getting your attention, she also threw in a devastating earthquake in Haiti and one of the strongest ever recorded in Chile before erupting a volcano in Iceland that created the biggest disruption to air travel since World War II and a volcano in Indonesia that displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
On the weather front, although the final numbers are not in yet it appears that 2010 will be the warmest year ever on record with 2000-2010 being the warmest decade recorded. As Maxime Larive pointed out on the European Union blog, scientists have been warning for years that global warming would bring about more extreme weather patterns and this will only continue with greater frequency as climate change continues. The simplistic equation of more snow = no global warning is a fallacy as shifting weather patterns due to climate change make storms occur in places that would not generally see such storms and intensify those storms. The same goes for heat waves, hurricanes, severe rain storms and other extreme weather.
What makes 2010 different from previous crazy weather years is not just the extreme nature of the weather around the world, but also the undeniable human impact it had. Death tolls from the heatwave in Moscow reached a peak of 700 people a day before the heat finally broke on August 18. The snowstorms in Europe and the US cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and wages, let alone for the cleanup cost. The ongoing flooding in Queensland, Australia has displaced 200,000 people and is projected to cost $5 to $9 billion dollars and it remains unclear the long term impact on the overall economy as crops and transportation lines are washed away. And this is all in the developed world; developing nations are often less equipped to absorbs and prepare for such shocks to the natural system, as seen with the flooding in Pakistan over the summer. There is little safety net for those effected and such conditions severely impact food production, a trend being seen throughout the developing world. These events put a spotlight on the issue of climate refugees, a term that we will probably be seeing a lot more of in the coming years.
So while not an actual person, it is my sincere belief that 2010 belonged to Mother Nature. If nothing else, the past year reminds us that “saving the planet” campaigns are not really about saving the Earth, which has been here long before we were and will likely be here long after we are gone. Instead it is about saving ourselves and the spaces we call home. Who knows if that is even possible at this point, but it is necessary. A recent post by the Capital Weather Gang in DC took a look at what our world may look like in 2076 if these trends don’t stop, reiterating Mother Nature’s actions this past year that the rights of billions for simple things like land, food security, shelter, and water are at stake.
Runner up: our populist heroes
On a more human note, the year also offered plenty of vocal heroes who were willing to stand up and speak for those who were often cast off to the side. While 2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo certainly deserves top billing here for his ongoing work with Charter 08, Jon Stewart with his Rally to Restore Sanity and shaming of Congress on their failure to pass the 9/11 first responders bill and Bernie Sanders with his “very long speech” on the US Senate floor also come to mind though I am sure there are others. What these three men did throughout the year is show the honor there still is in peacefully and civilly standing up amid economic turmoil, bitter politics, and possible ridicule (or in the case of Liu, imprisonment) to state your argument, even when you know it won’t change a damn thing. In doing so it gives other civil, like-minded people the chance to have their voice heard as well, and gives us all the chance to dream of a better tomorrow.
Most unexpected event: The industrial disasters of 2010
Image from the infamous BP Spillcam
A year after the 25th anniversary of the worst industrial disaster in history in Bhopal, several incidents in the past year demonstrated the potential danger and devastating effects that modern industry can have when profit is placed over safety. The largest of these was of course the explosion of BP’s Deepwell Horizon offshore oil rig, which killed 11 people and spewed at least 200 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico. For months people watched the ongoing ecological disaster unfold before their eyes via the BP Spillcam, as oil workers sat unemployed and fishermen throughout the Gulf Coast watched their livelihoods drift away like the oil on the ocean’s surface.
But that was at sea. On land just a few weeks after the spill was officially sealed, a reservoir holding toxic waste at an alumina plant burst in western Hungary, flooding and essentially destroying nearby towns and polluting the Danube River. Miraculously, only 4 people died but the long term consequences remain unclear. It is unlikely that the land effected will ever be able to grow food crops again for fear of toxic chemicals that have now seeped into the ground leaking into the food supply.
Finally, the past year saw numerous explosions and accidents in traditional mining activities. In the US, 2010 was the deadliest year for miners since 1992 with 48 deaths, more than twice the number of deaths than the previous year. The bulk of those deaths occurred on April 5 with an explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, killing 25. Following that incident it was discovered that federal authorities had cited the mine for numerous serious safety violations over the years, some of which may have contributed to the disaster. Later in the year, a cave-in at the San Jose copper-gold mine buried 33 Chilean miners. That story turned out as a success when all 33 miners were rescued in October after 69 days underground. But even while basking in the glow of that triumph, the issue of poor safety standards leading to the accident and subsequent drama lurked in the background. The emergency escape ladder that could have led the miners out was never finished by mine owners, the safety refuge where they could seek shelter after a cave in was poorly equipped, and as the story unfolded, so did a long history of avoidable mining accidents and a questionable safety record.
Bad management and cost saving measure were prominent in the lead up to the BP oil spill as well while the final word on the Hungarian sludge floods has yet to come in. In the early 20th century, poor safety standards, unfair pay, and a general disregard for the population in favor of profit was largely accepted as the cost of modernity. Since then, new laws and regulations have been passed that require corporate responsibility to not only heir shareholders and investors, but their workers and communities too.
And yet, a century later the surprising events of the past year have shown that perhaps we have not come nearly as far as we thought in securing labor rights or enforcing quality safety standards and a culture of corporate accountability. As the potential profits continue to increase and many new parts of the world open up to industry, that gap threatens lives, livelihoods, and the communities that these companies work in and depend on. Despite the increased focus on the buzz phrase of “corporate social responsibility” and its mantra of “people, planet, profit” in the last decade, the past year demonstrated that a culture of corporate accountability still often alludes us, and it is often those on the bottom who pay the ultimate price.
What to look for in 2011….
Digital rights – The Wikileaks scandal of 2010 will probably continue to play out in 2011, along with a greater look at what freedom of speech and expression means in the digital age. As the Internet makes the world a smaller place, the potential for governments to overstep their traditional limits in terms of censorship greatly increases. Because our laws are often outdated and do not take into account the new interconnected reality of the digital age, such overreach is made far easier for those who would silence unwanted voices. This is not just an issue in oppressive regimes, but also an issue in the liberal democracies of the West. So far this discussion has existed on the periphery of most freedom of expression issues, but Wikileaks and the growing influence of other digital enterprises suggest that the time is long overdue for our laws and governments to catch up to the 21st century when it comes to digital rights.
Climate refugees – As mentioned above, several natural disasters brought back into focus the issue of climate refugees. Unfortunately, this is a phenomenon that is only likely to increase. Even without climate change, the greater population density of many places means that natural disasters will have an increased impact of human populations as more people are effected. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization announced last week that food prices hit an all time high at the end of 2010, above what they were in 2008 when numerous riots occurred around the world as a result. The main culprit of the increase this year is the ongoing temper tantrum Mother Nature gave us throughout 2010. It is unclear whether a new food crisis will emerge from this trend as it did in 2008, but it does show that sometimes it can take very little to dramatically effect a lot of people and it does not look like that will change anytime soon.
Continued headlines for LGBT rights – Last year we predicted that there would be a greater mainstreaming of LGBT rights in the Global North. That appears to have true, most notably with the recent appeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the US which now allows service members to serve their country while being openly gay. However 2010 also saw several negative campaigns against LGBT rights in the Global South. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda is just one example of this opposite trend that serves to further marginalize already oppressed LGBT communities. So far it looks like the mixed headlines will continue in both the Global North and South in 2011, as LGBT communities and their supporters continue their fight for equality and recognition.
Indigenous rights – With a few weeks left in 2010, President Obama endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, marking an extraordinary year for the document. When first adopted by the General Assembly in 2007, only four countries – Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US – failed to support the non-binding Declaration. Australia endorsed it in 2009, New Zealand followed suit in April, while Canada formally signed the Declaration in November. With the US endorsement, the Declaration has universal acceptance meaning that the realm of indigenous rights is now solidly entrenched in international human rights law. Look for indigenous groups to step up and make use of this momentum and for governments to be more willing to listen to their native populations on several policy fronts in 2011.
