In a landmark decision, The Hauge District Court on Wednesday ordered oil giant Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) to “limit all emissions into the atmosphere … by at least 45% at the end of 2030, relative to 2019 levels.” It marks the first time in history a court has held a corporation liable for causing climate [...]
The High Court of Uganda at Mbale will hear a case on Wednesday brought by citizens against the federal government, alleging the government failed to uphold its human rights obligations to protect threatened communities from the effects of climate change. Forty-eight survivors of a deadly landslide assert that the Ugandan government violated their “rights to [...]
Brazil’s Federal Police on Wednesday announced the launch of an investigation into alleged illegal exports of timber from the Amazon region into the US and Europe, facilitated by the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles. According to the announcement, more than 150 federal officers served 35 search and seizure warrants at both Salles’ home and [...]
US President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday in the wake of a ransomware attack on a major US pipeline “to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect federal government networks.” The executive order seeks to improve the security of software by “establishing baseline security standards for development of software sold to the government,” including [...]
The French Senate on Monday voted to amend a government-sponsored bill proposed by President Emmanuel Macron to fight climate change and preserve biodiversity. The climate bill seeks to change the constitution to state that France “guarantees environmental protection and biological diversity, and combats climate change.” That key phrase originated as a result of a recommendation [...]
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai Wednesday announced the Biden-Harris Administration’s “support for waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines.” These extraordinary times and circumstances of call for extraordinary measures. The US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic and we’ll actively participate in @WTO negotiations to make that [...]
A US federal grand jury indicted the three Georgia men Wednesday charged with “federal hate crimes and attempted kidnapping” in connection with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Arbery is the unarmed 25-year-old Black man whose name became a rallying cry during the 2020 protests against police brutality. On February 23, 2020, three white residents of [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday denied a complaint from the state Texas of alleging that the state of California “unconstitutionally discriminated against Texans,” following a ban on state-funded and state-sponsored travel to Texas (and other states). The law prohibits California state agencies, departments, boards and commissions from requiring state employees from traveling to any [...]
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), on Friday announced changes to NIH requirements regarding proposed human fetal tissue research (HFT), reversing several restrictions put in place during the Trump administration. HFT research has historically led to important breakthroughs in medical science, such as [...]
The Washington County, Minnesota Attorney’s Office Wednesday announced a second-degree manslaughter charge against Kimberly Potter, the white police officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man. The charges come after Potter, a veteran officer of 26 years, and Tim Gannon, the chief of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, both resigned from their posts [...]
