Eurostep WeeklyRegular News Update from Eurostep, N° 533 15 December 2008 EU summit makes concessions to Ireland on Lisbon Treaty On Thursday 11 December European Council, EU leaders agreed a compromise revised text of the Lisbon Treaty which incorporated concessions to Ireland ahead of a planned second referendum Treaty, likely to be held in October 2009. Concessions include a guarantee that all EU member states will keep their Commissioner, and assurances on issues such as the right to determine national policy on taxation, social and ethical matters such as abortion law, and Irish military neutrality. Irish voters also rejected the EU's Nice Treaty by referendum in 2001, but approved it in a second referendum the following year after receiving clarifying declarations from other member states. Some MEPs had called for a second Irish referendum to be held before the European elections in June 2009, but European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering told reporters at his summit press conference that this was considered unrealistic. Political editor of the pro-Lisbon Irish Times Stephen Collins has described the second referendum as an "enormous challenge". "While the rapid deterioration of the economy over the past six months may serve as a wake-up call to the electorate about how dangerous isolation can be, it could equally serve to sour the mood even further", he wrote. "The problem about a referendum next October is that by the time it comes around, an already deeply unpopular government may have lost the final shreds of its authority." Sources: UN Human Rights declaration celebrates 60 year anniversary On Wednesday 10 December the United Nations commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) against the backdrop of continued widespread political repression and human rights abuses, in Zimbabwe, Sudan, Burma/Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, in the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, and elsewhere. At the ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the UDHR, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "We see human trafficking, the exploitation of children, and a host of other ills plaguing millions of people". Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, commented: "Despite all our efforts over the past 60 years, this anniversary will pass many people by, and it is essential that we keep up the momentum, thereby enabling more and more people to stand up and claim their rights." While recognition was given to the important role the UN has played in furthering human rights concerns over the past decades, criticism was also voiced, particularly of the Security Council members, whom Andrew Hudson, a senior associate with the Human Rights Defenders Programme at Human Rights First, said "have frequently failed to prevent or address gross violations of the UDHR." Rob Wheeler of the World Alliance for Transforming the UN said the United Nations also called attention to the UN's failure to implement several human rights-related articles of its own charter, concerning access to food and decent living standards. "We thus urge the United Nations to organise and hold a UN Charter Review Conference, under Article 109 of the Charter, in order to determine what can and must be done to ensure that the charter is upheld and that all people's most basic human rights are indeed provided and met," he said. Source: Nearly 1bn people worldwide now going hungry The Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of the world's hungry by 2015 has suffered "a serious setback" according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, as the global food crisis caused the number of people living in hunger to rise to almost one billion. The FAO warned that financial and economic crisis could tip even more people into hunger and poverty, due to its likely impact on remittance flows, foreign direct investment and food aid to poor countries. The organisation's report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World", estimates that the number of undernourished people rose this year by 40m to 963m people, after rising by 75m last year. "High food prices are driving millions of people into food insecurity, worsening conditions for many who were already food insecure, and threatening long-term global food security," the report said. "Soaring food prices have reversed some of the gain and successes in hunger reduction, making the mission of achieving the internationally agreed goal on hunger reduction more difficult". FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said yesterday that the target could still be met but acknowledged that there was little sign countries were investing the €23bn a year required to cut hunger and boost agriculture sufficiently to meet the target. Sources: Disappointing outcomes of Doha Financing for Development Conference Sylvia Borren, co-chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), gave a detailed interview with IPS last week in which she discussed the civil society response to the Financing for Development Conference in Doha Qatar on 29 November - 2 December. On the role of civil society in the Conference, Borren reported that the two day pre-conference of the civil society had gone well. "We had enough expertise in our networks and 250 people attending to have well-researched argumentation in the room. And we put together a solid civil society paper of improvements and additions on all issues for our governmental delegations", she said. On the negotiations, she reported: "The six roundtables started badly, with civil society invited but given virtually no airtime. Only on the last day the roundtable on systemic issues allowed some real input and dialogue." On the final outcomes Borren voiced disappointment. "The end result of four days was back to the original text: 'The UN will hold a conference at the highest level on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development'. On content the outcome document is not too bad, reaffirmation of Monterrey's agreement to eradicate poverty, no slippage on the volume of aid, better gender and decent work language, a little advance on stopping tax leakages and acting on climate change. But many issues were referred to the next conference -- with a different and hopefully more democratic U.S. player at the table...What a result -- four days spent agreeing to another expensive UN meeting." Source: Jewish peace groups urge MEPs to consider Israel's human rights record Following the European Parliament's vote to postpone ratification of a protocol, which would increase economic and political cooperation between the EU and Israel, the group European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP), a network of Jewish Peace Groups from ten different European countries, has written a letter to all MEPs urging that they consider human rights when voting on the protocol in the future. The letter argues that while Israel is "a vibrant democracy in many ways", there are "repeated instances" where the values of democracy and respect for human rights have been disregarded, and continues to outline several cases in point, such as Israel's forced detention of school leavers who refuse to be conscripted into the Israeli Army, its disregard of its own Supreme Court's decisions, and its continued extension of the occupation of Palestine. It urges MEPs: "You are in a unique position to add to this long-term perspective by at least setting pre-conditions to the coming upgrading of EU-Israeli relations. ... The ENP can be an effective way of bringing states closer to European values, but it will be a policy on paper only if diplomats, minsters and, in this instance, legislators decide to pass over instances where Israel ignores these values." The letter ends: "The issue here is not to punish Israel but to clearly demonstrate that rewards are contingent on observation of the very agreement under discussion here. Otherwise both the ENP itself and the principles upon which it was drawn up become devalued." Source:
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