🌱✊ #EnvironmentalDemocracy update: CIEL will join the 1st European Forum on Environmental Human Rights Defenders—a new regional space strengthening protection for environmental defenders in Europe.

Learn more: coe.int/en/web/reykj...

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The next administration must make clear that any immigrant, refugee, or asylum seeker wrongly deported, exiled, or otherwise mistreated by this administration will be readmitted with an expedited path to citizenship. Send a plane to get them.

We can't undo the damage. But we can do something.

The U.S. Has Killed More Than 180 People in Boat Strikes. We’re Tracking Them All. The Intercept is keeping count of all publicly declared U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and the number of civilians killed.

The U.S. Has Killed More Than 180 People in Boat Strikes.

We’re Tracking Them All, @theintercept.com

theintercept.com/2025/11/17/t...

Breaking: New study using observational constraints projects that the Atlantic Ocean circulation #AMOC will weaken ~50% by 2100, even for medium emissions and without Greenland melting. 🌊
More realistic models means stronger weakening - not entirely unexpected.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book Read an exclusive excerpt from Nicholas Enrich's "Into the Wood Chipper"

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health.

'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

Ecuador: United Nations experts raise alarm over targeting of Indigenous leaders and activists Three United Nations Special Rapporteurs have expressed their deep worry and called for accountability over credible reports of a rapid (…)

Ecuador: UN Special Rapporteurs raise alarm over repression targeting Indigenous Peoples & human rights defenders.

They echo FIDH & its members’ concerns and call for accountability.

www.fidh.org/en/impacts/e...

The Asiatic cheetah is on the brink of extinction, with just 27 left in Iran. Now, war visits fresh peril on this critically endangered species. news.mongabay.com/2026/04/war-...

Lebanon: ICRC outraged by deadly strikes in densely populated areas The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is outraged by the devastating death and destruction in densely populated areas across Lebanon today following intensified military operations.

Difficult to describe how unusual it is for @icrc.org to speak publicly like this.

"Heavy explosive weapons with wide-area effects struck densely populated urban areas, including the capital Beirut, without effective advance warnings."

ICRC Outraged by Deadly Strikes in Densely Populated Areas

Washington Post Trump warns ‘a whole civilization will die’ if Iran doesn’t make a deal The president had issued a deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern time for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz, pledging destruction by midnight if leaders don’t comply. April 7, 2026 at 9:22 a.m. EDT26 minutes ago 2 min

Completely unstable and perilous. The House must bring up impeachment articles, and the Senate needs to remove a president who wants to commit war crimes. We cannot sit idly by as Donald Trump threatens to end an entire civilization.

Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera. Behind closed doors in Washington, top advisers made a series of decisions that had devastating repercussions for the poorest country on earth. We went to South Sudan and found people who died as a re...

Here are the stories of some of the human beings who died horrific deaths from preventable disease because Trump and Musk and their flunkies decided to murder them by gleefully destroying USAID and the entire global aid system:

True except that he goes and sits with Cheryl at the hospital after the commissioner won’t acknowledge her. People on the Wire are complicated

Thai court rules gold mine liable, but villagers face uncertain justice BAN KHAO MO, Thailand — On March 24, 2026, residents of this small community achieved a landmark legal victory. Ten years into a class action suit against the Chatree gold mine, the Bangkok Civil…

A landmark ruling against a Thai gold mine marks a step toward accountability, yet villagers face uncertain justice.

With payouts delayed by appeals and compensation falling short of the actual health and environmental costs, the battle for remediation continues.

Learn more. 👇️

The Growing Shadow of Autocracy Global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025. But even in this especially challenging moment, there are reasons for optimism.

Last week @freedomhouse.bsky.social released Freedom in the World 2026. The bottom line: "Global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025. A total of 54 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties, while only 35 countries registered improvements."

A connection to nature fuels well-being worldwide, according to a study of 38,000 people Feeling part of something larger than yourself may make it easier to cope with stress and uncertainty.

A study of 38,000 people across 75 countries found that feeling connected to nature consistently predicts higher well-being, hope and resilience – regardless of wealth or national culture.

theconversation.com/a-connection...

China: Prominent Rights Lawyer Sentenced to 5 Years A court in China sentenced the prominent human rights lawyer Xie Yang to five years in prison on March 23, 2026 on politically motivated charges of “inciting subversion of state power.”

A court in China has sentenced prominent human rights lawyer Xie Yang to five years in prison on politically motivated charges of “inciting subversion of state power.”

The Chinese government should immediately quash the conviction and free Xie.

‘We will not know what we lost’: Conservation fallout a year after USAID shutdown When then-U.S. president John F . Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development in 1961, it was meant primarily to administer health and food aid around the world. In the deca...

Since the closure of USAID an estimated 834,000 people lost their lives as a result of the loss of health assistance. USAID was also one of the largest contributors to conservation ($400m annually). This week on the podcast, Michelle Nijhuis @biographic.bsky.social details the situation a year on.

How foreign investor lawsuits stymie environmental protection New data by the Transnational Institute reveal how an increase in lawsuits by foreign investors is undermining government efforts to protect natural resources and human rights in Latin America and…

Foreign investors are suing Latin American and Caribbean nations for $36.6 billion, often targeting environmental policies.

These legal battles undermine government efforts to protect ecosystems, transition to clean energy, and human rights.

Story by @aimeegabay.bsky.social for #Mongabay.

Happy birthday, #ICCPR which entered into force 50 years ago. Almost 90% of states have ratified it, and a clear majority also the optional protocol allowing individual complaints. This is the one international treaty that I have worked most hours on, as academic, practitioner and treaty body member

Denton County and its economy are built around the University of North Texas. Denton County also went 56/43 for Trump in 2024. That's because most voters there wanted to get rid of immigrants.

Now, as international students disappear, the university is collapsing. They burned down their own house.

How Wildlife Traffickers Are Using Coded Language to Sell Protected Animals On Facebook - bellingcat Coded language used in thousands of Facebook ads has helped illegal wildlife dealers evade the platform’s bans for years

Wildlife traffickers selling protected animals on Facebook use coded language to evade moderation. Research by Bellingcat and @mongabay.com has identified nine groups, with more than 70,000 members combined, leading back to six profiles and one broker in Indonesia. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

UK human rights bodies warn weakening ECHR protections would put 'everybody' at risk UK human rights bodies warn weakening ECHR protections could put everyone at risk, amid debate over immigration, deportations and the role of courts.

Interesting: The UK’s three national human rights institutions have warned that weakening protections under the European Convention on Human Rights would risk the rights of everyone in the country👇

🔗 www.heraldscotland.com/news/2594907... via @heraldscotland.bsky.social

US downgraded in democracy index as press freedom concerns grow | CNN Business “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history,” one of the world’s top democracy researchers says in a new report.

"The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history," one of the world's top democracy researchers says in a new report. I wrote about it here for CNN: www.cnn.com/2026/03/18/m...

1/2. He took the greatest military force in history, lost a war to a middle power in a week, begged the world to save him, & demanded the media lie about this & everything else. I try, but at a simple human level I do not see how anyone mistakes this man’s almost supernatural weakness for strength.

The US is no longer a liberal democracy, according to the top global watchdog on freedom and democracy. We're falling fast, and are now classed the same as Guatemala, Colombia, and Peru

www.v-dem.net/documents/75...

On 28 February 2026, the United States commenced combat operations to defend the American people against attacks and ongoing threats from the Islamic Republic of Iran, in cooperation with our ally Israel. These combat operations were undertaken to protect United States Armed Forces in the region, to ensure the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and to protect our regional allies and partners from Iran and its proxies. This is the latest stage in the ongoing international armed conflict that my Government previously addressed in a letter to this Council on 27 June 2025. The United States is taking these necessary and proportionate actions in exercise of the inherent right of self-defense as reflected in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. These combat operations are also being conducted in close cooperation with, and in the collective self-defense of, Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran has rejected peaceful coexistence and chosen international armed conflict with Israel as well, waging an unprovoked religious war of annihilation against a once-friendly United Nations Member State located hundreds of miles distant from its borders. Since June 2025, the regime has also massively expanded its ballistic missile production for the purpose of overwhelming regional air defenses in order to provide a shield for its efforts to reconstitute its nuclear program, which it refuses to relinquish. Gaming the international legal system, the Iranian regime routinely seeks to conceal its unlawful acts and to shield itself from accountability by, among other things, deploying proxies such as Hamas, Hizballah and the Houthis. For example, in a letter dated 5 February 2024, my Government reported that the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its partners and proxies had attacked United States personnel and facilities in Syria and Iraq. That letter identified nine prior letters sent to this Council between 2021 and 2024, a period th…

NEW

Somewhat unexpectedly, the US government has submitted an Article 51 letter to the UNSC articulating the US int'l law justification for attacking Iran.

As someone who used to help draft these letters for the USG, I find the administration's legal arguments completely unconvincing. 1/n

Favorite detail of this op-ed I published today:

Honduran currency now depicts Berta Cáceres, their 1st to feature a woman (and an Indigenous one, too)

It marked Int'l Day of Women in Multilateralism, which recognizes women's key roles in promoting #humanrights peace & sustainable development:

Not to mention a little contribution to Western literature called the Iliad

I don’t use this word lightly, but this is evil.

Trump urges UK and other nations to send warships to Strait of Hormuz The US president says he hopes China, France, Japan and South Korea will also send ships to defend the key oil shipping route.

James Baker spent over five months shuttling around the world to build an international coalition to rollback Iraq's illegal invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Trump posts a message on social media and expects the world to help the US after its illegal war against Iran.

this administration scans authoritarian in everything it does, and the assault on the media -- and more precisely the public's right of access to accurate information & reporting -- is pretty much foundational. censorial in every respect.