Posted 11:42 AM by Mary
CHILDRENS RIGHTS

Since the 1980s, advocates for children have increasingly agreed that children need rights protected by international law. Charity is not enough to protect children around the world.

International law exists: November 2009 was the twentieth anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the first legally binding agreement setting standards for the care, treatment and protection of all persons below age eighteen. The treaty covers child labor, child marriage, child soldiers, juvenile justice, trafficking, violence against children as well as the fundamental right to birth registration, to acquire a name and a nationality. Embodied in law violators can be held accountable.

More countries have ratified this human rights treaty than any other. About 70 countries have incorporated children's codes into national legislation based on the conventions provisions. The US has, unfortunately, not ratified this treaty. American law reflects many of the provisions and ratifying the Convention would send an important message of humanity to the world.

As part of the treaty, the UN has established the Committee on the Rights of the Child to which countries have to provide regular reports.These reports allow us to track global progress.

While many problems remain, there has been progress in the past two decades.The number of under-five deaths fell from 12.5 million in 1990 to less than 9 million in 2008. The number of children out of primary school declined from 115 million in 2002 to 101 million in 2007. Currently, around 84 percent of children, of the appropriate age, are in primary school. Immunization programs and vaccines have saved millions of lives and helped reduce global measles deaths by 74 percent since 2002.

The declaration spurred many developing countries to register all births. Still, an estimated 51 million were born but not registered in 2007 and one in four developing countries register only half of their births. Unregistered children are legally invisible. They risk losing acces to medical care, education and passports, and as adults the right to marry, vote, open a bank account or to inherit.

Child labor is both a cause and consequence of poverty. Children miss school when they work. UNICEF estimates that 150 million children between ages five and fourteen are working, mainly in agriculture. Brazil has helped some 27 million citizens climb up to the middle class since 2002 in part by paying a monthly allowance to families who keep their children in school and take them for regular health checks. Inspired by this success has promoted adaptations in almost 20 countries including Chile, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey and Morocco.

More than a third of women aged twenty to twenty-four report that they were married by age 18, often much younger and sometimes without their consent. The average age of first marriage is very gradually increasing in many countries.

At any one time, more than a million children are being held by the justice system, usually for offences such as running away from home, truancy, living on the street, alcohol abuse or illegal immigration. In Myanmar, children are legally responsible by age seven. Five countries have executed a child since January 2005.

The US has about 2000 people under age 18 serving life sentences, which violates the convention if they do not have possibilities of parole. In 2005 the US Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles and recently announced it will consider the constitutionality of life sentences for minors in two Florida rape and robbery cases. In one, the crime was committed by a thirteen year old.

How we treat children and the vulnerable is an important gauge of the humanity and hopefulness of our culture. Children are the future and represent our vision for the years to come.

Much work still needs to be done. The United Nations will continue to push countries to protect childrens rights, providing the bedrock for better lives.

Dr. Sylvain Ehrenfeld, UN representative from The International Humanist Ethical Union and the National Service Conference of the Americal Ethical Union and Temma Ehrenfeld

Posted 1:19 PM by Mary
MEASURING NATIONAL PROGRESS

Joseph Stiglitz put it well: "What you measure affects what you do…if you don’t measure the right thing you don’t do the right thing.

So how should we judge the progress of a nation?

The much-quoted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a tally of goods and services bought and sold with no distinction between transactions that add to well-being and those that diminish it.. A car accident that creates business for hospitals, insurers, lawyers and auto repair shops increases the GDP. So does economic activity that damages the environment. But household and volunteer work, which improve our well-being, aren’t counted if no money is exchanged.

The man who created the GDP, New Deal economist Simon Kuznets warned us not to use it as the sole measure of a nation’s health. As he told Congress, "Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between cost and returns and between the short and the long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what for what." We would also add “for whom.” The GDP includes no measure of income distribution. For example from 1973 to 1993 the GDP of the United State rose by over 50 percent while wages declined by almost 14

The GDP was better than no measure at all. During World War II, it allowed policymakers to track production for the war and it now gives us useful information on consumer purchases, which are linked to new jobs. But the GDP should not be our sole measure of progress.

The current economic crisis has spurred renewed interest in finding alternatives . Last year President Sarkozy of France created a Commission on the Measurent of Economic Performance and Social Progress . Noble laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Armartya Sen, who serve on the commission, have both urged that new assessment tools incorporate a broader concern for human welfare than just economic growth.

Several new ways to measure national progress have been proposed:

The Genuine Progress Indicator adjusts the GDP for changes in income distribution, adds the value of household and volunteer work and subtracts for crime and pollution.

The Gross National Happiness measure includes subjective and objective indicators such as sustainable development, preservation of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment and good governance. This idea comes from King Wangchuck the former ruler of Bhutan.

The Happy Planet Index combines subjective life satisfaction,based on surveys, life expectancy and environmental impact as measured by the ecological footprint which is based on a complicated formula relating to CO2 emissions and the use of natural resources.

The trouble with these and other indexes is that they include data that requires interpretation.

The founding charter of the United Nations calls for the promotion of social progress and a better standard of life. The UN publishes a yearly Human Development Report, which tabulates each member country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) —the dollar value of all the goods and services produced by a nation that year--as well as measures of life expectancy, education, health, nutrition, sanitation, the availability of clean water, gender discrimination and the distribution of income. The aim of the HDR is to track how development affects daily life. To measure progress, the United Nations frequently refers to the Human Development Index (HDI) which combines GDP, life expectancy, and educational level. As an example, Oman, which has a very high GDP per capita, but relatively low educational levels,ranks 58th , lower in HDI than Uruguay, which has about 60 percent of its GDP and has rank 46

It’s time to measure what is most important—improvements in national well-being.

Dr. Sylvain Ehrenfeld,representative to the UN from the InternationalHumanist Ethical Union and the National Service Conference of the American Ethical Union and Temma Ehrenfeld

Posted 10:38 AM by Mary
CLIMATE CHANGE, POVERTY AND THE UN

All economic development is based on using more energy. China, for example, is building a new coal fired power station every four days. It recently surpassed the US as the largest contributor of carbon dioxide emissions. Within 20 years the global total of cars is predicted to double to over two billion.

At the same time, scientists have agreed that the world needs to reduce carbon dioxide emissions more than 25 percent by 2020 and more than 80 per cent by 2050. It is a huge and expensive task.

Climate change is a global problem that no nation can solve by itself. The UN has been central in raising public consciousness. It initiated the intergovernmental panel report on climate change (IPCC) with 2500 scientists from over 130 countries, which concluded that there has been a marked increase in atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, mainly as a result of human activity. The UN Kyoto Treaty went into effect in 2005 when 55 countries agreed to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 5 per cent of their 1990 levels by 2015. Disastrously, the United States, China,India and Brazil all failed to sign.

In December 2009, the United Nations will sponsor a conference in Copenhagen to win their cooperation. The cost of adapting to a low carbon world now is estimated to be one per cent a year of the worlds GDP (global domestic product)-- around 500 billion dollars for the next 10 years. If delayed, the cost could rise to 20 per cent. Humanity as a whole must look ahead 50 years, overcoming short-term political concerns. Any agreement in Copenhagen must include the United States and permit continued economic growth in the developing countries. It also must help the countries whose people are most vulnerable to climate change. Global warming will hurt all of us, but especially poor people living in parts of the world vulnerable to drought and monsoons such as in India and low lying islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific . They have limited resources to mitigate the effects.

The 2009 American Ethical Union Assembly adopted a strong resolution urging a reduction in our carbon footprint and sustainable and equitable use of carbon releasing energy sources. The UN is also committed to ending poverty: We still live in a world where 800 million people go to bed hungry, 15 million children starve to death each year and many die from preventable diseases.

The challenge in Copenhagen can be summed up by SUSTAINABILITY, EQUITY AND MITIGATION. We need all three to succeed.How we adapt will change the way we live , use energy and relate to the earth.

The world’s hope for ending poverty without polluting the planet lies in cheap, clean energy, the business opportunities of the future. Venture capitalists are already investing billions in new technologies, which can be used around the world. Here again, China is racing ahead of the United States in its drive to go solar. As a Chinese proverb states "One generation plants a tree, the next generation gets the shade."

Dr. Sylvain Ehrenfeld, IHEU representative to the UN and Temma Ehrenfeld..

Labels: climate change

Posted 8:25 AM by Mary
WOMEN AND THE MILLENIUM GOALS
In the year 2000, in the historic moment we call the Millennium, the UN undertook an ambitious program.All the member states agreed to a challenge to meet the basic needs of the globe.They narrowed this vision of the world's wellbeing to a reduction of poverty, hunger and disease, increased education overall, increased opportunities for women, and increased survival for children and women.

The plan was designed to be affordable, measurable, and doable, with a target date of 2015--both visionary and pragmatic. In the work of drafting these goals, it became clear that not only is there considerable overlap, but women play a very considerable role in development. Much progress depends on the status of women.

Women are over half the world's population. In many parts of the world they grow and harvest the food. They raise children, tend to the ill and aged as primary caretakers. Yet 2/3 of the world's uneducated children are girls, and 2/3 of the world's poorest people are female.

The future depends on children. The condition of children is inextricably connected to the status of women. Not surprisingly, the status of women is a reliable indicator of the wellbeing of a country. Their disempowerment reduces the ability of a country to progress. In the many parts of the world where they can not participate in public life, they are an untapped source of enterprise and creativity, and their absence shows.

Goal 3 of the Millennium goals is to promote gender equality and empower women. Goal 4 is to reduce child mortality. Goal 5 is to improve maternal health. UNICEF in its 2009 report focuses on the health of newborns and their mothers. Although many developing countries have made good progress in improving child survival rates, still millions of children die before the age of 5 from preventable causes. A child born in an undeveloped country is over 13 times more likely to die in the first five years of life than one in a developed country,

In the past decade, concerted intervention has shown improved survival of young children, but sadly this progress has definitely not been true for mothers in the undeveloped world. Having a child is among the most serious health risk for women. Every year more than half a million women die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth complications. They are 300 times more likely to die during pregnancy or in childbirth than if they lived in rich countries. What is required is prenatal care by skilled attendants, adequate nutrition and postpartum care .

Ensuring access to reproductive health and family planning services for all could help to avert up to 35% of maternal deaths. Globally, some 200 million women and men who say they would like to use family planning do not have adequate access to good quality contraception,.

Since the election of President Obama, US policy has completely changed. Access to safe and effective family planning is one of the best methods to prevent unintended pregnancies. He will restore US funding to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund-- an agency whose support was cut back by the previous administration because it promoted family planning over the "abstinence only" agenda. Further, Obama has lifted the "global gag rule" which refused US money to any organization that provides or even discusses abortion.

The difference in pregnancy risk between women in developing countries and the industrial world is a silent tragedy and often termed the greatest health divide in the world. It is a moral outrage that millions die when they could be saved by proven cost-effective interventions. Saving these lives is the smart thing to do. It is also an issue of human rights and justice. If you want to help see UNFPA and UNICEF

Phyllis Ehrenfeld President National Service Conference of the American Ethical Union and representative to the UN. Dr Sylvain Ehrenfeld, International Humanist Ethical Union

Posted 8:19 AM by Mary
FROM THE UN
POPULATION AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN
Population matters! The numbers affect all the planning for everything that contributes to human wellbeing. Everything--food, water, poverty, environmental stress, children's education, jobs, the needs of the elderly--everything that determines the quality of life is affected.

The UN tracks population and revises its estimates every two years. The UN's projection of trends are not forecasts because they have to depend on assumptions about the"agequake", the large increase in longevity and the fertility rate, the number of children born per woman during a lifetime.

In most countries, rich and poor, people are living longer and women are having fewer children. These facts have profound effects.

The UN's estimate of the current world's population is projected to rise from 6.8 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050. The catch--and it is a big one-- is that this estimate is dependent on the continuing drop in fertility by the poor.In an already large population, small differences in the fertility rate have huge consequences. If fertility stops dropping world population will reach 11 billion, a formidable increase. Currently, about half of the world's poor are very young, younger than 25. In the world's worst off countries, the percentage is 60%, a politically explosive condition when so many lack jobs and even hope for a decent life.
What we do now matters!

The age quake of people over 60 is projected as 416 million in the richer countries and 1.6 billion in the poorer countries, the biggest increase. Their needs must be met.

Immigration, a safety valve for the poor, will keep the richer countries' population steady in spite of their lower birth rate. But in the poor countries, even very small increases in the fertility rate means enormous numbers of needy youths demanding the basic necessities for a life.

The 1974 and 1984 UN conferences concentrated on numerical population goals. The language "population control" and "overpopulation" used at the time seemed as if the wealthy were trying to limit the numbers of the poor and people of color, men trying to control women. In spite of this resentment and religious resistance, the fertility rate has continued to drop since the Cairo conference of 1994.

This Cairo Conference, based on extensive research and much lobbying concluded that the key to a doable plan for stabilizing world population lay in the status of women, and in giving women the opportunity to have the children they want, and not by forcing them to have them against their will. It is not surprising that it took so long for women's rights to be considered. Issues such as abortion, contraception, family planning, sex education for teenagers, education for girls and equal civil rights for women still arouse passions worldwide.

Fertility is the key variable in the population story. Why do women and families want fewer children? The movement from countryside to cities, the very important reduction in child mortality, opportunities for women to have paid work--all of these lead to a greater emotional and physical investment in a smaller number of children.

200 million women lack access to family planning resources. This a vital concern for the world's well being and an ethical issue for humanists.

Phyllis Ehrenfeld President National Service Conference of the American Ethical Union

Posted 8:37 PM by Mary
FROM THE UN World Day of Social Justice and the Economic Crisis

Adam Smith,the guru of the freemarketers, had it right in 1759. In his first book,"The Theory of Moral Sentiments," he stated that 'prudence is a virtue for individuals', but "humanity, justice, generosity and public spirit are the qualities most useful to others." The extraordinarily timely World Day of Social Justice recently established by the UN builds on the same fundamental idea that economic success depends on the well being of people.

The followers of Adam Smith have ignored all these qualities. The market gurus who have distorted their prophet's message to claim that the market can heal all ills should have heeded what their prophet actually wrote. Adam Smith stressed the need for regulation of financial activities. Capitalism's success has increasingly come within the control of institutions that curtail its side effects and excesses, while providing the tools of a civilized society which exist outside the market system.

The global financial meltdown affecting the rich countries is even more drastically hurting the poorer countries.Each day millions of the marginally poor are falling into unemployment, food scarcity and poverty-- a global tsunami that politicians are warning could create political and social havoc both within and outside the borders of their countries. Any solution will require worldwide cooperation in a nexus of laws, business and trade. The present crisis has highlighted the inadequacy of the growth imperative and unregulated markets from the model of rational decision makers.

Many thinkers believe that this model of capitalism is bankrupt. Funny man Art Buchwald commented " An economist is a man who knows a hundred ways to make love, but doesn't know any women." Even Allen Greenspan, a free marketer, and former head of the Federal Reserve has admitted that he was wrong about deregulation. Billionaire Bill Gates, speaking at the Economic Summit at Darvos, stated that unfettered capitalism cannot solve broad social problems.

In the UN's World Day of Social Justice on Feb. 20, speakers proposed that an economic system needs to be just in order to function and to take into account the social and economic rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Articles 22 to 27 spell out rights to water, sanitation, food, housing, education,---all outside the market driven model of economics.

Classical economics calls the negative effects of market activities "externalities" Attention to these crippling consequences are what is driving Bill gates, when he speaks of a kinder, "creative capitalism" that can create wealth through responding to these needs.Growth and prosperity should be judged by the well being of people.

In the last 20 years, in the US, family income has risen only very modestly, but income inequality has mushroomed into a gap greater than any since the twenties.In 1975 the top 1% earned 8% of all the income in the US. But by 2005, that top sliver of the population earned almost 20% of the total income in the country. The top 10% of the population collects 44% of total income and the top 20% collects a walloping 60%. Here in the US we are increasingly a top-heavy economy.

In the world's population in 1980, the median income of the richest 10% was 70 times that of the poorest 10%. But in 2000 the gap has widened to 122 times. It is no joke when we say that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,

Prior to the present financial crisis there were already warnings that the observed trends in income inequality might not be sustainable. The grossness of the inequality gap and the environmental damage from the emphasis on growth has undermined the stability of the system.Inadequate wages for workers and their families are causing them to rely more on debt.

There are numerous reasons for growth of inequality--deregulation, the decline of unions, stagnation in the minimum wage,and growing emphasis on technology. President Obama's top economic advisor Lawrence Summer has described the trend of increasing inequality as if each family in the bottom 80% of the income distribution was sending a $10,000 check every year to the top 1% of earners.

Nobel Prizewinner in economics Amartya Sen, has proposed that instead of measuring only the GDP (gross domestic product) as an indicator of a country's well being ,it should be measured by a persons capabilities--'what people are actually able to do and be'. One such measure,used by the UN , is the Human Development Index(HDI) which is a composite of income,longevity and education.

By this measure the US ranks eighth to Australia's third.Australia's annual income per head is $9000 less than America's income. Nevertheless it ranks higher because Australians are better educated and live longer. The essential message of the World Day of Social Justice is that we need a global economic system which shifts from a narrow preoccupation with markets to a broader perspective on the well being of people.

Phyllis Ehrenfeld President National Service Conference of the American Ethical Union and Representative to the UN. Dr.Sylvain Ehrenfeld

Posted 3:15 PM by Mary
SIXTY YEARS OF CLAIMING RIGHTS
Sixty years ago ,in response to the horrors of World War 2, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This remarkable historic document declared "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights".A first global statement. All persons should be treated with dignity simply because the person is human. It has inspired and energized human rights workers worldwide. It spurred the creation of the International Criminal Court,and inspired the creation of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.

The UDHR introduces two very important new features.First, it is universal. Some human rights ideas go back a long time as in 1740 BC when the Babylonian king Hammurabi codified his laws against unfair trials,torture and slavery. However his laws applied only to his own people. His enemies the Assyrians, fell outside his code's protection. They could be tortured and enslaved without compunction. Similarly , The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the US Bill of Rights guaranteed rights for the French, and eventually for all Americans.

The UDHR is revolutionary precisely because it is universal, and so takes precedence over every political ideology and parochial claim. It transcends national borders and spells out rights regardless of race, gender or class.

A second significant new feature is that the declaration encompasses both negative rights as well as positive rights. Negative rights are limits to what harms can be done to restrict an individual. For example freedom of speech,freedom from arbitrary detention and torture, free assembly, freedom of the press and a fair trial, as expressed in the US bill of rights. These are important civil and political rights.But-a big but -is the concept of positive rights,social and economic such as education, health care, food and housing, neccessities because they are required for the dignity of every human being.This concept articulates a serious responsibility of governments toward its population.

In the discussions leading to the formulation of UDHR,the Soviet Union objected to the civil and political rights,the US government did not support the social and economic rights.Saudi Arabia objected to equal rights of men and women in marriage, and also freedom of religion. Southern senators in the US, shared with South Africa, unhappiness with civil rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt led the commission of Human Rights in the formulation of the UDHR. Under her brilliant guidance and the difficult discussions, especially with the Soviet Union,she managed to craft an historic document. For example she convinced the US State Department to support the social and economic sections by reminding them of her husbands 1941 state of the union address stressing both freedom from fear and the freedom of want. Together they form an organic unity

It is remarkable that in 1948 while these discussions were taking place the world was experiencing major changes. The Soviet Union consolidated its hold over Eastern Europe, the Middle East war erupted when the Arab armies invaded the fledgling State of Israel. In China the totalitarian Mao was on the verge of gaining power. In spite of all this the General Assembly passed the declaration with no negative votes and only 8 abstentions, the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

These rights were later spelled out in greater detail in two International covenants
one on Civil and Political Rights and one on Economic and Social Rights. Many countries have ratified them. Unfortunately the US has never ratified the Economic and Social covenant. Human rights are easier to endorse than to enforce.

The UDHR comes perennially under attack, as for example the justifications offered for torture in the US-a moral outrage. The most recent attack on the idea of universality comes from resurgent Islam. In Dec. 2007 the Organization of Islamic Conference, representing an important bloc of 56 Islamic states renewed their opposition to the universality of human rights focusing on the status of women and freedom of religion.

The new and potentially revolutionary feature of economic and social rights is one of the UN's major focuses in their manifold humanitarian activities in fighting poverty,hunger,disease, unclean water and poor sanitation.All these blights undermine civil and political freedoms. In Eleanor's words both types of rights go hand in hand and are required for dignity and the betterment of humanity.

The principles embodied in UDHR underlie the beliefs and concerns of humanists.They need constant and vigilant defense.

A basic pillar for ethics is empathy.The struggle for human rights is the ongoing effort to enlarge the circle of empathy.