The U.N. General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution Wednesday that will ask the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on the obligations of states under international law to protect the rights of present and future generations from the impact of climate change.

“This resolution and the advisory opinion it seeks will have a powerful and positive impact on how we address climate change and ultimately protect the present and future generations,” said Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau, whose government spearheaded the drafting and negotiations of the resolution, with a core group of 18 countries representing most corners of the world. 

“Together we will send a loud and clear message, not only around the world but far into the future: On this very day, the peoples of the United Nations, acting through their governments, decided to leave aside differences and work together to tackle the defining challenge of our times: climate change,” Kalsakau said.

More than 130 countries joined in co-sponsoring the resolution, which was adopted by consensus. While most of the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, including China and the United States, were noticeably absent from the co-sponsors, they did not prevent the adoption by consensus. 

The United States, which noted the Biden administration’s ambitious climate action to meet commitments consistent with keeping global warming to within the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal, said it has “serious concerns” that an ICJ opinion could hurt rather than help collective efforts to reach climate targets.

“We believe that launching a judicial process, especially given the broad scope of the questions, will likely accentuate disagreements and not be conducive to advancing our ongoing diplomatic and other processes,” U.S. delegate Nicholas Hill told the assembly. “In light of this, the United States disagrees that this initiative is the best approach for achieving our shared goals and takes this opportunity to reaffirm our view that diplomatic efforts are the best means by which to address the climate crisis.”

Japan and Germany are among the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters, and they joined as co-sponsors. Germany was also among the 18 countries that shepherded the initiative.

“Germany hopes that this initiative will contribute to further strengthen international cooperation, which is key for achieving the Paris Agreement’s objectives,” Ambassador Antje Leendertse said of the 2015 climate accord. 

The Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu’s very existence is threatened by rising sea levels. It is currently recovering from the devastation earlier this month of two Category 4 tropical cyclones in less than five days.

Kalsakau was clear that the effort is not intended to be a contentious one, nor is it a lawsuit. The authors also do not expect the Hague-based court to create new obligations on states, only to uphold existing ones. While the ICJ is the United Nation’s principal judicial organ, its decisions are not binding but carry considerable weight and can become part of what’s known as customary law.

“We believe the clarity it will bring can greatly benefit our efforts to address the climate crisis and could further bolster global and multilateral cooperation and state conduct in addressing climate change,” the prime minister said. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the action, warning time is running out for nations to act boldly to fight global warming.

“This is the critical decade for climate action,” he told the assembly. “It must happen on our watch.”

The resolution began in 2019 as the brainchild of students from Vanuatu, which is among several small island states that are suffering the effects of the climate crisis but has contributed little to causing it.

“I don’t want to show a picture to my child one day of my island. I want my child to be able to experience the same environment, the same culture I grew up in,” Cynthia Houniuhi, president of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, told reporters in a briefing ahead of the vote.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the resolution, saying it is a powerful demonstration of effective multilateral diplomacy led by a state from the Global South on behalf of people at risk.

“The overwhelming support for Vanuatu’s resolution is a major step toward gaining clarity on the legal obligations of states most responsible for climate change,” said HRW’s Environment and Human Rights director Richard Pearshouse. “It’s also important to focus — through the lens of human rights — on the obligations to protect those communities suffering most acutely.” 
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The New York grand jury probing former President Donald Trump’s alleged role in a hush-money payment to a porn star will not reconvene on the matter until after the April Easter holiday, a law enforcement source said.

Christians mark Easter on April 9.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised women in Afghanistan and Iran for standing up for freedoms as he spoke Tuesday at an event highlighting the role of women in democracy. 

Blinken praised women who have protested in Iran in response to the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini last year, saying they have courageously demonstrated “under great threat to themselves, to call for ‘woman, life, and freedom.’” 

And in Afghanistan, Blinken said women are fighting for a better future in their country despite efforts by the Taliban “to erase them from daily life.” 

“The United States stands in solidarity with these women and all who are working for women’s full, free, and equal participation around the world. Through our diplomacy, we’re committed to supporting them and advancing gender equality worldwide,” Blinken said. 

The top U.S. diplomat said women face these challenges not only in autocracies, but also in far too many places where they lack equal opportunities to study and work. 

“Women journalists, advocates, politicians, and others are subject to persistent online harassment and abuse. Women who are victims of violence often do not have equal access to justice. Women are subject to discrimination that often puts them at a disadvantage – whether through double standards they face in the workplace, in access to reproductive rights, or in nationality laws, which can result in barriers to accessing education, health care, and property for themselves and for their families,” Blinken said. 
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The top U.S. military officer is warning of a growing arms race in the western Pacific, as nations become increasingly concerned about China’s military buildup in the region following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“There’s a really an underreported arms race going on in the western Pacific right now. These countries are arming themselves up, and they very much, with very few exceptions, want the United States there,” Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. 

Australia this month unveiled a $200 billion plan for nuclear-powered submarines. Japan has also increased its offensive capabilities and doubled its defense investments, all while announcing new deployments of U.S. troops on Japan’s southern islands that will bring with them mobile anti-ship missiles meant to counter any first strike from Beijing.   

Meanwhile, Beijing has asserted its desire to control access to the South China Sea and bring Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary. Milley said China was “trying to become the regional hegemon,” disadvantaging other countries like the Philippines as part of that effort. 

“That’s why the secretary traveled to the Philippines. That’s why we’re looking at access basing and oversight. That’s why we’re looking at a re-posturing in the western Pacific. It is a design there to be forward deployed in order to deter armed conflict with a great power, great power being China in this case,” Milley said. 

In February, the Philippines designated four additional bases for U.S. forces to operate in. The announcement marked a sharp turn back toward the United States, after former Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte had distanced himself from Washington. 

“Two years ago, we were about to get kicked out of the Philippines,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. 

The U.S. has continued to expand its military partnerships with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia and others in hopes of keeping international waterways open and building what officials, including Milley, have called a “strategic advantage over China.” 

But Republican lawmakers Tuesday sharply criticized the Pentagon’s proposed budget as inadequate, especially in the Pacific region. 

“For the third year in a row, President [Joe] Biden has sent to Congress a budget request that cuts military spending amid a more dangerous and complex threat environment,” said the committee’s ranking member, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. 

“This year’s budget is the last one that funds capabilities that are likely to be fielded before 2027. That’s the year by which [Chinese President] Xi Jinping says he wants the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take Taiwan. That makes our work here very urgent,” he warned. 

Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska questioned the budget cuts at a time that Milley and Austin agreed was the most dangerous since World War II.  

“This current budget shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, shrinks the Marine Corps. Doesn’t that embolden … Xi Jinping and Putin, not deter them?” asked Sullivan. 

Milley said the budget represents “essentially a one-war strategy” that focuses resources on the Navy and the Air Force, the two military branches the Pentagon says are most needed in a potential fight with China.  

He said the Navy would indeed decrease its hull numbers in the short term in order to shed some ships that are “costing way more money just to repair than worthwhile,” but would submit a shipbuilding plan with the number of ships increasing “in the not too distant future.” 

Iran 

Following the deadly attack at a coalition base in Syria by Iranian-backed forces last week, Austin told senators that Iran or its proxies have carried out 83 attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East since President Biden took office in 2021. 

The United States has retaliated by launching four major strikes against the attackers.  

The Iranian attack on Thursday killed a U.S. military contractor and wounded five soldiers and another contractor. The U.S. fired back with “precision” strikes against facilities of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the area, which the secretary confirmed had “people,” presumably militants, inside during the attack. 

But Iranian proxies were not deterred, launching another attack on U.S. forces hours later that injured a U.S. citizen. The U.S. has “not yet” responded to that attack, according to Austin. 

“What kind of signal do we think this sends to Iran when they can attack us 83 times since Joe Biden has become president, and we only respond to four? Maybe it’s because they know that until, that we will not retaliate until they kill an American, which emboldened them to keep launching these attacks which kill Americans,” Senator Tom Cotton said during the hearing. 

The United States has about 900 troops in eastern Syria to help Syrian Kurdish forces prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State terror group. 

Ukraine 

Austin repeated the U.S. vow to “support Ukraine’s defense for as long as it takes,” praising Ukraine’s fighters for having the upper hand against the Russians and “depleting their inventory of armored vehicles in a way that no one would have ever imagined.” 

But the top Pentagon leaders were blunt in their pushback against calls to provide F-16 fighter jets and MQ-9 drones to Ukrainian forces. 

Austin said F-16s are a capability that would take about 18 months to provide.

“That won’t help them in this current fight,” he said. 

Chairman Milley, when asked about whether Ukraine should receive MQ-9 drones, responded, “It’s not survivable. It’s big and slow. It’s going to get nailed by the Russian air defense systems.” 
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The U.N. secretary-general urged the international community on Tuesday to create an international body that would assist families of the estimated 100,000 missing persons in Syria to find out the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.

“The Syrian people deserve a measure of hope for the future,” Antonio Guterres told the General Assembly. “They deserve peace and security, and they deserve to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones.”

He said the international community has a moral obligation to help ease the plight of Syrians, who have suffered through 12 years of civil war and now the added devastation of the recent earthquake.

“People in every part of the country and across all divides have loved ones who are missing, including family members who were forcibly disappeared, abducted, tortured and arbitrarily detained,” he said, noting the majority are men.

The term “missing persons” includes Syrians and foreigners; those who have disappeared on their journeys as refugees; and people detained, abducted or kidnapped by all parties to the conflict, including pro-government forces, opposition armed groups and terrorists.

Hope, dignity, justice

The secretary-general said the new entity must be independent, impartial and transparent, and focus on the needs and rights of victims, survivors and their families. He called for cooperation from the Syrian government and all parties to the conflict.

“Let us heed their demands for truth,” Guterres said of the victims and their families. “Let us restore a measure of hope, dignity and justice to the Syrian people.”

Searching for missing relatives is very difficult. The U.N. said in a report that Syrian families do not have meaningful access to official facilities where people are detained or to intelligence and unofficial or secret detention sites, where most detention-related disappearances occur, especially enforced disappearances, as documented by the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry on Syria. They may be asked to pay bribes or are extorted.

Women are especially at risk. Often left as sole breadwinners, they are also often the ones doing the searching for male relatives, exposing them to danger and exploitation.

In December 2021, the General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on Guterres to conduct a study in conjunction with the U.N. Human Rights Office on how to improve efforts, including through existing ones, to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing people in Syria, identify human remains and provide support to their families.

“The continuing absence of many tens of thousands of people, from small children to elderly men and women, cries out for strong action,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the meeting.

He said the new institution should not replicate services provided by existing organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Commission on Missing Persons, or several Syrian associations, and must work cooperatively with them. The new body should also be guided by the presumption that the missing person is alive and in urgent need of help.

Türk said funding and a timeline for creation of the international body would be determined in consultation with member states.

“In terms of structure, I suggest two main sections: one focused on search, and the second focused on victim support and participation,” he said. “Search work would include prioritizing cases and consolidating existing claims and data into a searchable database.”

The human rights chief said it is impossible to know with certainty how many people have been disappeared in Syria, underscoring that it could be “far more” than the 100,000 estimate.

Families ‘devastated’

“What is certain is that families on every side of this conflict have been devastated,” Türk said. “Families on every side of this conflict want to know what has happened to their loved ones. I stand here before you to amplify their voices.”

He stressed that a new body would not be an accountability mechanism but strictly humanitarian in nature.

More than 90 missing-persons groups from around the world have expressed support for a new international body to assist families of missing Syrians.

The reaction in the General Assembly was mixed. The European Union and several Western countries, including the United States and Canada, expressed strong support. Some countries with poor human rights records questioned the need for, as Russia’s delegate put it, “another pointless mechanism of a political nature.”

Syria’s envoy did not address the meeting. But in the Security Council last week, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh said Damascus has worked for the past decade to locate those who have gone missing at the hands of terrorists or were killed in airstrikes by international forces. But he mentioned nothing of the tens of thousands of Syrians whom activists say the regime has forcibly disappeared.

A General Assembly vote on creating the institution is expected in the coming weeks.
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A federal judge has ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence will have to testify before a grand jury in the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Two people familiar with the ruling spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because it remains under seal.

The two sources said, however, that Pence would not have to answer questions about his actions on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol as Pence was presiding over a joint session of Congress to certify the vote.

Pence and his attorneys had cited constitutional grounds in challenging the subpoena. They argued that, because he was serving in his capacity as president of the Senate that day, he was protected from being forced to testify under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which is intended to protect members of Congress from questioning about official legislative acts.

Pence’s team is evaluating whether it will appeal.

The sealed ruling from U.S. District Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg sets up the unprecedented scenario of a former vice president being compelled to give potentially damaging testimony against the president he once served. And it comes as Pence has been inching closer to announcing a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, which would put him in direct competition with his former boss.

Pence was subpoenaed earlier this year to appear before the grand jury in Washington investigating election interference.

A Justice Department special counsel, Jack Smith, is investigating attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to keep Trump in power. Multiple Trump aides have already appeared before the grand jury, as well as another panel examining Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club.

A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment.

Pence has spoken extensively about Trump’s pressure campaign urging him to reject President Joe Biden’s victory in the days leading up to January 6, including in his book, “So Help Me God.” Pence, as vice president, had a ceremonial role overseeing the counting of the Electoral College vote, but did not have the power to impact the results.

Pence has said that Trump endangered his family and everyone else who was at the Capitol that day and said history will hold him accountable.
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