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This piece was originally published on Ipolitics.ca 

As 2019 begins, how can we describe the state of our world in one word? Sadly, hopeful and confident aren’t the first that come to mind. Turbulent. Volatile. Unpredictable. Uncertain. The adjectives we think of come from a deeply unsettled feeling.  

Indeed, if 2018 is our guide, this year will likely roil with an ugly combination of too much conflict in global affairs, too much divisiveness in national politics, and too much bickering about the enormity of the climate crisis.

What better time, then, to look to a different guidepost? One that’s about resistance and transformation? One that puts, at long last, the vision that states embraced when they adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 70 years ago at the heart of world affairs? Not as a secondary thought, taken up only when the necessary measures don’t cost too much, and not as something to be addressed only after we deal with the economy, the environment, armed conflict or national security.

Senator Pamela Wallin, one of the most outspoken opponents of the federal government’s proposed new legislation on assessing the impacts of large-scale resource development projects, has been particularly critical of the federal government’s commitment to gender-based analysis. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the Senator has chosen to illustrate her concerns with some gender-based analysis of her own.

These are not easy times.  Solidarity has never mattered more.

That was the heartfelt and urgent message shared with me by Honduran Indigenous leader Felipe Benitez Vazquez when we reconnected at a meeting in Peru a few weeks ago.  I first met Felipe when he travelled to Canada last year, to bring firsthand accounts of the impact of cruel repression on his people and on human rights defenders throughout Honduras.  We quickly agreed that his description of the struggle for rights and justice in Honduras powerfully captures the mood globally as well.  Without a doubt, not easy times.  And absolutely, solidarity is so vital.

For it has been a year in which the world has witnessed far too much conflict, marked by horrific atrocities with devastating impact on civilians in Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, South Sudan, Gaza, Iraq and many other corners of our world.  At a time when that list should grow shorter, it has been heartbreaking to see precisely the opposite.

The Human Rights and Climate Change working group, together with other coalitions working on gender, just transition, Indigenous peoples, and youth, have been working hard at the international climate change negotiations in Poland to make sure that human rights and other principles referred to in the preamble of the Paris climate agreement are also explicitly referenced in the Paris rule book that will guide countries in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Unfortunately the outcome is not looking good, as references to human rights have now been reduced compared to the initial negotiated text.