Mediaboss Marketing

Written by Amitabh Sinha | Pune | Updated: December 21, 2019 8:04:10 am European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a session to present the Green Deal plan, in European Parliament in Brussels last week. Reuters

The annual climate talks ended in Madrid last week with a disappointing outcome. The talks were unable to define the rules of a new carbon market to be set up under the Paris Agreement, the only major agenda before it. Nor were they able to persuade countries to commit to increase the scale of climate actions by next year, a demand being made again and again in view of scientific assessments that show that current efforts to tackle climate change were not enough.

While the meeting was still on, the European Union, whose 28 member countries are together the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China and the United States, came up with an announcement on additional measures it would on climate change. Called the European Green Deal, the EU announcement was hailed as a major step forward, even though it needs complementary efforts from other countries to make a significant impact.

Two major decisions are at the heart of the European Green Deal. One is about achieving climate neutrality. The EU has promised to bring a law, binding on all member countries, to ensure it becomes climate neutral by 2050. Climate neutrality, sometimes also expressed as a state of net-zero emissions, is achieved when a countrys emissions are balanced by absorptions and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Absorption can be increased by creating more carbon sinks like forests, while removal involves technologies like carbon capture and storage.

Over the last few months, there had been a growing demand for countries to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050. The UN Secretary-General had convened a special meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly session in September to persuade countries to commit to this target. Over 60 countries had agreed to scale up their climate actions, or to the 2050 target, but these were all relatively small emitters. The EU is now the first major emitter to agree to the 2050 climate neutrality target. It has said it would bring a proposal by March next year on a European law to enshrine this target.

The second decision pertains to an increase in its 2030 emission reduction target. In its climate action plan declared under the Paris Agreement, the EU was committed to making a 40 per cent reduction in its emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It is now promising to increase this reduction to at least 50 per cent and work towards 55 per cent.

Even at 40 per cent, the European Union had the most ambitious emission reduction targets among the developed countries. The US, for example, had agreed to cut emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels, but having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, it is under no obligation to fulfill even that target.

The EU also happens to be only one among major emitters to retain the 1990 baseline for emission cuts, originally mandated under the Kyoto Protocol for all developed countries. Most other countries have shifted their baselines to 2005 or even later under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Green Deal includes sectoral plans to achieve these two overall targets, and proposals for the policy changes that would be required. For example, it has proposals for making the steel industry carbon-free by 2030, new strategies for transport and energy sectors, a revision of managements of railway and shipping to make them more efficient, and more stringent air pollution emission standards for vehicles.

The European Union, as a whole, has been doing better than other developed countries on reducing emissions. In 2010, the EU had pledged to reduce its emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels. By 2018, it claimed to have achieved 23 per cent reduction in emissions. In terms of emission reductions, it probably is on track to meet the 2020 target, unlike any developed country outside the EU.

Canada, which walked out of the Kyoto Protocol, reported last year that its emissions were down 4 per cent from 2005 levels, but compared to 1990, this was an addition of about 16 per cent. Japan, another country to have abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, said its emissions for the year ending March 31, 2018 had come to about 8 per cent below the 2013 baseline it has chosen for itself. But this is a miniscule decrease compared to 1990 levels.

Even the EU, however, has not been fulfilling all its climate obligations. The Kyoto Protocol required the rich and developed countries to provide finance and technology to the developing countries to help them fight climate change. In those respects, there has been little climate money flowing out of the EU, especially for adaptation needs of developing countries, and transfer of new climate-friendly technologies has been mired in patent and ownership complications.

This is the reason why developing countries, like India and China, have been repeatedly raising the issue of unfulfilled obligations of developed countries in the pre-2020 period, that is covered by the Kyoto Protocol.

The Green Deal is important but inadequate in itself to achieve the emission reductions that scientific assessments say would be required to save the world from catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change. There has been no signal from other big emitters, including large developing countries like China and India, that they were considering immediate scaling up of their climate actions.

While announcing the deal, the EU urged other countries to raise the ambition of their actions as well. As long as many international partners do not share the same ambition as the EU, there is a risk of carbon leakage, either because production is transferred from the EU to other countries with lower ambition for emission reduction, or because EU products are replaced by more carbon-intensive imports. If this risk materializes, there will be no reduction in global emissions, and this will frustrate the efforts of EU and its industries to meet the global climate objectives of the Paris Agreement.

For all the latest Explained News, download Indian Express App

The rest is here:
Explained: Why EU Green Deal matters - The Indian Express

Garrett Epps: Dont let the First Amendment forget DeRay Mckesson

This is a theory of liability unknown to the First Amendment. In an important case arising from the civil-rights movement, the Court held in 1982 that protest leaders cant be sued for the violent actions of others unless the plaintiffs can show that the leaders themselves either engaged in violence or incited or directed the violence. Doe alleged incitement, but made no real attempt to show it.

Garrett Epps: Dont let the First Amendment forget DeRay Mckesson

The First Amendment and civil-liberties communities were shocked by the Fifth Circuits original decision, issued in April, which brushed aside the First Amendment with the breezy bromide that the First Amendment does not protect violence. The decision was unanimousWillett was on the panel, but the opinion was written by Judge E. Grady Jolly. (Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod was the third member.) That opinion was a dagger pointed at the heart of the treasured American right to protest against government action. If protest organizers can be sued, and possibly ruined, by lawsuits if anyone at their protest (even, say, an undercover police officer) turns violent, no ordinary citizen would dare organize protests.

Mckessons lawyers asked the Fifth Circuit to rehear the case en banc (as a full court); in response, the same panel withdrew its original opinion and substituted a new one that said, in legal verbiage, We agree with ourselves and by golly, we are right.

The case landed in the Supreme Courts inbox on December 6. Mckessons petition for the Court to hear the case, written by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, pointed out that the Fifth Circuit panel decision flatly defied the Courts own precedent in a landmark case called NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware. Advocates of free speech were holding their collective breath waiting to see whether this Court, which preens as a First Amendment champion when the rights of corporations or the rich are at issue, would call out the wayward panel or silently ratify its radical change in the law.

The latter course just got harder. Willett, a Trump appointee and former Texas Supreme Court justice, has now changed his vote and issued a full-throated defense of the idea that free speech covers even unruly protest.

I have had a judicial change of heart, Willett wrote. Admittedly, judges arent naturals at backtracking or about-facing. But I do so forthrightly. Consistency is a cardinal judicial virtue, but not the only virtue. In my judgment, earnest rethinking should underscore, rather than undermine, faith in the judicial process. As Justice Frankfurter elegantly put it 70 years ago, Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

The words are true, and the practice of judicial self-examination is, while not unheard-of, regrettably rare. In this case, reexamination led Willett to see two gaping holes in the majoritys case. First, he pointed out, despite the panels earlier decision, its not clear that even Louisiana tort law would support a lawsuit against Mckesson. To reach that conclusion, the panel had to, in essence, make new Louisiana state law. Every second-year law student knows that is a practice courts of appeals are supposed to avoidespecially when doing so creates a federal constitutional issue.

View post:
A Stunning Vote Reversal in a Controversial First Amendment Case - The Atlantic

Something very unusual happened in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit this week. A Trump appointee to that court acknowledged that he was wrong when he voted to strip a prominent civil rights activist of the activists First Amendment rights.

The case is Doe v. Mckesson, and it involves Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson.

Mckesson allegedly helped lead a protest near the Baton Rouge Police Department building. During that protest, an unknown assailant who is not DeRay Mckesson allegedly threw a rock at a police officer (referred to as Officer Doe in this suit), injuring them.

Last April, the Fifth Circuit held that Mckesson could potentially be held liable for the actions of this unknown assailant, despite the Supreme Courts holding in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence. All three of the judges who joined this decision are Republicans.

On Monday, Don Willett, one of those three judges, admitted that he was wrong. I originally agreed with denying Mckessons First Amendment defense, Willett wrote in a rare dissenting opinion issued months after the courts initial decision, but I have had a judicial change of heart.

Willetts new opinion argues that protest leaders like Mckesson are generally protected by the First Amendment if a rogue member of their protest commits a criminal act. While there is no question that Officer Doe can sue the rock thrower, Willett concludes that the Constitution that Officer Doe swore to protect itself protects Mckessons rights to speak, assemble, associate, and petition.

That means that police officers cannot chill protests by imputing the actions of third parties to the protest leaders. If protest organizers can be held liable for the actions of people they cant control, few people will be willing to lead protests because they could potentially be sued for illegal activity committed by anyone at the protest.

In the short term, Willetts change of heart matters very little. The two other judges on the Mckesson panel adhere to their previous decision. So Mckessons best hope to vindicate his First Amendment rights lies in a petition he filed in the Supreme Court earlier this month.

The Fifth Circuit majoritys opinion is at odds with the Supreme Courts decision in Claiborne Hardware. According to Judge E. Grady Jolly, who wrote the majority opinion, Mckesson allegedly directed the demonstrators to engage in the criminal act of occupying [a] public highway near the police building. That, Jolly suggests, can be enough to strip Mckesson of his First Amendment rights.

In order to counter Mckessons First Amendment defense at the pleading stage, Jolly wrote, Officer Doe simply needed to plausibly allege that his injuries were one of the consequences of Mckessons decision to lead protesters into the street.

The case is still at an early stage of litigation. If the Supreme Court does not intervene to protect Mckesson, there will still be a trial where Mckesson may attack Officer Does factual claims. But if the Fifth Circuits decision is allowed to stand, that decision could have a chilling effect on all organized protest.

Claiborne Hardware did not hold that protest leaders are stripped of their First Amendment rights if they commit a minor illegal act during a protest. To the contrary, Claiborne Hardware held that the First Amendment protects protest leaders unless they authorized, ratified, or directly threatened acts of violence. And there is no allegation that Mckesson did any such thing.

As Willett notes, Officer Doe does not allege that Mckesson gave any particular order to commit violence. Nor does he claim that Mckesson controlled or directed the unidentified assailant. The only allegation of illegal activity against Mckesson is that he led people into a public highway and street protests are a common tactic used by civil rights marchers.

Willett concludes his opinion with a rhetorical flourish. Dr. Kings last protest march was in March 1968, in support of striking Memphis sanitation workers, he writes. But as King led the largely nonviolent protest down Beale Street, some young men began breaking storefront windows. The police moved in, and violence erupted, harming peaceful demonstrators and youthful looters alike.

If Jolly is correct about the Constitution, then Martin Luther King Jr. gave up his First Amendment rights the minute he violated a traffic law. Its now up to the Supreme Court to decide if Jollys decision should stand.

Read more:
Trump judge recants attack on Black Lives Matter and the First Amendment - Vox.com

You almost never hear a judge say my bad, but that is exactly what Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Don Willett did this week, reversing his opinion in a First Amendment case legal experts say could chill the right to protest.

The case involves activist Deray Mckesson, who was sued by a Baton Rouge, La., police officer after a protester allegedly threw a rock at the cop at a demonstration Mckesson helped lead.

To be clear: Mckesson didnt direct the unknown protester to allegedly throw the rocka point on which both Mckesson and the team representing the unnamed officer in the lawsuit (Officer Doe) agreed. What Does team successfully argued in front of a three-judge panel was that Mckesson was liable simply because he helped organize the march outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in 2016. To put it another way, Mckesson can be sued because he didnt prevent the protester from throwing the object (regardless of whether he was even aware of it at the time).

Willett was part of the panel that decided in favor of Officer Doe in April, reports Vox. On Monday, Willett issued a new dissenting opinion laying out the faults of his original decision.

I originally agreed with denying Mckessons First Amendment defense, but I have had a judicial change of heart, Willett wrote (h/t The Atlantic).

Consistency is a cardinal judicial virtue, but not the only virtue, he continued. In my judgment, earnest rethinking should underscore, rather than undermine, faith in the judicial process. As Justice Frankfurter elegantly put it 70 years ago, Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

Willett now argues that activists like Mckesson are protected by lawsuits like Does under the First Amendment.

From Vox:

While there is no question that Officer Doe can sue the rock thrower, Willett concludes that the Constitution that Officer Doe swore to protect itself protects Mckessons rights to speak, assemble, associate, and petition.

That means that police officers cannot chill protests by imputing the actions of third parties to the protest leaders. If protest organizers can be held liable for the actions of people they cant control, few people will be willing to lead protests because they could potentially be sued for illegal activity committed by anyone at the protest.

The primary issue is that the judges first ruling flies in the face of a precedent: the Supreme Court case, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware(1982), which found civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence.

In order for First Amendments to be overwritten, protected speech has to rise to the level of incitementDoes case doesnt argue this competently, Willett wrote.

From Willetts opinion (emphasis mine):

Not one of the three elements of incitementintent, imminence, likelihoodis competently pleaded here. Nor does the complaint competently assert that Mckesson directed, intended, or authorized this attack. Our Constitution explicitly protects nonviolent political protest. And Claiborne Hardware, among our most significant First Amendment cases, insulates nonviolent protestors from liability for others conduct when engaging in political expression, even intentionally tortious conduct, not intended to incite immediate violence. The Constitution does not insulate violence, but it does insulate citizens from responsibility for others violence.

In fact, the only thing Mckesson did illegally in Baton Rouge, as far as anyone in the case is concerned, is leading marchers onto a public highwaya common practice among protesters. In fact, Willett invoked foundational acts of protest in his dissent, noting that acts like dumping tea into the Boston Harbor, or walking from Selma to Montgomery as did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and marchers (an act that also took place on public highways) would not be considered protected speech under this Fifth Circuits ruling. Further, if a marcher did so much as jaywalk, King himself could have been sued. (Well get back to the jaywalking example in just a moment.)

Unfortunately, Willetts dissent is still outnumbered by the other two judges (all three are Republican), who wrote the judicial equivalent of I said what I said to Willetts opinion this week. Constitutional law professor Garrett Epps captured the crux of their opinion for the Atlantic (back to the jaywalkers!):

Imagine protesters speaking out on a heated political issue are marching in a downtown district, they write. As they march through the city, a protester jaywalks. To avoid the jaywalker, a car swerves off the street, and the driver is seriously injured. If the dissenting opinions interpretation of Claiborne Hardware is correct, the First Amendment provides an absolute defense to liability for the jaywalker in a suit by the driver. This misstates the facts. There would be no protection for the jaywalker. But the First Amendment would, and should, protect the organizer of the protest. Doe is suing Mckesson because he cant find the jaywalker.

Mckesson appealed the Fifth Circuits decision, which the Supreme Court must now decide if it will hear. If it doesnt, it will essentially cosign the lower courts decision, irreparably damaging one of the most essential qualities of American democracy.

Here is the original post:
Federal Judge Reneges on Opinion in Deray Mckesson Case, Takes a Stand for First Amendment Right to Protest - The Root

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in two cases on Friday in addition to taking up appeals surrounding President Donald Trumps financial records.

The issue in McGirt v. Oklahoma is whether the prosecution of an enrolled member of the Creek Tribe for crimes committed within the historical Creek boundaries is subject to exclusive federal jurisdiction. The petitioner, McGirt, is seeking release from incarceration by petitioning the court that Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to convict him for sex crimes committed against a child within Creek boundaries. In the writ of certiorari, Oklahoma argued that Sharp v. Murphy should have rendered the petition moot.

The court is reopening United States Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. In 2013 the court held that the First Amendment bars enforcement of Congress directive to have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking as a condition of accepting federal funds to combat HIV/AIDS abroad. The current question presented is whether the First Amendment further bars enforcement of that directive with respect to legally distinct foreign entities operating overseas that are affiliated with the Alliance for Open Society International, Inc.The United States Agency for International Development is arguing that the foreign recipients have no First Amendment rights to deny, while the Alliance for Open Society International is arguing that the previous decision should be final because it is the application of settled principles and there is no circuit split or conflict with the current precedent. Justice Elena Kagan took no part in the consideration of this petition.

See the original post here:
Supreme Court to hear Native American criminal procedure case and First Amendment question for foreign entities - JURIST