Inuit Plan to Launch Human-Rights Case Against U.S. Over Climate Change
Saying global climate change threatens them with extinction, the world’s Inuit people yesterday announced plans to launch a human-rights case against the United States, which has repeatedly reiterated that it will take no decisive action on the issue. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference represents 155,000 people living inside the Arctic Circle, where a rapidly warming climate is changing the ecosystem and threatening to permanently destroy the Inuit way of life. At talks on the Kyoto Protocol underway this week in Milan, Italy, Inuit representatives said they would invite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to visit the far north and learn firsthand how life is changing there. A ruling by the commission against the U.S. would not be legally enforceable, but the Inuit hope it would create negative publicity and encourage the nation to take climate change seriously.
