The joint report produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and INTERPOL in 2016 paints a rather grim picture of the extent of environmental crime worldwide. It identifies it as the fourth largest criminal enterprise globally, right behind drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and human trafficking. Two questions are worth pondering here: to quote George Monbiot, how did we get into this mess and what can we do about it?
On 21 September 1976 Chilean secret service agents set off a car bomb in Washington DC killing TNI's director, Orlando Letelier along with Ronni Moffitt, a fundraiser for the Institute for Policy Studies. Here you will find an overview of dossiers, articles and news related to this brutal assassination, from the steps taken to bring the persons primarily responsible for his assassination to justice, to the The Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards: An award given in honor of our fallen colleagues while celebrating new heroes of the human rights movement from the United States and the Americas.
Proportionality is one of the key principles of the rule of law aiming to protect people from cruel or inhumane treatment. The principle has been established in international and regional human rights agreements and many countries have adopted reflections of it in their constitution or penal code. Its application to drug-related offences is firstly the responsibility of the legislators, in defining the level of penalisation of certain behaviours.
