![Secretary-General Agnes Callamard speaks at a news conference in London on Amnesty's annual report [Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP]](/Uploads/Images/News/2024/4/Image-2396-20240424074046.jpeg)
The world is facing the collapse of the 1948 international order established in the wake of World War II, amid the brutal wars in Gaza and Ukraine, while authoritarian policies continue to spread, Amnesty International has warned.
The report accused the world’s most powerful governments, including China, Russia and the United States, of leading the global disregard for international rules and values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 1948.
The war in Gaza, which began on October 7, was a “descent into hell”, Secretary-General Agnes Callamard wrote in her preface to the report, where “the ‘never again’ moral and legal lessons [of 1948] were torn into a million pieces”.
Noting that Hamas had committed “horrific crimes” in its assault on communities in southern Israel on October 7, Callamard said Israel’s “campaign of retaliation” had become a “campaign of collective punishment”.
Amnesty said while Israel continued to disregard international human rights law, the US, its foremost ally, and other countries including the United Kingdom and Germany were guilty of “grotesque double standards” given their willingness to back Israeli and US authorities over Gaza while condemning war crimes by Russia in Ukraine.
“Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law is compounded by the failures of its allies to stop the indescribable civilian bloodshed meted out in Gaza. Many of those allies were the very architects of that post-World War Two system of law,” Callamard said. “Alongside Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, the growing number of armed conflicts, and massive human rights violations witnessed, for example, in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar – the global rule-based order is at risk of decimation.”
At least 34,183 Palestinians have been killed and 77,143 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza over the past six months, while more than 1,100 people were killed and dozens taken captive by Hamas on October 7.
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India’s economy will become carbon neutral by the year 2070, the country’s prime minster has announced at the COP26 climate crisis summit in Glasgow. The target date is two decades beyond what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts. India is the last of the world’s major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the United States and the European Union aiming for 2050.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
A crucial U.N. conference heard calls on its first day for the world's major economies to keep their promises of financial help to address the climate crisis, while big polluters India and Brazil made new commitments to cut emissions. World leaders, environmental experts and activists all pleaded for decisive action to halt the global warming which threatens the future of the planet at the start of the two-week COP26 summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Monday. The task facing negotiators was made even more daunting by the failure of the Group of 20 major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments at the weekend.