On Jan. 15, union leaders and members of the Confédération Paysanne held protests in opposition to the EU-Mercosur Deal, signed in December 2024 but still pending ratification, which would reduce tariffs and more deeply link the European market with the bloc of South American nations. Participants unfurled banners in offices of the Agriculture Ministry in protest of the agreement.

Protesters included a large delegation from the French overseas departments and regions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion and Mayotte, who denounced unfair competition from imports that would be imposed under the agreement. Three key spokespersons were among those arrested.

The experts warned that arresting and charging peaceful protesters may violate thr freedoms of assembly, expression and association, enshrined in both the French Constitution and international law. According to farmer advocate groups, use of the BRAV-M—a special motorized anti-riot unit—to quell the protest signaled criminalization of peaceful assembly, raising concerns about proportionality and necessity of police force.

The EU-Mercosur Deal is a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur bloc nations of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The agreement, which has been debated for 25 years, would connect South American farmers with millions of EU consumers. However, domestic producers in France fear the deal will undercut them and drive them out of the market.

The European Parliament voted on the agreement on Jan. 21, with 334 votes in favor and 324 against, although it still awaits ratification by EU member states. Many French  lawmakers have resisted ratifying the agreement unless it includes safeguards for European farmers, environmental protections, and regulatory parity.

Farmer and agricultural worker advocate groups like La Via Campesina, Serikat Petani Indonesia (Indonesian Peasants’ Union), the Kenyan Peasants League, European Coordination Via Campesina and the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations have condemned the detentions and called on French authorities to cease what they describe as “the criminalization of peasant movements.”

From JURIST, Jan. 27. Used with permission. Internal links added.

Photo: UN Human Rights Council via Twitter

The document invokes the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine, but pushes it further. It states that the US will block “non-Hemispheric competitors” from owning or controlling “strategically vital assets” in the Americas, including ports, energy facilities, and telecommunications networks. It describes the Western Hemisphere as the top regional priority, above Europe, the Middle East and Indo-Pacific, and ties that status to controlling migration, drug flows, and foreign influence before they can reach US territory.

This comes as the US has sent thousands of troops, an aircraft carrier, and additional warships to the southern Caribbean, in a campaign US officials frame as a push against drug trafficking. US aircraft have carried out multiple strikes on small boats that the administration labels cartel or “narco-terrorist” assets, sinking vessels, and killing dozens of people. Officials present these actions as security operations tied to a broader national strategy, not as traditional law-enforcement interdictions.

The Trump administration is framing these operations in the language of armed conflict. Officials routinely describe cartels as “narco-terrorist” organizations and suggest the president can use military force as necessary to defend the US from cartel-related threats. If operations against cartels are treated as part of a non-international armed conflict, then the law of armed conflict governs questions of targeting, detention, and accountability. If they remain below that threshold, international human rights law and peacetime law-enforcement standards apply, including stricter limits on the use of lethal force, especially against persons at sea who are not resisting.

The “Trump Corollary” also revives long-standing regional concerns about spheres of influence. Many Latin American governments and scholars have viewed the Monroe Doctrine as a policy that has historically served to justify US intervention, not a neutral principle of regional security. A strategy that openly promises to “reassert” US pre-eminence, condition aid and investment on unwinding Chinese-backed infrastructure projects, and “push out” foreign companies from key sectors, will likely rekindle debates over sovereignty and unequal power relations in the inter-American system.

There is also a broader tension concerning international law. The US formally supports the UN Charter’s ban on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, and the principle of sovereign equality. A doctrine that treats the Western Hemisphere as a US security zone sits uneasily with those commitments. It also risks weakening US objections to similar arguments by others. If Washington insists that major powers keep their hands off Latin American ports and telecoms on strategic grounds, it may face hard questions when it opposes Russian claims over Ukraine or Chinese claims over Taiwan and nearby waters, similarly framed in “regional security” terms.

The National Security Strategy also signals a shift in how Washington views its traditional allies. The same document that elevates the Western Hemisphere warns that parts of Europe face “civilizational erasure,” and calls for “cultivating resistance” to some European policies on migration and speech. European officials have criticized that language as echoing far-right narratives. They have also linked it to concerns that US attention and resources are moving away from the Euro-Atlantic theater, even amid demands that Europe shoulder more of NATO’s conventional defense burden.

From JURIST, Dec. 7. Used with permission. Internal links added.

Photo: USS Gerald R. Ford. Credit: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons

A 72-page legal analysis from the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israeli forces have committed genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza, including killing or seriously harming members of the group, as well as inflicting conditions of life “calculated to bring about [Gazans’] physical destruction in whole or in part,” and preventing births among the population. To support its conclusions, the commission cited the figure of 60,199 Palestinians killed since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, the fact that life expectancy in Gaza has dropped precipitously from 75.5 to 40.5 years, and that 46% of Palestinians killed were women or children. The panel also noted direct attacks on maternity wards and Gaza’s largest IVF clinic.

Additionally, the commission concluded that Israeli officials have demonstrated incitement to genocide, specifically naming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. The panel referenced Herzog’s comment that an “entire nation” was responsible for the October 7 attacks, Gallant’s comment that Israel was fighting “human animals” and must “act accordingly,” as well as Netanyahu’s comparison of Gazans to the Amalekites—a people who were singled out for destruction in the Hebrew Bible. Netanyahu and Gallant are facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for using starvation as a method of war and crimes against humanity.

Navi Pillay, the Commission of Inquiry’s chair, said upon the report’s release:

The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza… The Commission also finds that Israel has failed to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, through failure to investigate genocidal acts and to prosecute alleged perpetrators.

Israel’s UN delegation in Geneva vehemently rejected the report as  “libelous rant” by a non-judicial body to “demonize the State of Israel.” The delegation claimed that the “cherry-picked” facts and “Hamas falsehoods” were chosen to support “the malicious ‘genocide’ narrative,” and that the commission ignored atrocities committed by Hamas. Israel’s delegation also called for the Commission’s disestablishment, saying, “The Commission has proven time and again that it is not an independent and impartial human rights mechanism, but a hotbed of activism engaged in lawfare against Israel.”

Under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the ICC, genocide is committed when specific acts, such as killing members of a group, are undertaken with the intention of destroying a group in whole or in part. In order to establish that a genocide has occurred, international tribunals must conclude that the underlying acts took place and that they were committed with the intention of destroying a group.

Israel is a party to the Genocide Convention but not a party to the Rome Statute. The ICC still exercises jurisdiction over Gaza owing to the State of Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute.

From JURIST, Sept. 16. Used with permission. Internal links added.

See our last reports on the ICC case against Israel, genocidal rhetoric from Israeli officials, strikes on Gaza’s hospitals, and genocide accusations against Israel.

Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons

Cambodia now becomes the third country to nominate the bellicose Trump for the Peace Prize after Israel and Pakistan. Islamabad’s nomination followed Trump’s supposed involvement in the ceasefire deal with India that ended several days of mutual missile strikes in May. The problem is that India denies that the US or any other foreign power had a hand in its decision to accept a truce. (Hindustan Times)

The Thai-Cambodia truce, agreed to at July 29 talks in Malaysia, was jointly mediated by the US and China. So Xi Jinping deserves as much credit as Trump—whose main role was threatening to withhold trade deals from the two countries as long as the fighting continued.

Fighting erupted along the Thai-Cambodian border on July 24, ultimately killing at least 40 people, and displacing over 250,000. Both sides typically said the other took the first shot. Things quickly escalated as Bangkok sent F-16 fighter jets to launch air-strikes on Cambodian territory, and Thailand’s acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, warned: “If the situation escalates it could develop into war.” Cambodia accused Thailand of violating international law by using cluster munitions for attacks on its territory, while Bangkok accused Cambodia of an “inhumane attack” on a hospital in Surin province. (TNH, AP)

Thailand and Cambodia have had an almost century-long dispute over Preah Vihear, an 11th century Hindu temple, which sits along the nations’ shared border. The temple has triggered numerous border skirmishes over the years, the latest occurring when a Cambodian soldier was killed on the border in May. The new fighting followed Thailand’s prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra being suspended after a leaked phone call with Cambodian leader Hun Sen was deemed a national security threat. (Jurist)

Hun Manet is the son of current Cambodian senate president (and longtime strongman) Hun Sen, and we suspect that this perverse Nobel nomination actually emerges from the elder Hun. Under Hun Sen’s leadership, Cambodia has long been under China’s effective suzerainty, and repression has been unleashed against peasants protesting land-grabs by Chinese agbiz interests. Xi is well-assured of the stability of this relationship, and does not need buttering up. Trump, in contrast, needs to have his ego appeased to keep textiles and other export goods produced in Cambodia’s sweatshops flowing to the US without prohibitive tariffs. That’s why it’s called a Great Game.

The game is a dangerous one for the general world political climate and propaganda environment, however. Giving the Nobel Prize to Obama in 2009 was Orwellian enough. But that pales before the perversity of giving it to Trump. And indeed, Trump craves the Nobel prize precisely because Obama got it. So Cambodia is not merely appeasing Trump’s ego, but (whether intentionally or not) lubricating his dictatorial ambitions and the racist backlash that has been the motor of his entire political project.

We submit that if the Nobel committee wishes to weigh a Peace Prize in regard to this conflict, it should consider the citizen anti-war activists who have been mobilizing on either side of the border in repudiation of their own governments, under the hashtag #PeaceForCambodiaAndThailand.

Image of the contested Preah Vihear archeological site via Wikipedia

The EU’s inaction follows a pattern that has existed throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza, whereby the United States and European countries have pushed for improvements in aid access that have time and time again proved to be temporary and incremental, rather than using their substantial diplomatic, economic and military leverage over Israel to rein in violations and end the war.

Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza is “beyond vocabulary to describe,” according to UN relief chief Tom Fletcher. Fuel is running short due to Israel’s near-total blockade, crippling hospitals and exacerbating water shortages amid soaring summer heat. Aid groups are seeing the highest malnutrition rates yet among children and pregnant women at health facilities, leading to deaths. And daily Israeli attacks on people attempting to access aid through the US/Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are continuing.

Adapted from The New Humanitarian, July 18.

See our last report on genocide accusations against Israel.

Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/TNH

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to support us at one of our three tiers via Patreon: Become a Basic Supporter for just $1 per weekly podcast ($5 per month), or a Special Supporter for $2 per podcast ($10 per month), or a Major Rant Enabler for $5 per podcast ($25 per month). We now have 70 paid subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 71!

Image: source unknown, lifted from Art & Architecture, Mainly

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to support us at one of our three tiers via Patreon: Become a Basic Supporter for just $1 per weekly podcast ($5 per month), or a Special Supporter for $2 per podcast ($10 per month), or a Major Rant Enabler for $5 per podcast ($25 per month). We now have 70 paid subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 71!

Map: University of Texas

From The New Humanitarian, April 4

Note: Fluctuations in the price of oil and grain since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 have contributed to popular privation and unrest worldwide.

Photo: Down To Earth

Trump signed executive orders Feb. 1 to impose 25% import tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and a 10% tariff on China. The tariffs, which include a carve-out of a lower 10% levy on Canadian energy exports, were imposed under a “national emergency” exemption to the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), citing a crisis of illegal migration and drugs. The tariffs on China remain in place, and are being challenged by Beijing before the World Trade Organization (WTO). (LatinVex, Atlantic Council, Jurist)

Photo: SEDENA via Peninsula360

A trade dispute panel convened under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) ruled Dec. 20 that Mexico’s import restrictions on US genetically modified corn violates the accord. The conflict stems from a presidential decree published by Mexico in February 2023. The decree established an immediate ban on the use of genetically modified corn in dough and tortillas, and instructed Mexican government agencies to gradually end its use in animal feed and other products. The panel evaluating the restrictions determined that they were not based on science, and contravened the market access required under the USMCA.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the United States victory, saying it “underscores the importance of science-based trade policies that allow American farmers and agricultural producers to compete fairly.” US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack added: “This decision ensures that U.S. producers and exporters will continue to have full and fair access to the Mexican market…”

Mexico’s stated purpose for the 2023 decree was to “protect the rights to health and a healthy environment,” and “to ensure a nutritious, sufficient and quality diet.” The US has maintained its stance that Mexico’s biotechnology policies are not based on scientific data.

However, advocacy groups such as Greenpeace are proponents of the corn decree and implored the US to respect Mexico’s sovereignty, arguing that the market dominance of patented GMO varieties leads to the decline of indigenous strains and threatens food security.

From JURIST, Dec. 22. Used with permission.

See our last reports on the GMO corn ban, the campesino struggle that led to it, and the political imperative behind it.

See our feature “Mexico: Corporate Bio-colonialism Advances” by Carmelo Ruiz Marrero

Listen to our podcast, “Mexico and the struggle for the genetic commons”

Photo of indigenous Mexican corn varieties: Feria de Productores via Earth@Home