Bahamas' Court of Appeal hands down landmark citizen ruling (June 25, 2021)

The Bahamas' Court of Appeal this week upheld a historic Supreme Court ruling that children born out of wedlock to foreign women and Bahamian men are entitled to citizenship at birth. It "is light at the end of the tunnel for some residents who have long sought to be recognized as citizens of The Bahamas and to benefit from that recognition, one of five plaintiffs in the matter" told The Tribune. Born to an unwed Bahamian father and a Jamaican mother, he said he hopes that soon people like him will no longer endure the hurt of not being able to travel or find a job because they lack a passport.

But the Bahamas government says it will file an appeal with the London-based Privy Council. The country's attorney general, Carl Bethel, said the ability of all Bahamian men to automatically pass citizenship to their children “remains an open question." (EyeWitness News, Caribbean Media Corporation)

Nonetheless people sought to register to vote at the Parliamentary Registration Department following this week's ruling, raising the question over whether the change is immediate or must await final appeal for implementation, reports the Caribbean Chronicle.

 In 2016, Bahamians in a referendum rejected the idea of amending the Constitution to allow Bahamian fathers of children born out of wedlock to non-Bahamian mothers to automatically pass citizenship to their children.

A bill has been drafted by the Law Reform Commission, that aims to dramatically reform the country’s immigration laws and address long-standing issues surrounding statelessness and the right to pass on citizenship. (Eyewitness News, Tribune 242)

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UN votes against Cuba embargo

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution that calls for the U.S. to lift its embargo against Cuba, as it has since 1992. As is customary, the U.S. and Israel voted against the motion, which was supported by 184 countries. Colombia and Brazil abstained in yesterday's vote -- Brazil had accompanied the Trump administration in voting against the  2019. (United Nations)

The only time the U.S. didn’t cast a no vote was in 2016 during the Obama administration’s opening toward Cuba, when both the U.S. and Israel abstained. (Miami Herald)

The yearly vote is symbolic, and has no practical effect. But it is an indicator of international alliances. This year's vote was seen as a litmus test of U.S. President Joe Biden’s willingness to quickly reverse his predecessor’s tough stance toward Cuba, reports the New York Times. The choice to vote against the resolution appeared to signal that Biden will continue to move cautiously on Cuba. The U.S. ratified the use of sanctions, which it believes are key to advancing democracy and human rights which "remain at the core of our policy efforts toward Cuba," the U.S. Mission's political coordinator, Rodney Hunter, told the assembly. (Associated Press)

But Cuba, and the vast majority of countries in the U.N. focused on the enormous costs the sanctions have levied on Cubans: some speakers yesterday indicated they have cost the Cuban economy around $147.8 billion in losses over nearly six decades, and about $9 billion calculated from April 2019. Many countries flagged the embargo as a Cold War holdover that has been a financial and humanitarian disaster. (Miami Herald)

The resolution has particular relevance in the pandemic context: The embargo is hurting Cuba’s ability to access medical supplies and imposing significant difficulty in obtaining equipment to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, said the country's foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez, citing hurdles the island faced when trying to buy respirators last year. Recent reports indicate that lack of syringes for vaccines is a major challenge. (See Monday's briefs.)

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Cuba's homegrown vaccines

Cuba announced yesterday that two of its nationally developed coronavirus vaccine candidates showed high efficacy rates in late-stage trials. BioCubaFarma, the government-owned pharmaceutical company, that its three-dose Abdala vaccine candidate had an efficacy rate of 92.28% in phase III of clinical trials, while the state-run Finlay Institute of Vaccines said its Soberana 02 had completed phase III trials with an efficacy rate of 62% after two out of three recommended shots. Both vaccines are expected to be granted emergency authority by local regulators shortly. (Miami Herald, Reuters)

Cuba's authorities have already started administering the experimental vaccines en masse as part of "intervention studies" they hope will slow the spread of the virus. About a million of the country's 11.2 million residents have been fully vaccinated to date.

However, some are concerned about a lack of transparency and data about the trials. Cuba hasn’t provided any information about its vaccines to the World Health Organization. Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia and Vietnam, among other countries, have expressed interest in buying Cuban vaccines.

The vaccine news was seen as a rare cause for celebration on an island hammered economically by the pandemic's impact on tourism and U.S. economic sanctions, reports the New York Times. Cuba is currently experiencing its worst coronavirus outbreak since the start of the pandemic. It reported 1,561 new cases on Monday, a record.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Climate change is making Atlantic hurricanes far more intense -- the causes are far beyond the control of people on the islands, who suffer the worst consequences, writes Bahamian Bernard Ferguson in the New York Times Magazine that looks at the horrific damage wrought by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. "My Bahamas are facing effects of climate change that we could never have caused ourselves, and crises larger than we can survive alone."

• The six largest private oil companies in the world, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Total, will be key in meeting the International Energy Agency (IEA) goals to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Oil Now makes the case for CCUS technology, which is the process of capturing, storing and sometimes utilizing CO2 that would have otherwise been emitted to the atmosphere.

• But some scientists are arguing that the net-zero strategy simply allows the perpetuation of the status quo and is certain to fail. The hope is that allowing negative emissions to balance continued CO2 emissions as part of net-zero policies will provide a safety net for industries where it is technically impossible to eliminate all emissions — in aviation and agriculture, for instance, explains Fred Pearce in Yale Ecology 360. But some fear the safety net will become a cover for business-as-usual in highly polluting industries.

• Another challenge with the net-zero strategy are indications that climate response to emissions and removals is actually “asymmetrical” – that is, the carbon cycle and climate response to CO2 emissions is not equal and opposite to CO2 removals of the same magnitude, writes Professor Kirsten Zickfeld at Carbon Brief.

• An overseas Guyanese group, "The Oil and Gas Governance Network," launched a campaign calling on Guyana's government to renegotiate its contract with Exxon. (Kaieteur News)

Covid-19 Impact

• Covid-19 is expected to wipe out more than a decade of development and progress in the Caribbean and Latin America. But countries in the region have received limited multilateral debt support, as middle-income countries are not eligible for the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) or its Common Framework for Debt Treatment. The European Commission and ECLAC are calling for a paradigm shift in development cooperation, that recognizes that classifications based solely on income-per-capita criteria do not reflect the whole range of a country’s multidimensional vulnerabilities, structural gaps and financing needs, write Alicia Bárcena and Jutta Urpilainen.

• Haiti is the only Caricom country expected to benefit from the direct U.S. donation of 14 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Latin America and the Caribbean. So far, it hasn't received a single jab, reports the Caribbean News Network.

• The U.S. announced it will also donate approximately 14 million vaccines for Latin America and the Caribbean through Covax, some of which will go to other Caribbean Community countries. (White House)

• Getting the vaccines is one thing; getting people to take them is another, noted Janine Mendes-Franco in a recent Global Voices piece. Many smaller regional territories in the Caribbean are experiencing vaccine hesitancy and their governments have been donating part of their allocations to larger Caribbean Community (CARICOM) neighbors who need them.

• Masked, a documentary, features St. Lucian women on the frontline of the pandemic: small entrepreneurs in early childhood education; hospitality and agriculture - sharing their personal stories of the immediate and longer-term impact of Covid-19 which has resulted, in some cases, in them losing their jobs.

• The pandemic has made it drastically harder for Venezuelan migrants to Trinidad and Tobago to survive economically: 68 per cent of employed migrants lost their jobs due to Covid-19. (International Organization for Migration) 

Democracy

• Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said the U.S. territory's lack of statehood is a form of discrimination and called on Congress to lay out steps for the island to become a state. (CBS)

• The pro-statehood movement now feels especially urgent for supporters who see an opportunity in the majority Democratic U.S. Congress, reports CBS separately. 

• Haiti's government sought to assure the United Nations Security council that the country's "electoral process is following its normal course.” Acting Haiti Prime Minister Claude Joseph asked skeptical members of the international community to ante up $17 million for an elections fund, reports the Miami Herald.

• Amid worsening socioeconomic conditions, rising criminal gang violence and a resurgence of COVID-19, Haiti’s leaders must commit to good-faith dialogue aimed at ending a longstanding and damaging political impasse, the UN’s senior official in the country told the UN Security Council last week.

• A controversial constitutional referendum pushed by Haitian President Jovenel Moïse scheduled for this weekend was postponed due to Covid-19. But the delay only adds to the building political chaos in Haiti stemming from Moïse’s efforts to expand his power in the country, reports AS/COA in an explainer on the country's prolonged political crisis.

Human Rights

• An estimated 95 armed gangs control about a third of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. These gangs are increasingly engaged in armed battles for territory control, affecting the lives of around 1.5 million people, warns UNICEF. The current situation of gangs’ violence and IDPs in the capital city’s metropolitan area is feared to go towards a further deterioration with elections later this year.

• The U.S. announced it would ease some of its sanctions against the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force, and resume full cooperation with and assistance to a number of local police units. The US withdrew training and material assistance to the police in 2013, due to ‘credible allegations’ of gross human rights violations. (St. Lucia Times)

Culture

• U.S. actor Michael B. Jordan backtracked on plans to name his rum brand "J'Ouvert," after backlash over what many considered cultural appropriation of a term that signals the start of carnival in the Caribbean and is a cornerstone of tradition in Trinidad and Tobago. (Guardian)

• Jamaican Roland Watson-Grant won this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean region. His writing tells us about the strained and tenuous links between rural life in 21st century Jamaica and the rapid changes taking place outside the narrow confines of communities, writes Emma Lewis in Global Voices.

• 12 Best Audiobooks by Women for Caribbean Heritage Month -- Repeating Islands

Events

28 June

• Vaccines for the Caribbean: Why it matters for the United States -- Atlantic Council

We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

G7 to seek global tax (June 18, 2021)

G7 countries agreed to seek a basic 15% global tax on “stateless” multinational corporations, notably those of global big tech, earlier this month. (Guardian) The Economist magazine predicts the start of a process that could eventually render Caribbean and other tax havens obsolete.

But others ask whether the G7 tax initiative is another form of economic colonialism? "This move represents yet another chipping away at the economic sovereignty of small IFCs. What it effectively does is seek to take away a tool which these small IFCs have used for promoting inward foreign direct investment at a time when their COVID-19-crippled economies need those funds the most for propelling sustainable economic recovery," writes Alicia Nicholls of Caribbean Trade Law & Development. (See Jan 28's Just Caribbean Updates.)

ECLAC head Alicia Bárcena recently expressed support for a proposed multilateral agreement that would establish a minimum global rate for corporate income tax -- but emphasized that “the United Nations should be the main space for that discussion, "for a reform of the global tax system to incorporate the needs of developing nations and emerging economies – especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS)."

Economics, Finance and Fiscal Fairness

• The Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations agreed last week to grant Cuba more time to make payments under a 2015 debt agreement. The postponement was based, according to Cuban officials, on the ‘unprecedented penuries’ caused by Covid-19 and its impact on tourism, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s strengthening of the U.S. embargo and 54 hurricanes since 2000. (Miami Herald)

• But experts say Cuba's economy desperately needs the U.S. to relax its current sanctions regime in order to recover from the worst crisis it has suffered in decades. (Latin America Advisor, see last week's Just Caribbean Updates)

• The Inter-American Development Bank agreed to provide Grenada with a soft loan of US $8.95 million for the country to use as a stimulus package for people who have been marginalised by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Funds will be disbursed through the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank. (Daily Herald, Loop News)

• Trinidad and Tobago's government said it opted to accept a $1.4 billion loan from China as it had fewer conditions attached to it as opposed to one from the IMF. “One loan no structural adjustment, you don’t have to retrench people, you don’t have to devalue your currency etc etc . . . and another loan at one per cent you have to do all kinds of terrible things, punish your population, that a no brainer,” said Finance Minister Colm Imbert. (Trinidad Express, Caribbean Media Corporation)

Human Rights

• Guyana's government honored prominent historian, political activist and academic, Dr. Walter Rodney, 41 years after he was assassinated, and said efforts will be taken to change key details on Rodney’s death certificate and make his gravesite a national monument. (Department of Public Information, Loop News)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Across the Caribbean, one of the world’s most tourism-dependent regions, states are struggling to balance protecting the environment and stoking their economies. A Reuters report looks at how Jamaica is struggling to address twin challenges: how to bring in visitors and boost jobs in the wake of COVID-19 while also keeping its commitment to slowing global warming.

• Whole-island conservation strategies should be among response measures deployed to protect diverse species in the Caribbean at risk for extinction associated with small increases in global temperatures, ecology expert Dr Shobha Maharaj told the Jamaica Gleaner.

• The University of the West Indies (UWI) launched its first Climate Change And Health Fellowship Training, a one-year European Union financed course of study to promote leadership in climate change and health. It is one component of a five-year €7 million project coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). (Caribbean News Service)

• A rescue mission is underway to save Barbados’ coral reefs, which have been impacted by a range of climate-related and other hazards. “There are no areas of very good reef– none,” said Kirk Humphrey, the country’s Minister of Maritime Affairs. (Caribbean Journal)

• Cuba's new wildlife trafficking law shows the country's illegal animal trade has become enough of an issue to warrant a response, reports InSight Crime.

Governance

• U.S. President Joe Biden said the Justice Department’s defense of continued discrimination against residents of U.S. territories in federal programs is “inconsistent with my Administration’s policies and values,” but said it’s up to Congress to amend the existing laws. (Virgin Island Daily News)

• The statement came after the DOJ filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court defending a provision in the Social Security Act that stops Puerto Rico residents from collecting Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, benefits. Biden urged Congress to amend the Social Security Act to make the benefits available in Puerto Rico, and also called for legislators to eliminate Medicaid funding caps for the U.S. territory. (NBC News)

• U.S. lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that the Puerto Rico self-determination bill she is co-sponsoring “does not oppose statehood” and does not impose independence on the U.S. territory. (NBC)
  

Food Security

• The number of children suffering from “severe acute” childhood malnutrition in Haiti has more than doubled, increasing from 41,000 last year to an estimated 86,000 children this year, according to UNICEF. (Miami Herald)

LGTBQI and Gender

• Guyanese lawmakers are considering a bill that would officially decriminalize the offense of "cross-dressing." The move would give effect to Caribbean Court of Justice ruling from two years ago. (Stabroek News, Guyana Chronicle)

Public Security

• Escalating gang violence has pushed nearly 8,500 women and children from their homes in Haiti’s capital in the past two weeks, according to Unicef. Nearly 14,000 people in Port-au-Prince have been displaced by violence in the past nine months. Bruno Maes, Haiti’s representative for the UN’s children agency that issued the report late on Monday, compared the effect to guerrilla warfare, “with thousands of children and women caught in the crossfire," reports the Associated Press. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)

• Belize Prime Minister John Briceño said that it feels like the gangs in the country and particularly Belize City “have a death wish. They are going after one another and as much as we put the police on the streets and try to monitor them as close as possible, they find ways.” He also stated, “You can’t stop people who want to kill themselves.” (Breaking Belize News)

Education

• The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States has launched the regional teacher survey to explore how education systems have been affected by school closures and the massive shift from face-to-face to distance education. (Caribbean Media Corporation)
  

Culture

• “Axis Mundi,” the new solo exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Rafael Trelles, opens this month at the October Gallery in London, England. -- Repeating Islands

• Francio Guadeloupe's Black Man in the Netherlands: An Afro-Antillean Anthropology charts Guadeloupe’s coming of age and adulthood in a Dutch world and movingly makes a global contribution to the understanding of anti-Black racism. -- Repeating Islands
  

We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Haiti gangs clash, attack police stations (June 11, 2021)

Deadly clashes between rival gangs in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area seeking to exert control over populous areas have surged in recent weeks, with a significant upsurge since the beginning of the month. Nine police stations have been attacked over the past week, at least 15 weapons stolen and a Haitian police inspector killed. Another seven officers have died in metropolitan Port-au-Prince amid violent clashes between warring gangs that have forced thousands of Haitians to flee from their homes along the southern edge of the capital since the start of this month, reports the Miami Herald.

Preliminary estimates suggest that thousands of people have fled their homes and sought shelter with host families or settled in informal shelters, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Haiti postponed a controversial constitutional referendum schedule for June 27, due to coronavirus concerns. No new date was set, further deepening the country’s political crisis, reports Al Jazeera. Last week CEPR argued the international community's policies have fed into the referendum's viability.

After a long silence on the issue, the U.S. Biden administration has publicly voiced its opposition, saying it should not take place. The U.S. government has been under mounting pressure by members of Congress and Haitian-American voters to drop support for President Jovenel Moïse and change course on Haiti, reports the Miami Herald.

The only explantation for the international community's continued backing of Moïse is fear, argues Amy Wilenz in the Los Angeles Times. "They haven’t had the imagination to envision a Haiti without a despot at the wheel. The belief among those who advise Haiti has often been that, as the saying goes, you pick Haiti up and it explodes in your face."

Covid-19 Impact

• Haiti is grappling with its first serious outbreak of coronavirus -- and has not administered a single Covid-19 vaccine. Last month, infections and fatalities rose more than fivefold following the arrival of new variants, in what the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) called a "cautionary tale in just how quickly things can change with this virus," reports Reuters.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Widespread flooding has inundated Guyana, affecting more than 6,900 households across the country. President Irfaan Ali said it one of the worst disasters the country has ever faced and said Guyana must make investments now to implement an adaptation plan to deal with the adverse effects of climate change. Forecasts suggest that the heavier-than-normal rainy season — which has already been blamed for the severe flooding — could continue into July. (New York Times, Stabroek News, Kaieteur News)

• Caribbean Natural Resources Institute has released a podcast mini-series entitled “Blue-green enterprises: Caribbean journeys” which showcases the inspiring stories of six local community micro-enterprises using ocean resources to develop sustainable livelihoods and provide economic opportunities in their communities.

• With ambitious climate goals and initiatives, small island states are leading the way in climate action. The UNDP highlights the example of Jamaican farmers, who are adapting to climate change induced drought with new sustainable farming practices, irrigation and water harvesting systems. Antigua and Barbuda have advanced in the transition to a clean, fossil fuel-free economy and are now scaling up their targets and proposing a move to 100 percent renewable energy in the next two decades.

• Jamaica's government backtracked on plans to allow mining in the Puerto Bueno Mountain, but activists still hope for a Constitutional Court ruling on their challenge to the St. Anne development, reports the Jamaica Gleaner.

• The impacts of this year's Atlantic Hurricane season will be compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the explosive eruptions of the La Soufrière volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, warned the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. (See June 7's Updates.) 

• Puerto Rico isn’t ready for another hurricane season, let alone the effects of climate change, according to a new study. (Futurity)

• Over one million Puerto Rican homes have suffered energy outages this month, as a private company that took over power transmission and distribution in Puerto Rico has struggled to maintain already flawed service, reports the Associated Press.
  

Public Security

• A lawyer has signaled increasing allegations of police brutality in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, including from members of the Regional Security System team who are in the country helping with security after April’s eruption of La Soufriere. (iWitness News)

• Vibrant, poignant murals have been appearing on the walls of Jamaica's capital as part of Paint the City, a project by the nonprofit Kingston Creative to revive the city's neglected downtown district and support the local arts community. Since the project's launch in 2018, locals say the area feels safer, and the flow of visitors and tourists coming to see the paintings is bringing in both interest and investment, reports Reuters.
  

Economics and Finance

• Suriname requested a 70% nominal haircut on its debt to external commercial creditors and a 30% cut on its debt to official creditors, last week. (Reuters)

• Suriname's debt restructuring proposal could have potentially huge implications for other ongoing processes of debt crisis resolution, argues Eurodad economist Daniel Munevar.
  

Gender and LGTBQI

• Sexual harassment is both extremely common and chronically under reported in the Cayman Islands, according to the findings of a Cayman Compass project.

• Over 900 people signed the petition by Feministas Cubanas on Change.org, requesting the Cuban government to open up a corridor of humanitarian flights from the US. Basic essentials, such as medicine and personal hygiene items, would enter the island via this corridor, without Customs restrictions. (Havana Times)

• Because of Covid-19 regulations, LGBTQ+ organizations in the Caribbean are taking varied approaches to Pride celebrations. (Erasing 76 Crimes)
  

Drug Policy

• Jamaican regulators and policymakers are focusing on quality control as the cannabis industry awaits long-delayed rules for exports, reports Cannabis Wire.

Culture

• Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival was suspended this year, which deprived Trinidadians of one of the most important social events, and a large part of the local cultural industry lost income and livelihood. The devastation wrought on the entire culture value chain will have a long-lasting impact on the creative economy, writes Saadia Sanchez-Vegas, Director and Representative of the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean. (Trinidad Express)

• Rajiv Mohabir’s Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir is described as "an impassioned, genre-blending memoir that navigates the fraught constellations of race, sexuality, and cultural heritage that have shaped his experiences as an Indo-Guyanese queer poet and immigrant to the United States." -- Repeating Islands

• Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s documentary ‘Bakosó: AfroBeats of Cuba’ explores a recent transatlantic musical fusion -- Rolling Stone.

We welcome comments and critiques on the Caribbean News Updates, which is still a work in progress. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Guyanese citizens challenge Exxon drilling (June 7, 2021)

Two Guyanese citizens are legally challenging ExxonMobil offshore drilling on climate grounds. They claim Guyana’s approval of oil exploration licenses violates the government’s legal duty to protect their right and the right of future generations to a healthy environment. It is the first constitutional climate case in the Caribbean to challenge fossil fuel production on climate and human rights grounds, reports the Guardian.

The case was filed by Quadad de Freitas, a 21-year old Indigenous tourist guide from the Rupununi region -- an area rich in biodiversity, now threatened by climate change -- and Dr. Troy Thomas, a university lecturer and former president of the anti-corruption organization Transparency Institute Guyana.They argue the government is obligated to  refrain from authorizing activities that would contribute significantly to climate change, ocean acidification and/or sea level rise, reports Kaieteur News.

Their research found that the projected emissions of Exxon's three projects in Guyana -- Liza Phase 1 Development Project, Liza Phase 2 Development Project, and the Payara Development project would make the environment more harmful to the health and wellbeing of citizens and future generations. They also argue the government is obligated to carry out or obtain independent verification of the types and amounts of greenhouse gases actually emitted by the projects.

The lawsuit centers on the duty of the state to protect the environment for present and future generations, lead lawyer Melinda Janki told Reuters. Much of Guyana’s coast sits below sea level, making its population particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as flooding, hurricanes, and rising seas. For that reason alone, further investment in oil and gas production by Guyana doesn’t make sense, environmentalists argue. (Grist)

The case forms part of an international trend: The number of legal cases seeking stronger climate action or compensation has nearly doubled over the last three years. New legal techniques and landmark wins are setting precedents, reports Reuters. 

Last week, in a landmark ruling, a Dutch court ordered the oil giant Shell to cut its emissions by 45 percent this decade. The ruling marks the first time a court has mandated such a policy on a major energy company and, crucially, establishes Shell's responsibility for the environmental damage caused by its products and a failure to adequately plan to reduce its emissions, reports Politico.

“The Shell case is extremely relevant for Guyana,” Carroll Muffett, chief executive of the Center for International Environmental Law, told the Wall Street Journal. He said both cases center on using the U.N.’s climate-change framework to hold entities accountable for human rights.

Melinda Janki, the lead lawyer in the Guayana case,  said she was encouraged because the Dutch case prevailed using similar arguments to her strategy. The litigation is “about stopping a massive increase in carbon emission, a carbon bomb,” she said to the WSJ.

Climate Justice and Energy

• Conservationists hope to create the Maya Forest Corridor, connecting the massive Belize Maya Forest in the country’s northwest with the Maya Mountains Massif network of protected areas in southern Belize. It would also connect these areas of Belize with adjacent protected areas of La Selva Maya in Guatemala and Mexico, and become the largest rainforest preserve north of the Amazon. But pandemic economic hardship could push the Belizean government to consider unsustainable land use alternatives that come with a guaranteed tax revenue stream, writes Jut Wynne at Mongabay.

• The Atlantic Hurricane season has started, and experts predict up to 18 named storms and at least three major hurricanes this year. The Barbados-based Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology has divided the hurricane season into three parts: the first and second halves and the peak season, which spans sections of the halves. (iWitness News)

• In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the hurricane season could add to "a year of cascading hazards from COVID19 pandemic to the current response and impacts from the recent volcanic eruptions," warned Acting Prime Minister Montgomery Daniel. (iWitness News)

• The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) has launched an online interactive story map about a collective advocacy campaign that called on Caribbean governments to join and implement the Escazú Agreement.

• Jamaica's government established an electric vehicle council to oversee a consultative process on the introduction of electromobility, reports the Jamaica Observer.

Food Security

• Severe acute childhood malnutrition is set to more than double this year in Haiti, warns UNICEF. More than 86,000 children under the age of 5 could be affected, compared with 41,000 reported last year, reports the Associated Press.

Covid-19 Impact

• The COVID-19 response in Haiti must be scaled up dramatically to cope with sharply escalating cases, hospitalizations and deaths in recent weeks, warned Director Carissa Etienne this week. She explained that the increased transmission is likely fueled by two variants of concern, B 1.1.7 and P1, and because public health measures are “being largely ignored by the general population, the situation we’re seeing in Haiti is a cautionary tale in just how quickly things can change with this virus”. (Eyewitness News)

• Covid-19 has impacted the Caribbean unequally: Some islands were walloped by staggering caseloads, while infections on others sometimes dwindled to single digits, reports the New York Times. And now disparate travel restrictions, often dependent on island's colonial history, are causing further divergence in the economic recovery of countries in world’s most tourism-reliant region. 

• The pandemic has proved conclusively that without tourism much of the Caribbean economy is unviable. Echoing a recent IDB report, David Jessop asks whether the basic product of sun, sea and sand is sustainable? -- The Caribbean Council

• Cuba’s bet on vaccine sovereignty may be coming at a lethal price as coronavirus deaths on the island mount, reports the Miami Herald. Cuba is rushing to get ahead of the virus, as it needs to jump-start its economy and revive tourism, a key source of revenue for the embattled island that’s struggling during its worst crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Regional Relations

• U.S. President Joe Biden's inaction towards Cuba is aggravating the island's food crisis, argues William LeoGrande in Common Dreams. U.S. support for human rights in Cuba should include alleviating the food crisis by ending Trump's prohibition on remittances and restoring the right of U.S. residents to travel, he writes.

• U.S. sanctions impact the daily lives of all Cubans, but especially women. The sixty-year embargo affects families and their livelihoods, and limits progress toward a more fair and inclusive society, according to a new Oxfam report.
  

• U.S. hand wringing over Caribbean relations with China lacks a nuanced understanding of what the region has gained and hopes to gain from its engagement with China, Rasheed Griffith told the U.S. Congress' U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "The fundamental question should not be why is China engaging in the Caribbean. Rather, it should be why do Caribbean countries so readily seek deals with Chinese firms?" 

• The international community has remained largely silent on the question of Haiti's controversial upcoming constitutional referendum, but its policies are going a long way toward ensuring the controversial referendum takes place as scheduled, writes Jake Johnston at CEPR. 

Public Security

• Barbados' homicide increases in recent years risk bely the country's risk factor advantages over other Caribbean countries, including low international crime organization presence and limited corruption. The country is at a violence crossroads, reports InSight Crime.

LGBTQI and Gender Rights

• Trinidad and Tobago is edging closer to amending its Equal Opportunity Act to include sexual orientation -- Global Voices

• A  court in Martinique granted a twenty-three year old person permission to legally change their gender. (St. Lucia Times)
  

Culture

• The guiding theme of this year's Cayman Islands Biennial is intended to recast the long months of lockdown as an extended interlude – an opportunity for everyone to pause and reflect on their collective future. (Repeating Islands)

• Jamaican poet and novelist Kei Miller’s forthcoming book, a linked collection of essays, blends memoir and literary commentary to explore the silences that exist in our conversations about race, sex, and gender. (Repeating Islands)

The Just Caribbean Updates covers an extended time period this time because of a break, but will be back to a regular schedule this week. Thank you for reading and we welcome comments and critiques.