Inuit Allege US Pollution Violates Human Rights

A group of Inuit from the Arctic Circle traveled to Washington D.C. this week to protest an American environmental policy that they say violates their human rights.

A petition was filed by the Inuit in December 2005 with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in an attempt to get Congress to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the US. The group presented evidence for their case to the commission Thursday.

The Inuit said that American pollution is destroying their environment by melting ice and permafrost. Recent studies show Arctic temperatures are rising at a rate well beyond the global average.

Shelia Watt-Coultier leads the delegation. Watt-Cloutier was nominated for a Nobel Prize this year and she was once the chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the Inuit's representative body spanning northern regions across several continents.

Watt-Coultier signed the petition along with 62 others. The petition asks the US to consult with Inuit communities in the Arctic to help them avoid climate change and asks the US to adopt the findings of the UN Convention on Climate Change. The document also asks the commission to demand that the United States immediately adopt limits of greenhouse gas emissions coming from within its borders.

Action needs to be taken quickly to preserve the Inuit way of life, Watt-Coultier said.

"The ice is not only our roads but also our supermarket," she said, addressing the commission. "Deteriorating ice conditions imperil Inuit in many ways."

Recent studies indicated the Inuit's argument may have some validity. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a study that took four years to complete and involved hundreds of scientists, found the Arctic would warm between 4 and 7 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years. The study also projects that the length of seasons would change, affecting both the levels of sea ice in the Arctic and the behavior of animals that depend on it.

Martin Wagner is managing attorney for Earthjustice, one of two American groups helping with the Inuit's petition. He said global warming destroys Inuit land and ecosystems, forcing them to join and assimilate with other cultures against their will.

If the petition is successful, the case would move from the commission to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for legal action. However, both the commission and the court were established by the American Convention on Human Rights, which the US has not ratified. This means the court would have no way to enforce its decision.

Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6408441.stm