Cris van Eijk

Silver lining, you are the envy of everyone currently waiting on an FOI/equivalent for this sort of info, so there is that.

"The story of the Zong is often narrated as a triumph over slavery. A triumph that took 52 years and resulted in compensation for slave owners only... 245 years after the events of the Zong, humanity is still discarding lives deemed not human enough to the open seas, to fire, to hunger, to war."

I’ve said this before, but if anyone would like to talk trans or transfeminist legal history at the SLS, I am co-convenor of the legal history stream for the next three years and would very much like to accept your paper. Deadline for abstracts 27 March, conference 2-4 September.

Please share.

Photograph of brown acid-free archive boxes on a rolling stack in the strongroom

Today is International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness.

This photo shows the 627 boxes of archive material we preserve related to the Pugwash Conferences, which began in 1950 to discuss the worldwide threat of nuclear weapons...

Border control but specifically by GP receptionists.

They are fun little buttons to push for that extra bit of drama, whatever do you mean?? (International law also very much loves the contextual / tongue-in-cheek footnote)

The footnotes of this are FIRE, everyone.

The kids they kill are accidents, the regimes they change are accidents, the buildings and cultural institutions and health facilities they bomb are accidents. Nothing is on purpose when they are pulling triggers.

Waitaminute-

Sidenote: By the time the IAU unanimously passed that resolution in Berkeley in August 1961, many (one attendee claims "most") of the attending IAU members had visited the @lickobservatory.bsky.social - which, as it happens, overlooks where I grew up.

The Vincentre in Neunen is a wonderful way to learn that, if anyone gets the chance to go.

Here's Lisa Ruth Rand giving context to that resolution (and stay tuned for upcoming work on this!): doi.org/10.1017/S174....

And here's John Barentine from @space-environment.bsky.social:
- Poster: astronomy2024.org/wp-content/u...
- Article: www.johncbarentine.com/uploads/7/8/...

@sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy, @astrokiwi.bsky.social & Laura Revell propose environmental review for space activities over their full lifecycle.

Some, esp the 🇺🇸 govt & space corps, claim that requiremnt would be premature, arduous, & novel.

The IAU thought it was critical in *1961*.

"There is no public mandate for a single company in one country to make changes on that scale to the planet’s atmosphere." - Lawler, @astrokiwi.bsky.social & Revell (2026)

"no group has the right to change the Earth's environment in any significant way w/o full int'l study & agreement" - IAU (1961)

International Astronomical Union, ‘Resolution No. 1’ in Proceedings of the Sixth General Assembly of the IAU (IAU, Berkeley 1961), 4. “Viewing with great concern the grave danger that some future space projects might seriously interfere with astronomical observations in the optical as well as in the radio domain, and believing that a degree of contamination of space which at the present time would be hardly detectable, might, if long-lived, will be disastrous to future observations with improved techniques, and maintaining that no group has the right to change the Earth's environment in any significant way without full international study and agreement; the International Astronomical Union gives clear warning of the grave moral and material consequences which could stem from a disregard of the future of astronomical progress, and appeals to ail Governments concerned with launching space experiments which could possibly affect astronomical research to consult with the International Astronomical Union before undertaking such experiments and to refrain from launching until it is established beyond doubt that no damage will be done to astronomical research.”

Also, just to add historical momentum to that initiative, here's the IAU resolution from 1961 on basically this issue, after high-alt nukes and West Ford: iauarchive.eso.org/static/resol...

Lisa Ruth Rand is great historian working on the deep history of this issue!!

There have been a few reports to COPUOS' Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (I was one of a few hundred people involved in the 2nd Report a few years ago), but the COPUOS agenda is packed, and some states have said it needs pruning before anything more is added.

(The EU has proposed an act which, if passed, would require environmental analysis of space activies from cradle to grave - but only from 2030 per last draft. And even that has gotten a lot of pushback, mostly from the US/US space corps. And even among them, Viasat has lobbied for EIAs for years.)

A possible solution: to my knowledge, only 2 states in the world (Belgium & Italy) require EIAs for space activities that *cover space itself*. The US FCC, which (w/ DoD) regulates ~76 of active satellites, has been criticised for failing (read: refusing) to do so: www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Steven is great! He chairs an UNCOPUOS working group - the substantive body composed of states. UNOOSA is the UN Secretariat unit that provides admin support, info-sharing, & research for COPUOS & its subcttees/working groups.

The distinction seems pedantic, but it's about who to expect what from.

That is, I agree thoroughly with you that int'l legal measures would be the best solution to this problem, but that would be UNCOPUOS (which is states, meeting in a UN forum), and the way the system was constructed makes binding legal solutions something between hard and impossible.

For context, versions of this were proposed & supported in the UNGA by a wide range of states from 1957 onwards. However, both the US and Soviet Union vehemently rejected the expansion of the then-'Outer Space Affairs Section' into substantive affairs, rather than administrative support to COPUOS.

A new space race could turn our atmosphere into a ‘crematorium for satellites’ Planned ‘megaconstellations’ of satellites could cause unforeseen harm to the ozone layer and climate systems. Global regulation is needed before it’s too late.

Excellent piece from @astrokiwi.bsky.social @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy & Laura Revell.

This one sentence is the crux of it all 👇

"There is no public mandate for a single company in one country to make changes on that scale to the planet’s atmosphere."

Highly recommended.

🔭🧪

So thrilled for The Edge of Space-Time to be a recommended read for spring by Essence Magazine. Things you grow up dreaming about 🤩🤩🤩🤩

www.essence.com/entertainmen...

They won't start with banning birth control. First they'll lie about it. Then dictate who can prescribe it, use it, fund it, in what forms, and for how long. Suddenly, your doctor won't call you back. I know this is what they'll do because it's what they're doing to transgender healthcare right now.

As an aside, there is also something very cruel and feudal and dark about a society structured so that I exist and have rights as a ‘(potential) household’, but probably will never actually own a house.

But hey - maybe someday, if we’re very good and mind our manners, they’ll decide to let us have a history too!!

It is 1954, gender-affirming care is criticised as “experimental”

It is 1981, gender-affirming care is criticised as “experimental”

It is 2002, gender-affirming care is criticised as “experimental”

It is 2017, gender-affirming care is criticised as “experimental”

It is 2026, gender-affirming ca

Also, they still frame minoritised people as, if not unnatural, then still unusual and abnormal (‘most people want families/children’). We exist, and we even might exist naturally - but we exist by happenstance, rather than as categories of people constructed by systems of power & domination.

By pretending that sex, sexuality, and gender are about privacy rather than fundamental dignity & personhood, Kruger can frame this extreme reordering of our dignity and personhood as mild technical questions of tax and family law.

It is a legal shell game, and the goal is to fleece us.

If that was true, then why are they yelling??