By Stephen Leahy

The Inuit people of the Arctic regions are preparing to charge the United States with human rights violations, saying that country is the leading culprit behind climate change, which threatens their way of life — and their very survival.

Originally published in Latin America Feb 15 2005 by Tierramérica–

The sharp increase in temperatures in the Arctic has led to dramatic losses of sea ice and melting permafrost (the layer of ground that normally remains frozen year round), which have destroyed buildings and roads and forced relocations of entire native Inuit villages.

A recent four-year international scientific study concluded that polar bears, walrus and some seal species the Inuit depend on for survival could be extinct by the middle of this century due to global warming.

Because of this looming crisis, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), a group representing some 155,000 people in the Arctic regions of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the United States, will present a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in the next few months.

Their goal is for the IACHR, an independent agency of the Organisation of American States, to find against the United States, the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases (29 percent), for causing global warming and threatening the Inuit’s existence.

“‘Litigation in relation to greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly likely, and has already started,” Nature, Dec 2004

For complete article see Inuit to Charge U.S. for Climate Change