Daily Prelims Notes 1 March 2022

March 2, 2022
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Daily Prelims Notes

1 March 2022

Table Of Contents

TOPIC: Environment

Context- The second part of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report has warned of multiple climate changes even if steps are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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The latest warnings have come in the second part of IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report which talks about climate change impacts, risks and vulnerabilities, and adaptation options.
The first part report was released in August last year. That one was centered on the scientific basis of climate change.
The third and final part of the report, which will look into the possibilities of reducing emissions, is expected to come out in April.

What’s new about the Report?

The latest report has, for the first time, made an assessment of regional and sectoral impacts of climate change.
It has included risks to, and vulnerabilities of, mega-cities around the world.
For example, it has said Mumbai is at high risk of sea-level rise and flooding, while Ahmedabad faces serious danger of heat-waves.
Also for the first time, the IPCC report has looked at the health impacts of climate change.
- It has found that climate change is increasing vector-borne and water-borne diseases such as malaria or dengue, particularly in sub-tropical regions of Asia.
- It has also said deaths related to circulatory, respiratory, diabetic and infectious diseases, as well as infant mortality, are likely to increase with a rise in temperature.
- Increasing frequency of extreme weather events like heatwaves, flooding and drought, and even air pollution was contributing to under-nutrition, allergic diseases and even mental disorders.
If the temperature rise crossed the threshold of 1.5°C from pre-industrial times, then many changes could be irreversible.

*** For further information please refer to DPN 10th August 2021.

2. INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ)

TOPIC: IR

Context- Ukraine has filed an application before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), instituting proceedings against the Russian Federation concerning “a dispute relating to the interpretation, application and fulfilment of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” (the “Genocide Convention”).

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About ICJ:

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN).
It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.
The court is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was brought into being through, and by, the League of Nations.
After World War II, the League of Nations and PCIJ were replaced by the United Nations and ICJ respectively.
The PCIJ was formally dissolved in April 1946, and its last president, Judge José Gustavo Guerrero of El Salvador, became the first president of the ICJ.

Seat and role:

The ICJ is based at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
It is the only one of the six principal organs of the UN that is not located in New York City.
- (The other five organs are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and the Secretariat.)
All members of the UN are automatically parties to the ICJ statute, but this does not automatically give the ICJ jurisdiction over disputes involving them.
- The ICJ gets jurisdiction only if both parties consent to it.
The judgment of the ICJ is final and technically binding on the parties to a case.
There is no provision of appeal; it can at the most, be subject to interpretation or, upon the discovery of a new fact, revision.
However, the ICJ has no way to ensure compliance of its orders, and its authority is derived from the willingness of countries to abide by them.

Judges of the court

The ICJ has 15 judges who are elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, which vote simultaneously but separately.
To be elected, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes in both bodies.
A third of the court is elected every three years.
The president and vice-president of the court are elected for three-year terms by secret ballot. Judges are eligible for re-election.
Four Indians have been members of the ICJ so far.
- Justice Dalveer Bhandari, former judge of the Supreme Court, has been serving at the ICJ since 2012. Others being R S Pathak (1989-91), Nagendra Singh (1973-88), Sir Benegal Rau (1952-53).

India at the ICJ:

India has been a party to a case at the ICJ on six occasions, four of which have involved Pakistan.
They are:
- Right of Passage over Indian Territory (Portugal v. India, culminated 1960);
- Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council (India v. Pakistan, culminated 1972);
- Trial of Pakistani Prisoners of War (Pakistan v. India, culminated 1973);
- Aerial Incident of 10 August 1999 (Pakistan v. India, culminated 2000);
- Obligations concerning Negotiations relating to Cessation of the Nuclear Arms Race and to Nuclear Disarmament (Marshall Islands v. India, culminated 2016); and
- (Kulbhushan) Jadhav (India v. Pakistan, culminated 2019).

The Genocide Convention:

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to enforce its prohibition.
It was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime, and the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, on 9 December 1948.
The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 152 state parties.
The Genocide Convention was conceived largely in response to World War II, which saw atrocities such as the Holocaust that lacked an adequate description or legal definition.
The Convention defines genocide as an ‘intentional effort to completely or partially destroy a group based on its nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion.

3. IPCC report warns of malaria outbreak in Himalayan region

TOPIC: Environment

Context- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 6th assessment report on ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ online Monday.

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About the Report:

Climate-driven extreme events will cause a significant increase in ill-health and premature deaths, the latest IPCC report has said.
The report has further observed a shift in the distribution of malaria and dengue to higher altitude areas.
In India, the IPCC has projected changes in the spatial distribution of malaria, warning of potential outbreaks in the Himalayan region, besides the southern and the eastern states.
As temperatures rise, the number of months suitable for transmission of Malaria will grow, the report says, although in some areas transmission of the vector-borne disease will fall by the 2030s.
- As temperatures become too hot in some lowland tropical areasfor the Malaria vector to thrive,
- However, the report predicts an increase in diseases such as dengue and zika.
In South and Southeast Asia, the report says, rising temperatures will also cause an adverse impact on availability and prices of food, leading to increased undernourishment.
- Besides, mental health challenges, including anxiety and stress, will grow, affecting particularly the young and the elderly, and those with underlying conditions.
In addition to all-cause mortality, deaths related to circulatory, respiratory, diabetic and infectious disease, as well as infant mortality are increased with high temperature.
Increases in heavy rain and temperature will increase the risk of diarrheal diseases, dengue fever and malaria in tropical and subtropical Asia.
The report finds the Spring pollen season start dates in northern mid-latitudes are occurring earlier due to climate change, increasing the risks of allergic respiratory diseases.
Higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide reduce the nutritional quality of wheat, rice, and other major crops, “potentially affecting millions of people at a doubling of carbon dioxide.

4. CHIPS

TOPIC: Economy

Context- Cutting some Russian banks’ access to SWIFT will give other geopolitical rivals, especially China, the excuse to promote digital versions of their own central banks’ money in global trade and ﬁnance.

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Clearing House Interbank Payments System:

The Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) is a private club of ﬁnancial institutions.
Its 43 members settle $1.8 trillion in claims every day using a pre-funded account at the Federal Reserve.
They all maintain US oﬃces, and are subject to US law, which makes it easier for authorities to catch and punish.
The Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) allows large interbank transactions in the U.S. to clear.
CHIPS is slower but less expensive than the other major interbank clearing house known as Fedwire, making it more amenable to larger transactions that can take longer to clear.
CHIPS works by netting debits and credits across transactions, providing both clearing and settlement services to its customer banks.
There are two steps to processing funds transfers:
- clearing and settlement.
- Clearing is the transfer and confirmation of information between the payer (sending financial institution) and payee (receiving financial institution).
- Settlement is the actual transfer of funds between the payer’s financial institution and the payee’s financial institution.
To shrug oﬀ the yoke of CHIPS, China has readied its own Cross- Border Interbank Payment System.
- CIPS settles international claims in yuan and can potentially run its own messaging network.

5. INDIA’S RESCUE OPERATIONS OVERSEAS

TOPIC: IR

Context- For India, the Russia-Ukraine war has unfolded a crisis in the form of thousands of stranded citizens, particularly students, who are stuck in the conflict zone. Within hours, response teams of the MEA and other ministries were in place with top officials coordinating Operation Ganga in New Delhi.

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About Ukraine:

Ukraine is in the east of Europe, and is bound by Russia to its northeast, east, and southeast, and the Black Sea in the south. In the southwest, west, and north.
Ukraine shares borders, in the clockwise direction, with Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and Belarus.
It is the largest country in Europe after Russia itself, with an area of 603,550 sq km, or about 6% of the continent.

Earlier Rescue Missions of India:

In early 2020, India kickstarted one of the world’s largest air-lift exercises under the Vande Bharat Mission covering 100 nations.
- A total of over 88,000 flights brought back around 70 lakh Indians stranded abroad due to the global lockdown, following the coronavirus outbreak.
- Operation Sankat Mochan in 2014 when 46 Indian nurses were rescued from the clutches of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in war-ravaged Iraq.
- Operation Raahat of April 2015 when the Indian Navy and Air Force rescued over 4,600 Indians and over 950 nationals of 41 countries from Yemen during the military intervention by Saudi Arabia and its allies.

6. INTERNATIONAL LAWS

TOPIC: IR

Context- Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine violating international law – violating the prohibition in the United Nations (UN) Charter on the use of force, violating the obligation to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, and violating the prohibition on intervention.

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International laws under UN Charter:

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force with the only two exceptions to this prohibition being self-defence and action mandated by the UN Security Council.
International law does not give the inhabitants of a part of a state the right to secede from that state. The aspect of self-determination which allows for independence of a ‘people’ applies to peoples in colonies and other overseas territories under the occupation of another state.
Article 51 allows for self-defence ‘if an armed attack occurs’. This has been interpreted by many states to include defence against the threat of an imminent attack.
- Article 51 recognises the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in the case of an armed attack by one state against another state.
- The right to collective self-defence under Article 51 exists only for states.
- Donetsk and Luhansk are not states under international law.
The UN is based on the ‘principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members’ ( 2(1) of the UN Charter).
International law gives the right to Ukraine, being attacked, to call for support from other states. And as well as imposing sanctions, states may wish to consider cyber countermeasures.
On the negative side, international law (specifically, Article 41(2) of the 2001 Draft Articles on State Responsibility which reflects customary international law) imposes obligations on states not to recognize situations resulting from the use of force. This includes the obligation not to recognize the independence of the two breakaway republics.

7. CLIMATE CHENGE IMPACTS: IPCC

TOPIC: Environment

Context- Temperatures may hit ‘unsurvivable’ levels if emissions are not cut: IPCC

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Impacts of Climate Change As per IPCC sixth assessment report:

Climate change and rising demand mean about 40 percent of people in India will live with water scarcity by 2050 compared with about 33 percent now.
Both the Ganges and the Brahmaputra river basins will also see increased ﬂooding as a result of climate change, particularly if warming exceeds 1.5° C.
In India, rice production can decrease by 10 to 30 per cent and maize 25 to 70 per cent.
India, which, according to the report, is the most vulnerable country in Asia in terms of crop production.
Rice, wheat, pulses coarse cereal yields could fall almost 9 percent by 2050. Also continued climate change will cause a decline in the ﬁsheries output.
Referring to wet-bulb temperatures, a measure of heat and humidity, A wet-bulb temperature of 31° C is extremely dangerous for humans and 35° C unsurvivable for more than about six hours, even for ﬁt and healthy adults resting in the shade.
Water scarcity: By mid-21st Century, the international transboundary river basins of Amu Darya, Indus, Ganges and inter-State Sabarmati-river basin in India could face severe water scarcity.
According to the report, high levels of warming could cause a global GDP decline of 10-23 per cent by the end of the century, compared to a world without warming.

8. EXPORT CREDIT GUARANTEE CORPORATION (ECGC)

TOPIC: Economy

Context- ECGC on Monday said it had modiﬁed the insurance cover category for Indian exports to Russia amid the ongoing conﬂict between Russia and Ukraine.

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Revising its underwriting policy on Russia, ECGC has now put that country in the Restricted Cover Category (RCC-I) from the earlier ‘Open Cover’ category.
The RCC-1 category of export credit guarantee offers revolving limits and is normally valid for a year after being approved on a case-to-case basis.
Under the open cover category, policyholders were able to obtain cover on a more liberalised basis.
India’s exports to Russia stood at $2.65 billion in FY21.
Exports to Ukraine during the same period were $451 million.

About ECGC:

The ECGC Ltd is wholly owned by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The Government of India had initially set up the Export Risks Insurance Corporation in 1957.It was changed to Export Credit & Guarantee Corporation Ltd in 1964 and ECGC Ltd in 2014.
ECGC was established to promote exports by providing credit insurance services to exporters against non-payment risks by the overseas buyers due to commercial and political reasons.
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) form 97% of the client base of ECGC.

9. FIVE FALLOUTS OF WESTERN SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

TOPIC: IR

Context-The US announces new measures against Russia prohibiting Americans from engaging in transactions with the Central Bank of Russia and National wealth Fund of Russian Federation.

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Impact on Key Areas:

Currency: The Russian Ruble crash to 111 to the Us dollar from 83 on Friday.
Fears of Bank Runs: The Central bank had increased the money supply to ATMs after demand for cash rose to its highest level since March 2020.
Capital Controls: affecting the Equity and Bond market.
Shortage of goods: Due to dependence on west for many consumer goods.
Surge in Oil Prices: Brent crude rose to $105 due to fresh sanctions on Russia.