The Paris Agreement sets forth a new international legal regime aimed at strengthening the global response to climate change. It was adopted in December 2015 at the annual gathering of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Paris Agreement sits within and implements the Convention.

The Eighteenth Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity, meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, June 24-27, 1981, made an historic step toward the protection of human rights in Africa when it passed the Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on to the member states of the O.A.U. to commence the ratification process of that document. The Charter represents the culmination of a two year drafting process.

From November 28 to December 8, 1979, a gathering of African experts met in Dakar, Senegal to prepare the first draft of the proposed African Charter. The stated objective of the experts was to prepare an African human rights instrument based upon an African legal philosophy and responsive to African needs.

This year, 2016, marks the sixtieth anniversary of the discovery of “Minamata Disease,” so-named for the town ravaged by the effects of methylmercury poisoning, and the namesake of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. As of April 22, 2016—Earth Day—128 nations have signed and 25 have ratified the international treaty designed to protect human health and the environment from anthropogenic releases and emission of mercury and mercury compounds.

Although it provides limited normative guidance, the General Assembly’s recent resolution, “The right to privacy in the digital age,” signals both renewed international interest in the human right to privacy as well as a commitment by United Nations (UN) institutions to explore the meaning of this right in the digital age.

The present Convention applies to uses of international watercourses and of their waters for purposes other than navigation and to measures of protection, preservation and management related to the uses of those watercourses and their waters.

The uses of international watercourses for navigation is not within the scope of the present Convention except insofar as other uses affect navigation or are affected by navigation.

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (‘‘Convention’’) joins a small number of treaties imposing specific obligations on member states to prevent and address violence against women. The Convention is notable both for its encapsulation of best practices in combating violence against women and for its confirmation that all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, are human rights violations for which states are responsible.