The year 2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of the entry into force of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (the Convention). The Convention has been widely accepted. As of 16 November 2014, the number of States Parties to the Convention stood at 166, including the European Union.

According to the National Tiger Conservation Authority, at the turn of the 20th century, India was home to 40,000 tigers. Today their number in the wild does not exceed 4,000. This story echoes that of other animals, such as one-horned rhinos whose population declined to fewer than 2,400 in India.

Over the last year, largely unbeknownst to the public, Governments from countries rich and poor were busy working on the design of the Green Climate Fund, aimed at mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. However, do we really need and can we afford a new global fund, particularly in today's distressed financial environment?

Nearly every day on television or in the newspapers we see reports of natural disasters in different parts of the world, causing concern and alarm. Our planet is going through a most difficult time because mankind, in its eagerness to improve upon personal economic and living conditions, has forgotten that its actions cause pollution and uncontrollable climate change. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, this term is used to refer to global climatic change that is directly and indirectly attributable to human activities that change the atmosphere's composition.

One of the myths current today, spread by media events such as Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is that everyone will be equal in facing the ecological and human catastrophe of climate change. This is simply not true. Clear thinking about climate change and its likely impact on cultural integrity, transmission, and diversity requires that one take note of the glaring differences today among people on the planet.

Malaria, the world's most important and deadly tropical mosquito-borne parasitic disease, kills approximately 1 million people and afflicts as many as 1 billion people in 109 countries throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America.Reducing the impact of malaria will significantly enhance the efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, agreed upon by every United Nations Member State. Variation in climatic conditions, such as temperature, rainfall patterns, and humidity, has a profound effect on the longevity of the mosquito and on the development of malaria parasites in the mosquito and, subsequently, on malaria transmission.

Women are increasingly being seen as more vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change, mainly because they represent the majority of the world's poor and are proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources. The difference between men and women can also be seen in their differential roles, responsibilities, decision making, access to land and natural resources, opportunities and needs, which are held by both sexes.

The headlines generated by the carbon trading mechanisms at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol, most notably the Clean Development Mechanism, tell a story of a scheme in trouble. But why has it caused such controversy?

Almost three decades into the HIV/AIDS pandemic, there is still widespread stigma, denial and government inaction. There are reports of rising rates of infection in the Western industrialized nations and concerns about the possibility of explosive epidemics in the Asian block; yet sub-Saharan Africa, with less than 15 per cent of the world's population, remains at the epicentre of the epidemic, with over 70 per cent of the infections worldwide.

Never before in human history has the world had such a wealth of knowledge, skills and resources invested in keeping its communities well. Why, then, is global health heading into a perfect storm? A human rights-based approach -- framed in terms of the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and the right to the basic determinants of health such as clean water and food, shelter, education, health services and equality -- is the most promising. Through this lens, the circumstances of those most at risk can be holistically addressed.