Antigua and Barbuda | Good News For Humankind

Ocean water, for article on law of the sea treaty, for article on ITLOS climate ruling

Island states win historic climate case in world oceans court

By / July 21, 2024 / Good News For Humankind

Nine small island nations just won a landmark climate ruling from the world’s top ocean court, with judges declaring for the first time that greenhouse gases absorbed by the sea legally count as marine pollution. The coalition — including Tuvalu, Antigua and Barbuda, Vanuatu, and Palau — argued that countries have binding obligations under the Law of the Sea to limit warming to 1.5°C, and the tribunal agreed. Though the opinion is advisory, it’s already shaping two pending climate cases at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice. For nations whose very existence is threatened by rising seas, it’s a reminder that patient diplomacy and international law can still give the smallest voices real weight in the global climate fight.

Remote Caribbean island of Redonda transformed into huge nature reserve

By Peter Schulte / October 2, 2023 / Good news links

It’s one of many remote islands around the world’s seas that, with a helping hand, have rid themselves of invasive animals and plants and returned to supporting the land, water, and air around them.

Caribbean court strikes down gay ban in Antigua & Barbuda

By Peter Schulte / July 6, 2022 / Good news links

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court found that Antigua and Barbuda’s 1995 Sexual Offenses Act “offends the right to liberty, protection of the law, freedom of expression, protection of personal privacy and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex.”

Antigua and Barbuda flag, for article on Antigua and Barbuda independence

Antigua and Barbuda win full independence from Britain

By Peter Schulte / November 1, 1981 / Archive of Human Genius

Antigua and Barbuda became a fully sovereign nation on November 1, 1981, ending nearly 350 years of British colonial rule. The path ran through the cane fields: Vere Cornwall Bird, who led the trade union movement from 1943 onward, was sworn in as the country’s first prime minister. It was a quiet milestone in the Caribbean’s long arc toward self-rule.

Antigua Trades & Labour Union, for article on antigua trades and labour union

Antigua Trades and Labour Union forms, giving workers a political voice

By Peter Schulte / January 1, 1939 / Archive of Human Genius

In 1939, Antiguan workers formed the Antigua Trades and Labour Union, their first organized voice more than a century after Britain’s 1833 emancipation had left the plantation economy intact. Under Vere Cornwall Bird, who became president in 1943, the union grew into a political platform — and eventually a pathway to independence in 1981.

St Johns Antigua and Barbuda, for article on English colonization Antigua

English settlers establish a colony on the island of Antigua

By Peter Schulte / January 1, 1632 / Archive of Human Genius

English settlers arrived on Antigua in 1632, establishing one of the earliest permanent European colonies in the eastern Caribbean. The harbor town that would become St. John’s took formal shape only after a French invasion in 1666. Centuries later, in 1981, it emerged as the capital of a sovereign Antigua and Barbuda.

Beach at sunset, for article on Saladoid culture

Saladoid people build a thriving ceramic culture across Venezuela and the Caribbean

By Peter Schulte / January 27, 0001 / Archive of Human Genius

The Saladoid people set out from Venezuela’s Orinoco lowlands roughly 2,500 years ago, sailing island to island across the Lesser Antilles and reaching as far as Hispaniola. They carried crops, communal longhouses, and vividly painted red pottery. Their seafaring laid cultural groundwork that shaped the Caribbean for more than a thousand years.

Antigua coast, for article on first settlement of Antigua

Archaic people become the first humans to settle Antigua

By Peter Schulte / January 17, 0001 / Archive of Human Genius

Around 2900 B.C.E., a small group of seafaring Amerindians paddled across open Caribbean water and landed on the island now called Antigua. They brought no pottery or crops, only deep knowledge of currents, winds, and shellfish beds. Their arrival marks one of the earliest confirmed human settlements in the Lesser Antilles.