Spanish actor and environmental activist Javier Bardem said Monday "we are all villains" for playing "deaf and blind" and not caring about the world's oceans, which are under more pressure than at any time in history.
The Oscar winner came to the United Nations to press delegates who are drafting an international treaty to protect oceans to support a strong document "that can actually create safe havens for marine life to recover."
"Our oceans are on the verge of collapse, and we have all played a huge role in this," Bardem said. "Now we must all play our part, especially you in this room."
He was speaking on a lunchtime panel in the conference room where delegates from the world's nations will meet over the next two weeks for the third of four treaty drafting sessions. But he started his remarks saying, "I see too many empty chairs here which worries me a lot," because an effective treaty is crucial for future generations and the future of the planet.
Bardem said the biggest mistake delegates can make "is not to care" and take seriously the threat of a possible catastrophe.
He cited the ills that have made the oceans unhealthy: plastic pollution, over-fishing, mining, drilling, ocean acidification "and of course, climate breakdown."
The drafting committee is expected to produce a draft treaty in 2020, with the aim of having it adopted as a legally binding document under The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It will govern the conservation and use of plants and animals in the 64% of the world's ocean waters that do not come under national jurisdictions.
Bardem was asked what message he would have for President Donald Trump, who announced two years ago that the U.S. was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate agreement aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
"You cannot withdraw from the Paris climate convention by any means," the actor said he would tell Trump. "This is serious. This is happening. This is now. You cannot live in denial. There is nothing to deny. It is a fact."
He said Trump and others who deny climate change should "pay attention to how nature is speaking to us constantly," including heat waves in Europe this summer and plastic on beaches everywhere.
"There is not one person in the world who will not be benefited by a climate convention and an ocean treaty," Bardem said.
He spoke about walking around Madrid, where it's very hot, and going to the seaside, which is polluted, and said he is "truly, deeply, honestly worried" about the future of his two children, aged 8 and 6. Bardem is married to actress Penélope Cruz.
When asked who the villain is, he said he's just played three villains on screen, "but I guess we are all villains because we have our part — we have played deaf and blind many times and we don't care."
Now, Bardem said, the experts are saying it's time to act before it's too late, so "from now on anyone who speaks blithely or lightly about the matter is a villain, because it's obvious that it is a serious matter."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
