This report shows the EU’s plan to drastically increase imports of renewable hydrogen from North Africa is not realistic from a cost or energy perspective, and instead diverts renewable electricity away from local needs and local climate targets.
At a time when genuine progress towards real climate action is more vital than ever, this guide exposes how the corporations most responsible for climate change have taken over this year’s UN climate talks.
What we face today is not just a "crisis" in the normal sense of the word - "a time of intense difficulty or danger". We also face a crisis in the sense of the word’s etymological roots in the Greek word krisis. This refers to a turning point in the course of an illness, pointing either to the start of recovery or the imminence of death. Such an understanding of "crisis" implies a relatively brief moment between two possible outcomes, a good one and a bad one. The deep social, economic and political problems of our times, however, are not signs of a passing "moment" or a single issue; they rather signal a multi-faceted crisis, whose components all strengthen and reinforce each other.
In 2017, we marked 43 years of critical thinking, exposing the underlying causes of today’s authoritarian politics, and putting forward the real solutions we need.
Giant corporations have taken control of our food. In the last two years, these companies have begun the process of merging and re-arranging themselves into just four colossal corporations. The larger these companies grow, the less we can control them. And the less control we have, the harder it is for us to build the kind of food system that more and more of us want: one that recognizes the value of people, respects the planet, and provides decent, dignified work. How did this happen, and what can we do about it?
The Covid-19 pandemic has provoked widespread discussion of what kind of future the world should look forward to after the crisis. One of the areas of economic life around which there is spirited debate is the global food system. This paper focuses on how the pandemic has exposed the fragility of the corporate-dominated global food supply system and shown that it is not, as the Food and Agriculture Organization and its allied agencies see it, part of the solution.
Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia and Guatemala are just some of the Latin American countries being hit by the investment protection regime in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Foreign investors are threatening to bring claims before international arbitration tribunals due to the measures states are taking to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. Arbitrators are refusing to accept states’ requests to postpone ongoing arbitration cases and are obliging governments to disburse millions to investors at a time when public funds are required for more urgent priorities. Once again, the current crisis reveals the perverse consequences of the investor-state dispute settlement system and the urgent need to break free from it.
No stakeholder-based global governance system comes close to matching the democratic legitimacy of a citizen-based and nation-state-based governance system, but there are ways global governance can and should be reformed.
Geneva: March 16, 2018 – The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign) (1) welcomes the presentation and acceptance of the report on the 3rd session of the Open-ended intergovernmental working group (OEIGWG) on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (2) in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council 37th session.
This webinar brought together experts in healthcare and activists at the forefront of struggles for equitable universal public healthcare from across the globe at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the necessity of a healthcare system driven by people rather than profit.
The European Commission proposal for a global investor court for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) – known as the Multilateral Investment Court – threatens to enshrine, expand, and entrench the current system of corporate privilege in future trade deals. A world court for corporations would be the capstone in the architecture of corporate impunity, undermining democratic institutions and lawmaking, and worsening the power imbalance that grants rights, protections, and compensation to corporations at the expense of the public interest.
In drawing on core peace theorists and Michel Foucault, Seán Brennan has suggested a focus on biopolitics can innovate human agency to deliver the services required to regenerate communities emerging from violent conflict, by taking ownership of existing policies and resources and creating sustainable regeneration programmes that deliver basic human needs to marginalised and disadvantaged communities.
There is mounting evidence that neoliberal policies are losing legitimacy. The translation of such disaffection into positive commitment to an alternative, however, requires deeper disengagement from the dominant order and practical participation in creating alternatives. A social order built on escaping the pressures of democracy while at the same time depending on the capacities of many desiring democracy is unlikely to be stable. Thus the opaque and indirect forms of power typical of neoliberal rule are simultaneously sources of vulnerability and dependence, and breeding grounds for the power to subvert and transform.
Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres talks about how her mother's example and a belief that ancestors continue to accompany our struggles helps her and the indigenous movement in Honduras to continue to mobilise against injustice, state violence and corporate abuses.
