The time has come for a transformation of Europe’s food systems. Small-scale food producers, peasants, community groups, environmental justice activists and others have been calling for years for a shift towards agriculture that nourishes communities, regenerates ecosystems, and provides decent and sustainable livelihoods. The concept of agroecology encompasses these ambitions, referring to the science, movement, and practice of working with nature to build food sovereignty. The climate crisis and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have only made it clearer how urgent such a transformation is.
Land politics – who controls what land, how is it used, for how long, for what purposes and to whose benefit – is a central pillar of this debate. As politicians across Europe struggle to balance the urgent need for climate action with the need to strengthen equity and popular support for new policies, the risk of societal discord looms large, fuelled by farmer protests, perceptions of ‘agri-bashing,’ and long-running tensions between conservation movements and agricultural communities. This has been made more complicated by the interweaving of questions of land and national identity and an apparently increasing disconnect between those living in rural and urban areas.
To tackle the climate crisis we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground. But governments that phase out coal, end gas production, or stop oil pipelines can be sued by corporations in private courts and be held liable for billions in damages. How? Under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). It is now up to European governments and the European Commission to pull out of the anti-climate ECT and stop its expansion to even more countries. Take action today to make this happen!
Corporations have stepped beyond lobbying governments. They are integrating in policy-making at the national and international levels. From agriculture to technology, decisions historically made by governments are increasingly made by secretive unaccountable bodies run by corporations.
The tunnel that we have had to pass through is a very long one… 70 plus years, and there is still no sign of light that we are nearing the end. The leaders have staunchly blocked the exit. No ordinary civilian can pass through, and those inside the tunnel only get to see glimpses of light through tiny holes now and then. By the time the leaders of our country have agreed and worked out their differences, it will be too late for those of us who have been suffocating inside the darkness for far too long.
This briefing profiles the leading US border security contractors, their related financial campaign contributions during the 2020 elections, and how they have shaped a bipartisan approach in favor of border militarization for more than three decades. It suggests that a real change in border and immigration policies will require the Democrats to break with the industry that helps finance them.
Today is Union Day in Myanmar, which marks the historic Panglong Agreement in February 1947 when the principles of equality and unity were drawn up for the future union. In 2021, however, it is not a day of celebration but one of protest as peoples across the country take to the street to demonstrate against the assumption of power by the military State Administrative Council. In this commentary, TNI analyses why the present crisis is so profound and why the patterns of military rule, state failure and ethnic conflict are in grave danger of being repeated. Peace and national reconciliation are required today, not at some indeterminate time in the future.
Discussions of the threat to liberal democracy have neglected perhaps the most surprising source that is one of the major arcs of history of the last three decades: globalization. It promised the promotion of liberal democracy encapsulated in neoliberal economics whose components include free movement of capital and finance, free trade, free movement of people, and the free transfer of ideas through social media. While globalization has achieved many of these four freedoms, it has also fostered its precise opposite: a borderless world that has stripped the principal source of political democracy – the nation state -- of much of its political and economic legitimacy for the liberal democracy that created globalization. Governments became weakened by the very fraying of its borders wrought by a globalization they promoted.
I cannot recall exactly when I first met Miguel Teubal, but it was decades ago probably at a conference or workshop I came to know him better when the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) invited him for a six month Visiting Research Fellowship in 1992. During his stay he published two working papers, one on food security and regimes of accumulation, and the other on the new agroindustrial world food regime.
We at TNI are saddened to hear of the passing away of Miguel Teubal on January 19, 2021. Miguel was one of TNI's earliest fellows, serving for 23 years from 1976, and remained associated since.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, transnational corporations are seeking to cement their control of global governance, ensuring it serves the interests of business and profits rather than the wellbeing of humanity. From January 25-30, social movements and international civil society will focus on the processes underway at the dialogues at Davos. We have collected here an overview of the main civil society activities during the week of Davos, as well as key resources for everyone interested in learning more about the crisis of global governance, the transnational corporations' false solutions, and the possibilities for new forms of global democratic governance
This webinar is the first of a series - each with a different focus and angle -and will focus on Tunisia and Egypt, the birthplace of the magnificent revolts. The aim is to revisit these historical moments with some of the finest scholar-activists, participants and witnesses from those very contexts.
The post COVID-19 world presents a new opportunity to deepen the corporate plans of capturing global governance and ensuring it serves the interests of corporate business and profits instead of putting in place policies for the wellbeing of humanity. It is urgent to unmask this global and systemic trend by showing how it operates in key sensitive sectors as well as taking the challenge to generate peoples power towards building a strong public and participatory governance for a world beyond the health, climate, inequality and democracy crises. Is there a future for another multilateralism?
The Agrarian Conversations series aims to address strategic and urgent issues in and in relation to the rural world today. The format is conversational: 15 minutes input from the main speaker, 15 minutes from a panel of discussants, and 50 minutes open plenary (Q&A) discussion. A background paper is provided in advance to help facilitate a conversational format.
TNI’s work is in the news almost every working day of the year. Together with our partners, we enjoy wide coverage in national and international news outlets from around the world. Here are some of the highlights from 2020 of which we are particularly proud.
The 2020 general election was one of disappointment for ethnic nationality parties in Myanmar. Prior to the polls, expectations were high that they would win a larger number of seats than in previous elections. In the event, the National League for Democracy won another landslide victory. NLD gains were largely at the expense of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. The position of ethnic parties, in contrast, will remain relatively the same.
Amidst growing concerns that the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) undermines urgent climate action, and a growing backlash against the treaty, its profiteers are spewing propaganda, promoting falsehoods about how the ECT attracts clean investment and how its 'modernisation' will fix any flaws. Cut through their rhetoric with our new myth-busting guide.
Yesterday, on International Human Rights Day, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands announced that Saw Eh Say, the coordinator from the Kayah Earthrights Action Network (KEAN), received the 2020 Human Rights Tulip Myanmar Award for his great efforts to promote the right to land in Myanmar. The Human Rights Tulip is an annual award of the Dutch government for outstanding and courageous human rights defenders.
