Corporate rule may seem immutable and irreversible, but a popular movement in alliance with some governments is forcing corporate accountability onto the international agenda.
This article focusses on TNCs as global actors, the structures and mechanisms that grant them impunity for wrong doing, and the deepening and widespread popular resistance to TNC extractivism and destruction of the planet.
The fallout from the current phase of capitalism has become more manifest globally in 2016, provoking unexpected political responses. However, the people most severely impacted by the current economic crisis have largely chosen to support political figures and positions[i] contrary to those that have been elaborated for years by the alter-globalisation left, also known as the global justice movement.
On June 26, 2014, under the leadership of Ecuador and South Africa, the UN Human Rights Council passed landmark resolution 26/9,2 establishing an open-ended inter - governmental working group (IGWG)3 that is mandated to elaborate an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises with respect to human rights (hereinafter, the Treaty). It was a tight vote: the resolution was supported by 20 states, mainly from Africa and Asia, and opposed by 14, including the United States and the European Union, with 13 abstentions. The resolution strikes a nerve — and there is much expectation around it.
Maxime Combes of Attac France interviews Gonzalo Berron and Brid Brennan on the eve of the debate at the 26th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the need for a new legal framework to end corporate impunity.
The 26th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) opened in Geneva on June 10th. A major focus on the UNHRC agenda is the issue of binding regulations for Transnational Corporations (TNCs). This demand has been raised by Ecuador and 84 other governments in a Statement to the UNHRC last September 2013.
Cecilia Olivet, Gonzalo Berrón, Sol Trumbo Vila, Carlos Bedoya, Jenina Joy Chavez, Dorothy Grace Guerrero, Afsar Jafri, Dot Keet, Meena R Menon, Mariana Mortágua, Graciela Rodríguez, Andy Storey, Oscar Ugarteche
10 October 2013
Book
The demand for people-centred regional alternatives has been at the core of people’s struggles in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. This reader pulls together perspectives of social movement activists, describing the restrictive regional spaces within which they work and propose regional alternatives.
Praful Bidwai, Olivier Hoedeman, Gonzalo Berrón, Yao Graham
30 June 2011
Multi-media
June 2012 will see a 20 year review of the famous 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The buzzword for the Rio+20 conference is "green economy" but what does this mean in practice?