¿Cómo podemos solventar las tensiones entre los enfoques actuales en materia de control de drogas y las obligaciones de los Estados con respecto a los derechos humanos? El marco internacional de de los derechos humanos especifica explícitamente que, en caso de conflicto entre las obligaciones contraídas por los Estados en virtud de la Carta de la ONU y sus obligaciones contraídas en virtud de cualquier otro convenio internacional, prevalecerán las obligaciones impuestas por la Carta. En un momento de auge de los mercados regulados de cannabis, es hora de reivindicar los principios del desarrollo alternativo, los derechos humanos y el comercio justo para garantizar un lugar legítimo a los pequeños productores en estos mercados lícitos.
Stephan Backes , Jenny Gkiougki, Sylvia Kay, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Emily Mattheisen, Christina Sakali, Eirini Tzekou, Leonidas Vatikiotis, Pietje Vervest
19 Noviembre 2018
Report
Austerity measures led to increased rural poverty and food insecurity in Greece and violated her people's human right to food. How did this happen and who is responsible?
For decades, affected communities around the globe have been resisting the modus operandi of transnational corporations (TNCs) in their territories and workplaces and documenting systemic human rights violations and the track record of corporate impunity with their lives and their deaths. Corporate impunity is embedded in and protected by an ‘architecture of impunity’ that legitimises and legalises the operations of TNCs. This architecture has been established through free trade and investment agreements, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other financial instruments and the aggressive push for public-private partnerships (PPPs). At the core of this architecture is the infamous investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, a private arbitration system that allows TNCs to sue states whenever they consider that their future profits are threatened by new measures or policies aiming at improving social and environmental protection. Thus, it neutralises the function of the state, whose primary responsibility is to defend public interest and protect the well-being of its citizens and the planet from corporate interests.
Este informe revela que los estados miembros de la Unión Europea y el Espacio Schengen han alzado cerca de 1.000 km de muros, lo equivalente a más de seis Muros de Berlín, desde los años 90, con el objetivo de frenar la migración de personas desplazadas por la fuerza a Europa. Estos muros físicos van acompañados de los aún más largos “muros marítimos”, operaciones navales patrullando el mar Mediterráneo, así como los “muros virtuales”, sistemas de control fronterizo que buscan parar a las personas que intentan entrar en Europa, incluso aquellas que están viajando por el continente, y controlar el movimiento general de la población.
Member states of the European Union and Schengen Area have constructed almost 1000 km of walls, the equivalent of more than six times the total length of the Berlin Walls, since the nineties to prevent displaced people migrating into Europe. These physical walls are accompanied by even longer ‘maritime walls’, naval operations patrolling the Mediterranean, as well as ‘virtual walls’, border control systems that seek to stop people entering or even traveling within Europe, and control movement of population.
Yasha Maccanico, Ben Hayes, Samuel Kenny, Frank Barat
06 Noviembre 2018
Report
Europe’s “refugee crisis” triggered a wave of solidarity actions by both civil society organisations and ordinary citizens. Their efforts were part of a wave of compassion, as people organised convoys to refugee reception centers, warmly greeted arrivals at train stations and lined highways to provide food and water to those making the journey from Syria and elsewhere. Just a few years later those same activists are treated as criminals and humanitarian search and rescue missions are criminalised.
Durante décadas, comunidades afectadas de todo el mundo han opuesto resistencia a la forma de actuar de las em- presas transnacionales en sus territorios y lugares de trabajo, y documentando violaciones sistémicas de los derechos humanos y la trayectoria de impunidad empresarial con sus vidas y muertes. La impunidad de las grandes empresas está protegida por una ‘arquitectura de impunidad’ que legitima y legaliza sus operaciones. Esta arquitectura se ha establecido mediante acuerdos de libre comercio e inversión, la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC), las políticas de ajuste estructural del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), el Banco Mundial y otros instrumentos financieros, así como la promoción implacable de las alianzas público-privadas (APP).
How can we resolve the tensions between current drug control policies and states’ human rights obligations? The international human rights framework clearly establishes that, in the event of conflicts between obligations under the UN Charter and other international agreements, human rights obligations take precedence. As legally regulated cannabis markets start to grow, now is the time to secure a legitimate place for small farmers using alternative development, human rights and fair trade principles.
La “crisi dei rifugiati” europea (come viene definita da molti osservatori, tralasciando il fatto che si tratta in realtà di una Crisi dell’Europa come progetto politico), simbolizzata dall’immagine di Alan Kurdi, il bambino siriano di tre annitrascinato dal mare sulle spiagge turche, ha innescato un’ondata di solidarietà e azioni di disobbedienza civile sia da parte delle organizzazioni della società civile che da parte dei normali cittadini. Tutti questi sforzi facevano parte di un’ondata di compassione che ha visto l’organizzazione di convogli per recarsi nei centri di accoglienza per rifugiati, calorosi benvenuti presso stazioni ferroviarie tedesche e file in strada per offrire cibo e acqua a chi percorreva l’arduo cammino partendo da zone devastate dalla guerra in Siria e in altre parti del mondo.
Martin Jelsma, Neil Boister, David Bewley-Taylor, Malgosia Fitzmaurice, John Walsh
03 Octubre 2018
Report
El panorama de las políticas de drogas está atravesando un proceso de cambios profundos, en especial porque cada vez son más los países que avanzan hacia la regulación del mercado de cannabis. Entre las opciones de reforma que no requieren un consenso, la modificación inter se parece constituir el enfoque más ‘elegante’, ya que ofrece una válvula de seguridad útil para que la acción colectiva pueda adaptar un régimen de tratados congelado en el tiempo.
When it comes to managing the energy transition the need for municipal level innovation has never been clearer. In recent years, we have seen some successes, where innovative ideas have led to more equitable, just and democratic energy policies. However, the sharing of these ideas has been limited, and they have tended to remain local and specific. To achieve large scale, replicable success we need a coordinated and integrated approach for collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Enter: mPOWER
mPOWER is a 4-year programme that will enable in-depth, wide-scale and systematic city to city learning among at least 100 local public authorities, in order to replicate innovative best practices in municipal energy, and developing ambitious energy transition plans.
mPOWER is run by a consortium composed of the University of Glasgow (UK), Platform (UK), Transnational Institute (Netherlands), Energy Cities (EU-wide), IPE (Croatia), University of the Basque Country (ES), and Carbon Co-op (UK).
The mPOWER project and consortium are funded by the Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation programme. The project started in May 2018 and will last four years.
Het kabinet-Rutte III staat op het punt de dividendbelasting af te schaffen. Deze maatregel is omstreden, omdat niet duidelijk gemaakt kan worden welke maatschappelijke opbrengsten tegenover de gederfde inkomsten staan van jaarlijks 1,4 miljard euro. In dit boekje kijken wij naar de argumenten die voorstanders gebruiken en duiken we in de tegenargumenten.
Los movimientos populares prosperan en todo el mundo, mientras nos enfrentamos a una impunidad cada vez mayor por parte de las grandes empresas y una creciente violencia estatal. En la séptima edición de 'Estado del poder', publicada en español por el Transnational Institute y Fuhem Ecosocial, examinamos los movimientos sociales de hoy, su potencial para generar contrapoderes y cómo podemos organizarnos para luchar contra la injusticia y, a la vez, sentar las bases para una transformación a largo plazo.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a mega regional trade deal involving sixteen nations from Asia-Pacific. RCEP will impact the lives of billions of people, from the quality of the food they eat to the energy they consume and the affordability of life-saving medicines. Yet, RCEP negotiations are being conducted almost completely in secret, with limited to no meaningful public participation. Most elected officials have, at best, limited access to the negotiating texts, which remain out of reach for civil society.
Kayah State, historically known as “Karenni State”, is an example of the reform dilemmas that the ethnic nationality peoples in Myanmar face today. Although the country’s smallest state, it reflects many of the challenges in peace-building and socio-political transition that need resolution in Myanmar at large: political impasse, a multiplicity of conflict actors, contested natural resources, land grabbing, humanitarian suffering, and divided communities seeking to rebuild after more than six decades of civil war.
We know what we have to do to solve the climate crisis. We must keep coal, oil and gas in the ground. But the fossil fuel industry has a secret powerful weapon to keep cooking the planet: The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). It is on the brink of a massive geographical expansion into Africa, Asia and Latin America, threatening to bind yet more countries to corporate-friendly energy policies. Visit: www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org
Η δεινή κατάσταση των 66 εκατομμυρίων ανθρώπων που έχουν εκτοπιστεί αναγκαστικά φαίνεται να ενοχλεί τη συνείδηση της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης (ΕΕ) μόνο όταν κάποια τραγωδία στα σύνορα της Ευρώπης βρεθεί στο επίκεντρο των μέσων ενημέρωσης. Μόνο ένα ευρωπαϊκό κράτος - η Γερμανία - συγκαταλέγεται στις δέκα χώρες που δέχονται τους περισσότερους πρόσφυγες παγκοσμίως. Έτσι, η τεράστια πλειοψηφία των αναγκαστικά εκτοπισμένων ανθρώπων καταλήγει να φιλοξενείται από μερικά από τα φτωχότερα κράτη του κόσμου. Οι άνθρωποι αυτοί παύουν να είναι «αόρατοι» μόνο όταν κάποιες κοινότητες στα σύνορα, όπως το Καλαί, η Λαμπεντούζα και η Λέσβος, εμφανίζονται στις ειδήσεις ενώ απελπισμένοι άνθρωποι που εγκαταλείπουν τη βία καταλήγουν να πεθαίνουν, να κρατούνται, ή να παγιδεύονται.
In December 2017, the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), in collaboration with the Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) and the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage (MFLF), jointly organised the 9th Asian Informal Drug Policy Dialogue (IDPD) in Chiang Rai, Thailand.
