The impact of trade liberalization on the realization of human rights
Pascal Lamy / Copyright by World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Monika Flueckiger
Geneva, 5 February 2010
Dear Mr Lamy,
We appreciated your speech of 13 January 2010 and willingness to engage in a discussion on the contested and controversial relationship between human rights and trade during the 11-13 January 2010 Colloquium on Human Rights in the Global Economy, co-organized by the International Council on Human Rights and Realizing Rights in Geneva.
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals who participated in the
Colloquium and the discussion with you, acknowledge and welcome your openness to dialogue. We also acknowledge your attempts to challenge the policy firewall that has too long been maintained between the discourses of trade and human rights and the ways in which you sought to draw out the connections between these two discourses. At the same time however, we remain concerned by persistent and obvious contradictions between the rhetoric of complementarity between human rights and trade liberalization (as it has been implemented so far), given the real outcomes of liberalization for people and communities around the world, especially in the developing countries. Read more…
Statements
Human Rights, Human Rights in the Global Economy, International Council on Human Rights and Realizing Rights, Pascal Lamy, WTO
Ajamu Baraka is the executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, a coalition of more than 250 human rights and social justice organizations working to hold the United States accountable to international human rights standards. YES! Magazine board member Tanya Dawkins talked to him about housing, direct action, and why human rights are relevant during the recession.
by Tanya Dawkins / published by YES! Magazine
Tanya Dawkins: How are you feeling about the domestic human rights movement right now?
Ajamu Baraka: I’m feeling pretty good, even though we have some very real challenges as a movement. The election of Barack Obama provides opportunities as well as some very interesting political challenges. Under the Bush Administration, the targets of our advocacy, organizing, and education work were pretty clear. With Obama’s election and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, we find ourselves struggling against the tendency some might have to believe that we can relax and just engage in quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy. Read more…
News
Human Rights, Obama, Tanya Dawkins, YES! Magazine
By Agustín Fernández, International Secretariat of Social Watch and Ana María Ferrera, Feminists in Resistance and Social Watch Honduras
On 28 June 2009 the Honduran army staged a coup d’état against the constitutionally elected president Manuel Zelaya Rosales, sending him into forced exile and naming Roberto Micheletti, until then president of the National Congress, as his successor or “provisional president”. This coup was carried out with the support of the traditional political parties, the business sector, the Supreme Court, the Catholic Church and most of the mass media, among others. Read more…
News
Honduras, Human Rights
Por Roberto Bissio, Social Watch
El G20, oscuro mecanismo de reunión de ministros de finanzas de un grupo de países, ha realizado varias cumbres ultimamente: Washington (noviembre), Londres (abril), y ahora se anuncia una nueva reunión en Pittsburgh (setiembre).
El Grupo de los 20 genera un gran cambio, y hay mucha gente que dice, incluyendo el presidente Lula que el g7 o el g8 son irrelevantes. Todos ellos salvo Rusia, son países que están endeudados a niveles cercanos al 200% de su producto bruto, unos más otros menos, ahora esos países se juntan con los acreedores, China, Brasil y otros países sistémicamente importantes. La definición de cuáles son los países sistémicamente importantes es una definición puramente política, por ejemplo Argentina está en ese grupo. Incluso para la reunión de Londres se invitó a España y Holanda que no estaban en la lista de la reunión de Washington, fuera por presiones políticas o para equilibrar la presencia europea, que es abrumadora en términos de representación, pero por las razones que sea la definición es una construcción política. Esta construcción desde el punto de vista de la legislación internacional, es un grupo de amigos -no tiene personería jurídica - no tiene secretariado, no tiene capacidad para tomar decisiones, sino lo más que puede hacer es formular recomendaciones. Read more…
News
"Stiglitz Commission", "United Nations", Derechos humanos, Financial crisis, Human Rights
Source: Democracy now!
AMY GOODMAN: Today, a conversation with one of the most important dissident intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky, on the global economic crisis, healthcare, the media, US foreign policy, the expanding wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and resistance to American empire. Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned linguist, philosopher, social critic, and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Among his many books over the past few decades are Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order, and Human Rights and American Foreign Policy. There’s a great collection of his work, just out now, edited by Anthony Arnove, called The Essential Chomsky.
I spoke to Noam Chomsky earlier this month when we were on the road in Boston. This is Part II of our conversation. I began by asking him to talk about the current economic meltdown.
Read more…
News
America Latina, crisis financiera, Derechos humanos, desarrollo economico, EEUU, Human Rights, poverty
ESCR-Net has elaborated a Statement on the Financial Crisis and the Global Economic Recession: Towards a Human Rights Response, with the input of organizations and individual activists that work with this network. The Statement calls for a response to the financial crisis and economic recession that places human rights norms at the center, in which people and the environment, not banks or businesses, are the foundations for economic policymaking. This Statement has been elaborated to contribute to the proceedings of the UN Conference on the Financial and Economic Crisis, as well as the civil society event “Peoples Voices on the Crisis”, which will take place on the eve of the official Conference.
For more information on the Statement, or to sign on go to: http://www.escr-net.org/actions/actions_show.htm?doc_id=921729
News
Financial crisis, Human Rights
This year, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is celebrating a very important birthday – its 50th, with the corresponding festivities planned for the week of March 27-31 at the Annual Governors´ Assembly, which will be held in Medellin, Colombia. However, instead of celebrating, civil society organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean are planning a counter-Assembly to visualize the human and environmental costs of the failed “development” policies of the bank, which are largely focused on the promotion of ecologically damaging mega-projects that provide few benefits for disadvantaged local populations and fail to respect the rights of indigenous communities and other traditional ethnic groups. Read more…
News
Financial crisis, Human Rights
On Wednesday 7 January in the European Parliament in Brussels, the international NGO network Social Watch launched its new report entitled “Rights is the answer”, which argues that human rights provide the answer to the global financial crisis. Read more…
News, Press
Human Rights, Social Watch 2008 Report