News


Corporations cannot define human rights

Moisés Borges, leader of the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) stated that the Ecuadorian Chair of the Working Group that is negotiating at the United Nations a legally binding tool on transnational corporations and human rights is promoting a text that legitimises violations. Borges, who is part of the national coordination of the MAB and is the coordinator…

How many more socio-environmental and human rights crimes until we say enough?

On 23 August, Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) together with social movements and organisations from the region held a public event in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to discuss the urgent need to agree an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and human rights. The goal is to gain the support of democratic governments…

Transnationals in Mexico: depeasantization and Walmartization*

The Mexican diagnosis of government policies that have allowed and promoted the advance of transnational corporations, produced by Otros Mundos Chiapas - Friends of the Earth Mexico, is centered on the agri-food sector and is in line with the rest of the countries of the region at a pivotal moment: the 1990s, neoliberal policies and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). In…

Mass March in Uruguay demands response on crimes against humanity

On May 20, 1976, the State terrorism established by the last civic-military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973-1985), murdered four Uruguayan exiles in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina. Two legislators: Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz and Zelmar Michelini, and two militants of the National Liberation Movement – Tupamaros (MLN-T): Rosario Barredo and William Whitelaw. These murders were part of what would later be known…

Killing for land, struggling for life

The Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) has launched their new annual report, entitled 'Conflicts in the Countryside - Brazil 2021'. Since 1985, the CPT has been recording the violence inflicted on peoples and communities in the Brazilian countryside, by landowners, mining and forestry companies, land speculators and businessmen. It also shows the negligence and complicity of the State. From 1985 to 2020,…

Politics shall be Indigenous

On 4 April 2022, thousands of Indigenous People from various communities across the current Brazilian territory came to the federal capital, Brasilia, to set up the 18th Free Land Camp (Terra Livre) by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). This mobilisation is still based on the original struggles as when it started in 2004: the right to land,…

Strike against the AntaKori mining project: peruvian women and communities resist

Resisting mining megaprojects is a task peasant and Indigenous communities carry out every day in Peru and many other territories in Latin America. In January this year, we, as militants of grassroots organizations from Peru, organized a strike to demand the removal of the AntaKori mining project from the Sinchao area, Chugur-Cajamarca district, where the mining company Anta Norte has…

How corporations are taking over the UN

The COVAX mechanism to distribute Covid-19 vaccines, mobile apps giving companies access to private data, biotechnology, language capture and alleged rights-based discourses — these are all examples of strategies used by transnational corporations to gain more power over global governance each day. In 2021, social movements defending Food Sovereignty warned about the strong influence exerted by agroindustrial corporations over the…

Nyéléni: the role of popular communications in the fight for food sovereignty

International movement for Food Sovereignty, Nyéléni, published its newsletter number 44 with the title “Communicating for Food Sovereignty”. In their editorial, they explain why popular communications are an essential element in the struggle for Food Sovereignty “Just as the agro-industrial complex pushes for a homogenous, singular view of a global agrifood system, the international-corporate-media complex has also resulted in a…