“The attempts to establish the supremacy of human rights over corporate logic are not covered in the entire text of the Draft 1”, warned Brazilian expert Manoela Roland about the new document presented by the Ecuadorian Chair in UN negotiations for a legally binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights. “In addition, the scope of the future treaty has…
After many months of debate and with a strong support from the public opinion, the Liberian government passed the Land Rights Act in September, 2018, which officially recognizes the rights of local communities over their productive lands, without the need of long entitlement proceedings. With this huge step, Liberia could promote deep land and forest reforms in Central and Western…
The lives of human rights defenders in Africa are seriously threatened. For example, in Cameroon, on 26 May, human rights defender Elvis Brown Luma Mukuna received a death threat via a call from an unknown number. Ten days earlier, two men had forcibly entered Elvis’s house, abducted his younger brother and tortured him for more than two hours. Faced with…
At the end of May, Juan Orlando Hernández´ administration announced several reforms aiming to privatize services, through the passing of the Law of Restructuring and Transformation of the National Education and Healthcare System. So people took to the streets once against in Tegucigalpa against the threat of massive dismissals of doctors and teachers and to denounce the general state of…
This was the third meeting of Friends of the Earth International´s Working Group since it was created. From May 2 to 5, its members analyzed what has been done so far and the steps to follow. Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) seeks to mainstream the feminist perspective and gender justice in all its programs, campaigns and member groups. Real…
Several organizations and networks are endorsing an open letter to Lenín Moreno Garcés, President of Ecuador, that will be delivered on May 21 to Ecuadorian embassies around the world. They are asking for justice and are deeply concerned about the Chevron-Texaco case in the Ecuadorian Amazon region: “The case is irrefutable proof of the way the system whose purpose is…
A scientific report issued on Monday states that the natural world is in a dire situation and that human actions have significantly altered nature in different parts of the world. “Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. Around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity…
The Humanitarian Shelter for Life was established on April 28 in Bogota to raise awareness about the risks suffered by defenders of life and territories in Colombia. The decision was part of the national and international work being carried out with Colombian defenders of life and territories who are being persecuted, criminalized and murdered in that country. This follows the…
Since January 2018, the population of Reitoca, a municipality of Francisco Morazan department, Honduras, is controlling the territories of the high areas of the town, where they set up a campsite to prevent a hydroelectric dam from being built on Petacón River. In the afternoon of Wednesday 24, police officers and members of the Tigre security forces came to forcibly…
(Harare, April 17th, 2019) Today, April 17th, 2019, the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle, the member organisations of La Via Campesina are reaffirming the Declaration on Peasants’ Rights as a political tool to strengthen the global struggle for decent living and working conditions in rural areas. The Declaration should also be a tool for the worldwide promotion of urgently-needed agrarian…
