On July 8, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Uruguayan Senate approved Law no. 19889, the Urgent Consideration Law (UCL), as is known the project presented by the right-wing coalition government led by Luis Lacalle Pou. The “urgent consideration” character meant that the content of the law had to be addressed within a maximum period of 90…
Environmental federation Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is mobilising again on 8 March, International Women's Day. The national, regional and global struggles of FoEI member groups are based on the principles of Gender Justice and Dismantling Patriarchy as a key aspect to build social, environmental and economic justice. [embed]https://twitter.com/FoEint/status/1500382507056906242[/embed] On this occasion, Real World Radio asked Latin American and…
“The participation of young people in COPINH has been strengthened, and new leaderships have been emerging. Every day we want to help the youth, so that they do not replicate the same flaws as so many social organisations”, stated Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, General Coordinator for COPINH, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras. This is six years…
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…
Three years ago, on January 25, 2019, at 12:28 noon, the Dam I of the mine Córrego do Feijão, run by the company Vale SA, collapsed. It contained 12 million cubic meters of mud with toxic waste that spilled over #Brumadinho and continued its course through the Paraopeba River and the San Francisco River. This mud spill killed 272 people,…
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…
The African Peoples Tribunal (APT) that took place this year, after its first edition in November 2020, was developed by Friends of the Earth Africa, Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands), Friends of the Earth International, and Rainforest Action Network. This time, the APT took 10 cases, from 10 countries where Friends of the Earth has member groups, grassroots or…
Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) and Foe Brazil denounce in a report published early this year that the European Union (EU)-Mercosur trade deal will increase environmental disasters, in this case, by increasing the export of meat from Brazil to Europe through supply chains of transnational companies to supply major European retailers. This is happening “while deforestation skyrockets and Brazil…
The United Nations (UN) negotiations for a Binding Treaty to regulate human rights violations perpetrated by transnational corporations and enable victims to access justice “have taken a qualitative leap forward,” declared the Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity . Following the seventh round of negotiations hosted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva from 25-29 October,…
“What we see at the international level and often at the national level is an imbalance between the rights of peoples and the rights of corporations,” warned environmental activist Sam Cossar-Gilbert, speaking about the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism in a recent webinar. ISDS is “a biased justice system, organised by private lawyers, not by judges, and it's a tool…
