At the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity taking place in Montreal, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) has denounced the negotiations for the Global Biodiversity Framework, saying they are “captured” by transnational corporations and that the solutions on the table are actually false solutions. During a press conference held on Friday…
In a context where scientists state that the natural world is in a dire situation and that “human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before,” the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is taking place in Montreal, Canada, from 7-19 December. There, governments will seek to agree…
The eighth round of United Nations negotiations for a Binding Treaty to regulate the human rights violations committed by transnational corporations begins this Monday 24 October 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. These international talks began in Geneva in 2015 at the UN Human Rights Council. This year, they present new challenges for social movements and organisations that have been pushing for…
On the International Day of Struggle Against Monoculture Tree Plantations, activist Sandra Escobar tells us a story of pain and joy, as peoples in Honduras struggle against the expansion of oil palm plantations and build alternatives together. Approximately 198,000 hectares of Honduras are planted with oil palm crops, representing almost 2% of the country’s land. Annually, it produces 2.4 million…
Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) launched on Friday a new study entitled “Internationalist Solidarity and the struggle against corporate power. Reflections on the Covid 19 pandemic and corporate violations of peoples’ rights and their human rights.” The study responded to the need to better explain “the meaning of peoples’ rights and the direct link with…
“We've been expecting this sentence for almost a year. This opens a very important stage in order to realise this guilty verdict against one of the killers of my mother, our comrade Berta Cáceres,” said Bertha Zúniga, the coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). The leader warned that the judicial decision could still…
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,…
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…
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…
