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human rights


Global anti-Chevron day objects corporate crimes and impunity
Thousands of demonstrators across all five continents have joined the International Anti-Chevron day to peacefully protest and display global crimes committed by the transnational company against human rights and the environment.
China: ‘Belt and Road’ projects should respect rights
The Chinese government should ensure the projects it finances or engages in under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) respect human rights, said Human Rights Watch.
The globalisation of border control and peoples’ resistance
A workshop aimed to promote a collective analysis of border control, focusing on the power and impunity of transnational corporations, militarization, the externalization of borders, and the link between free trade and migration.
Just, open and green
Trade is for and about people. It should never be separated from its social context. Trade should improve people’s lives and the public good.
EU begins process to hit Cambodia with trade sanctions
The European Union started an 18-month process that could lead to the suspension of Cambodia’s duty-free trade access over its record on human rights and democracy.
EU: Postpone vote on Vietnam free trade agreement
The European Parliament and the European Council should postpone the ratification of the proposed EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement until the Vietnamese government takes concrete steps to improve its increasingly abusive human rights record.
There’s a hidden cost in Trump’s new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico
Investment treaties with ISDS provisions make it hard to tax foreign firms and worsen human rights and labor practices.
The EU’s trade challenge
The international trading system is facing a crisis – but protectionism isn’t the biggest test EU leaders must deal with.
Special economic zones: engines of development or sites of exploitation?
Many SEZs have been associated with compressions of land, labour and human rights. Investment treaties protect investments against adverse regulatory change, including in SEZs. To date, investors have brought at least 20 arbitrations to challenge diverse aspects of SEZ regimes.
Challenging the far right’s nationalist opposition to free trade deals
Extreme right-wing, anti-immigration and Islamophobic parties tend to oppose so-called "free trade" agreements.
Australia-Indonesia free trade deal safe for now but Malaysian criticism swift
Indonesia could delay signing a planned free trade deal with Australia if Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, political analysts suggest, as the move would provoke deep anger in the lead up to the Muslim nation’s presidential election.
The real problem with free trade
Free trade has enabled a few companies to secure monopolies or near-monopolies, which has given rise to massive inequalities.
One hundred years of expropriation without compensation
On 29 July 1918, the British judiciary proffered the Empire’s most expressly and egregiously racist justification for the land dispossession of indigenous peoples. Today, an ICSID tribunal continues that mission. No matter which way Zimbabwean’s turn at the polls, they’re still paying for their invasion and occupation by Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa company...
Dozens of grassroots groups want changes to ‘secret’ trade pact
While some states in East and Southeast Asia favor the 16-nation RCEP trade deal, many civil society groups say it lacks transparency and public participation.
China wants free-trade talks with Norway to be accelerated
Free-trade talks between China and Norway should be sped up, the Chinese government’s top diplomat told his Norwegian counterpart, as the two countries step up efforts to put a row over the Nobel Peace Prize behind them.
The separation of migrant families: cruelty as a migration policy
In an accentuated anti-immigrant context of clear criminalization of Central Americans and Mexicans without migratory documents in their attempt to enter the US, measures on the separation of thousands of families (most of them from Central America) are the new face of the racist nationalism of the American government and its current president.
Expanded free-trade agreement with Turkey attracts criticism
Eleven Swiss groups have called on parliament to refrain from ratifying a revised free-trade agreement with Turkey. They cited the country’s current political climate and human rights situation.
Humanitarian crisis scenarios, Central American migrants in Mexico
The current dimension of international migration is related to the global dynamics of neoliberal capitalism and its effects.
EU’s new trade deal with Mexico promotes CETA-style investors’ rights while ignoring human rights violations by multinationals
A key feature of the “modernisation” process is the inclusion of a controversial investment protection chapter with the same characteristics as the one recently included in the Canada-EU trade agreement.