Globalism

(Versions in español and français available below)

In September 2004, a number of organisations initiated a collaborative website to support peoples’ struggles against bilateral free trade and investment agreements: http://www.bilaterals.org. The initiators included the Asia-Pacific Research Network, GATT Watchdog, Global Justice Ecology Project, GRAIN, IBON Foundation and XminY Solidariteitsfonds.

When the site was set up, the collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Cancún and the stalling of the US-driven Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) were being celebrated by numerous opponents of neoliberal globalisation. But behind the scenes, powerful governments — especially the US and Europe — were quietly moving to sign far-reaching bilateral free trade and investment deals in order to achieve what they and their transnational corporations (TNCs) had not been able to get at the multilateral level. read more

It has become broadly accepted that controlling the spread and use of small arms is vital in establishing genuine human security.  The abuse of small arms is directly related to the violation of the right to life. In practice, it is small arms which are killing today both in armed conflicts and in domestic and community violence. 

The multiple dimensions of the problem of the unrestricted flow and wide availability of small arms range beyond the confines of arms control and disarmament.  Nevertheless, it was in the structure of the UN’s disarmament division that "The UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA) was drafted in 2001. read more

In the late Spring of 2003, amidst the political fallout of "Old Europe's" refusal to support the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threw down a gauntlet that threatened to permanently aggravate transatlantic hostilities. As a political favor to its agribusiness allies in the Midwestern farm belt, the administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) seeking to overturn Europe's de facto five-year moratorium on approvals of new genetically engineered crop varieties. The governments of Argentina and Canada also signed on to the complaint; together these three countries grow roughly 80 percent of the world's genetically engineered crops.