By Richard Girard
On April 24, 2013, an eight-storey building known as Rana Plaza collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 1,100 garment workers and injuring thousands of others. The victims, mostly women, worked in factories owned by a number of companies (New Wave Bottoms, Phantom, Ether Tex) that make clothing for high-profile retailers, including Walmart, Loblaw, Benetton, Bonmarché, the Children's Place, El Corte Inglés, Mango, Matalan and Primark. In response to the collapse, survivors and outraged Bangladeshis, and global civil society and labour groups, among many others, demanded justice for the killed garment workers.
The Polaris Institute's Executive Director, Richard Girard, is in Geneva this week to participate in a week of mobilization organized by the Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power to pressure the United Nations Human Rights Council to adopt binding codes that would regulate Transnational Corporations and provide access to justice for victims of human rights violations committed by corporations.
The week action kicked off with a hearing of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal...
STATEMENT/PRESS COMMUNIQUE
The 9th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) pushed through a Bali Package in the final hours, extending the Conference to December 7, but at the cost of the developing countries, the poor and the hungry.
(Le français suit)
Polaris Institute's Tony Clarke and Richard Girard along with thousands of activists from hundreds of social movements are in Bali this week to challenge the World Trade Organization during its 9th Ministerial. Here is a press release from the Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power where Polaris is playing a leading role.
Brussels, 5 September 2013
Civil society groups, trade unions, affected communities and MEP’s, will gather at a conference in Brussels later this week to urge the EU to promote an International People’s Treaty & International Tribunal that regulates transnational corporations and investments for the public interest.
