Justice

Equity, opportunity, access to education. Social determinants of health.

Hunger Games threatens humanitarians for saying Hunger is Not a Game

Flickr, Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer

In case you missed this amid all the hubbub regarding the release of the movie Hunger Games:

The film company Lionsgate, which produced the blockbuster movie based on books about a post-apocalyptic, oppressive and divided America where the poor are starving, abused and also enlisted for gladiator-like sport, threatened to sue Oxfam for riffing off the popular movie to launch its campaign “Hunger is Not a Game.”

As the New York Times reported:

Lionsgate contacted Oxfam requesting that they immediately remove any mention of Hunger Is Not a Game — Oxfam’s campaign to mobilize “Hunger Games” fans to learn about international food justice — from all of their Web sites because it was “causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts.”

As Oxfam’s Seattle coordinator Jon Scanlon mentioned to me the other night at the Humanosphere ChangeUp: “It’s kind of ironic … since the movie is about an oppressive government trying to divert attention away from the fact that people are poor and hungry.”

After an angry, shaming social media onslaught, Lionsgate backed off its threat to sue the humanitarians — and decided to be humanitarian itself.

This kind of web-mediated consumer push back against corporations for a social cause appears to be an encouraging new trend, writes Courtney Martin in the New York Times’ piece:

The incident can be seen as part of a larger developing story about the ways in which the Internet and its savviest fans are threatening corporate control (think, for example, of the response to the highly controversial Stop Online Piracy Act last October). Slack explains, “Hollywood was not sending an olive branch to the youth demographic that they depend on; they were attempting to whack us over the head with a large branch, rendering us unconscious consumers. It’s simply not going to work this way anymore.”

FILED UNDER: Basics, Justice

March 28, 2012 | 9:40 AM | By Tom Paulson

A map of executions around the world

The Guardian has prepared an interactive map showing the number of executions and death penalty sentences — based on reported or estimated executions — around the world. The numbers are based on the annual report of this practice from Amnesty International.

China scores highest, if that’s the right word, but the actual number of executions there is unknown. The U.S. is the only country among the G7 richer nations to still perform executions and has relatively high numbers per capita compared to other countries that still execute criminals. As usual, this is just a capture so go to the link for the map.

The Guardian

FILED UNDER: Justice, Amnesty International, death penalty

March 26, 2012 | 3:25 PM | By Tom Paulson

Steve Davis, entrepreneur and rights advocate, to head PATH

PATH

Steve Davis, CEO at PATH

Steve Davis has been selected by PATH’s board to take the position of president and CEO.

Davis, a business management and social innovation expert whose primary experience is with McKinsey & Co. , will replace Dr. Chris Elias, who recently left the Seattle-based global health organization to head up the development program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Davis is former CEO of the digital media company Corbis (which is owned by Bill Gates) who has in recent years moved more into the global health and development sphere.

In one sense, his new job leading PATH represents a return to where he started — as a refugee settlement coordinator on the Thai-Laos border in the 1980s and later, as a young attorney, working on human rights issues in China, for gay and lesbian rights here in the U.S. and as a passionate advocate for the disenfranchised in general.

“This for me is not so much a re-invention as more like coming home,” Davis said today. “I’ve been involved in social justice all my life.”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Health, Justice, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, Steve Davis

March 15, 2012 | 11:20 AM | By Tom Paulson

George Clooney’s campaign against some other war crimes in Africa

George Clooney, who has praised the Stop Kony campaign aimed at ridding east-central Africa of warlord Joseph Kony, is trying to make sure our focus on such efforts isn’t too singular.

The actor and human rights advocate has long been focused on the ongoing atrocities in Sudan and recently testified in Congress to draw attention to the killings, conflict and suffering. He recently snuck into a dangerous part of the country and produced this powerful, disturbing video.

While there’s no denying the criminality and terrible legacy of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, Kony’s ability to inflict death and destruction is fairly limited these days. Clooney’s efforts in southern Sudan should serve as a reminder that there are many fronts in the war on those who commit crimes against humanity.

Some related stories

GlobalPost George Clooney says Sudan government guilty of war crimes

Washington Post Clooney urges Congress to take action to stop South Sudan war crimes

Foreign Policy The Other Sudanese Civil War

NOTE: Clooney’s video has had about 26,000 views on YouTube as of this writing. That compares to something like 70 million so far for the Stop Kony video.

FILED UNDER: Justice, Politics, George Clooney, human rights, South Sudan, Sudan, war crimes

March 13, 2012 | 11:50 AM | By Tom Paulson

Geena Davis in Seattle, calls for the ‘next women’s movement’

"Thelma & Louise" by MGM, Ridley Scott director

Actor and women’s advocate Geena Davis — Thelma in the 1991 hit ‘neo-feminist’ movie Thelma & Louise — was in Seattle Monday evening calling for a renewed women’s movement worldwide.

Women 3.0

“We’re due for a resurgence of the women’s movement,” Davis said to a packed room at Seattle Town Hall. Though the Seattle crowd was by far mostly women and girls, she spoke earlier in the day on the Microsoft campus in Redmond to a packed room of mostly men. The event was sponsored by Global Washington.

Davis, who was in town stumping for her philanthropy, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, spent a lot of time fielding questions and criticizing the way women are portrayed — and perceived — in Hollywood and throughout the media. But her concerns are much more global.

Davis repeatedly emphasized that many, if not all, of the international community’s goals (the Millennium Development Goals) for fighting poverty and improving the welfare of those living in the poorest parts of the world depend upon improving the circumstances of women and girls.

“We need to make people realize that these issues, of social justice and poverty, are women’s issues,” she said. “It’s a mistake to think there are ‘women’s issues’ over here and these other problems over there.”

Meryl Schenker, www.merylschenker.com

Geena Davis, with Chris Grumm, left, Andrea Taylor, center, at Seattle Town Hall

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Justice, Geena Davis, human rights, millennium development goals, women

March 6, 2012 | 11:08 AM | By Tom Paulson

Global safe drinking water goal achieved

Mike Urban, mikeurbanart.com

Borehole water supply, Nigeria

Amid all the dire reports that seem to indicate the world is going to heck in a handbasket, here’s some good news:

The United Nations children’s agency, otherwise known as UNICEF, reports that 89 percent of the world’s population now has access to safe drinking water. As the Washington Post said:

The water target was one of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to reduce global poverty that government leaders, nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations have been working to achieve, with varying success.

This is cause for celebration, The Guardian notes, yet this milestone should not deflect attention from the fact that many hundreds of millions more — nearly a billion people — still lack access to clean and safe drinking. And, as also noted by The Guardian, about 2.5 billion don’t have proper sanitation which puts them at risk of many diseases and of contaminating their local water resources.

It should be noted that much of the progress achieved over the past decade has been due to improved living conditions in China and India, and that many parts of the world are still in desperate need of safe water and sanitation. Reuters quotes the head of the UN:

“Some regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, are lagging behind,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report. “Many rural dwellers and the poor often miss out on improvements to drinking water and sanitation. Reducing these disparities must be a priority.”

FILED UNDER: Basics, Health, Justice, millennium development goals, sanitation, UNICEF, United Nations, water

February 28, 2012 | 10:12 AM | By Tom Paulson

On human rights, U.S. pursues ‘global governance’ on its own

The Council on Foreign Relations has produced an interactive “Global Governance” monitor to, as they say: “Track, map and evaluate international efforts to address today’s global challenges.”

Council on Foreign Relations

One of the categories monitored by CFR is international human rights (go to link for map, above is just a screen grab) which as you can tell upon a quick glance at the map is one issue in which the U.S. takes a minority stance.

I point this out because international human rights, as NPR reports, was a big issue before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The first case is brought by Nigerians with political asylum in the U.S. who are seeking to sue Shell Oil for complicity in government abuses and atrocities they suffered in Nigeria. The other regards an American citizen allegedly abducted and murdered by the Palestinian Liberation Organization:

Human rights are front and center at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in two cases testing how American law intersects with international law. At issue in both cases is whether foreign nationals in the United States can sue corporations or other entities in U.S. courts for alleged violations of human rights.

Given this, it’s worth taking a closer look at CFR’s Human Rights map. It’s interactive, full of lots more information (and better resolution at their website).

As the map shows, the United States is among a minority of countries to have not agreed to adhere to the statutes of the International Criminal Court. I’m not an expert on international law, but I wondered if these cases going to the U.S. Supreme Court next week should not more appropriately be heard at the International Criminal Court.

Why is the U.S. legal system in charge of deciding if Nigerians can sue Royal Dutch Shell Oil? Why is the U.S. Supreme Court trying a case, the one against the Palestinian Authority, which perhaps should be more a matter for the International Criminal Court, or maybe the U.S. State Department or diplomats?

These cases are all being brought on the basis of some obscure 1789 law called the Alien Tort Law, which was originally passed to fight pirates. NPR reports:

Shell Oil counters that corporations cannot be sued in the United States under the Alien Tort Statute because international law doesn’t recognize corporate liability for human rights crimes.

Well, why doesn’t it? Again, I am not at all knowledgeable when it comes to international law. Are these cases being tried here because of the gaps in international law governing corporate behavior — or because the U.S. refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court? Or both?

In any case, the CFR map indicates how the U.S. often tends to avoid participating in established ‘global governance’ mechanisms and, instead, often ends up trying to govern the globe on its own.

FILED UNDER: Justice, Politics, Council on Foreign Relations, human rights, International Criminal Court, law, Nigeria, Palestine, Shell Oil, Supreme Court

January 19, 2012 | 10:58 AM | By Tom Paulson

Land grab: Ethiopia boots 70,000; Brits displace 20,000 in Uganda

Flickr, IRIN

Displacement action enforced by soldiers

Aid organizations are trying to call attention to a little-noticed but massive plague spreading across Africa that is destroying communities, throwing many deeper into poverty and perhaps causing the deaths of many thousands.

Not AIDS or malaria.

It’s an outbreak of property seizures and community displacements known as the land grab. The forced displacement of 70,000 people in Ethiopia is the latest example of this phenomenon. Human Rights Watch reports that this is being done illegally, and for the benefit of large-scale commercial agriculture.

The news media has a few reports on this, such as UPI’s Thousands Driven Out or BBC’s oddly he-says-she-says report pitting Human Rights Watch against Ethiopian official deniers.

Why doesn’t the BBC just go there to find out for itself? Oh yeah, staff cutbacks. As I’ve noted before, humanitarian organizations are increasingly doing the basic reporting of issues for the incredibly shrinking media overseas.

Last fall, Oxfam International did much the same thing in Uganda, drawing media attention to an ongoing reforestation project operated there by a British firm that the advocacy organization said had prompted the brutal and illegal displacement of 20,000 peasant farmers.

Now, due in part to Oxfam’s criticism and the resulting loss of World Bank support for the development project, the London-based New Forests Company has decided — after displacing the 20,000 farmers and employing some 500 other Ugandans as foresters — to close up the operation and leave.

This is a serious problem. But Oxfam knows you get tired of big, serious problems. So here’s a funny (and somewhat pointed) video on the African land grab from Oxfam, which is one of the leading humanitarian organizations trying to draw attention to this disturbing trend:

For a more serious and focused video report showing Oxfam’s critique of the reforestation project in Uganda, go to this link.

Another organization working to help smallholder farmers and poor communities hold on to their land is Seattle-based Landesa. I’ve written before about Landesa, which tends to take a more low-profile and diplomatic tack to solving this problem.

Landesa has done an excellent overview here describing what’s driving this land rush in poor countries and how we can work to both protect the poor without discouraging commercial investment.

The first step, as always, is to recognize we have a problem. Here’s hoping this issue rises up on the media radar screen. It’s big and it’s not getting the attention it deserves.

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