Eat Your Greens

Paul Eagle, from the Amnesty UK Business Team, kindly came down to Blackheath on Tuesday night and gave a talk about the Business & Human Rights campaign. Here are the notes from the evening, pasted straight from our newsletter.

Businesses and economic institutions are increasingly coming into conflict with human rights due to a variety of reasons, the main one being globalization. Almost all multinationals no longer produce in the West but in third world countries. Multinationals can also influence the national governments in developing countries. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Association are all influence by them. India and China especially are developing rapidly and are using natural resources in Africa to fuel their growth.

Accountability: A difficult issue. Most multinational companies, many Western governments, business associations and lobbyists prefer voluntarism and self-regulation as they consider this necessary to remain competitive. Civil societies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), damaged communities and employee organizations prefer regulation which needs to be at an international level to be effective – not always easily achievable.

Corporate Responsibility (CORE): Started five years ago as a group of environmental, developmental and human rights NGOs when the Labour government decided to review UK Company law. The new Companies Act came into effect in November 2006. Public companies now have to report on social / environmental impacts, employees, risks in their supply chains. Directors are accountable for these impacts. The government has committed to review the Act in 2 years time as to its effectiveness.

Blood Diamonds: A joint campaign with Global Witness who provide the research and AI provides the activists. The film has been successful in highlighting the issues, and the industry has agreed to make changes to the gaps identified in the Kimberley Process. Its aim is to track each diamond from the mine to the retailer.

Freedom of Expression and Internet Repression: The main focus is China, especially in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics. Campaigning against corporate complicity of global software and hardware companies. China is now even able to export their repressive technology.

The United Nations Norms and UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights: Produced by the UN Human Rights Commission they bring together all the relevant aspects of international law that affect multinational businesses. Professor John Ruggie was appointed Special Representative for two years and has published his report now. He has asked for his mandate to be extended for another year which AI welcomes as it gives them someone to lobby. The UN Norms are currently being tested voluntarily by some multinationals.

Other possible areas of work and links to other campaign areas are Corruption (f.e. BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia), Privatisation of detention centres holding asylum seekers.

Links
Amnesty UK Business Team
Business and human rights
Corporate responsibility

Posted by Jimbo at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been reading Amnesty's new report on the internet and freedom of expression in China. The specific focus is the complicity of Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft in human rights abuses in China by facilitating and sanctioning government censorship.

The full report is available from the Amnesty UK website (you have to scroll down a bit to find a link to the PDF). It's worth reading if you're interested in business ethics and this whole Web 2.0 thing.

• Google self-censor their Chinese search engine, but at least inform users that censorship has occurred.
• Microsoft censor MSN Spaces in China by restricting the terms that users can use in their account names, space names or photo captions. A Chinese pro-democracy blog was also shut down by Microsoft in December 2005 – removing it not only from the web in China, but from the web as a whole.
• Yahoo! are the company most strongly criticised in the report. Yahoo!'s disclosure of private account information to the Chinese authorities has led to the convictions of two journalists. Both are considered prisoners of conscience.
  Update: make that three people in jail.

Posted by Jimbo at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Royal Astronomical Society press list today:

On the evening of 3 March the Moon will move directly behind the Earth in a total lunar eclipse. This is the only eclipse visible from the UK this year.

The Moon will begin to move into the lighter part of the shadow of the Earth (the penumbra) at 2016 GMT and from that time it will take on a yellowish tint. It will enter the darker core of the shadow (the umbra) at 2130 GMT. The total eclipse starts at 2244 GMT when the Moon is completely immersed in the umbra. Totality will end at 2358 GMT, the Moon will move out from the umbra completely at 0111 GMT (on 4 March) and the eclipse will come to an end when the Moon leaves the penumbra at 0225 GMT.

Although fairly common, total lunar eclipses can be spectacular events. Normally the Moon does not disappear completely but is lit by sunlight scattered through the Earth’s atmosphere and takes on a beautiful brick-red hue. At the time of the eclipse, the Moon will be in front of the stars of the constellation of Leo and from the UK it will be high in the southern sky.

Posted by Jimbo at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NASA/JPL released new pictures of Saturn from the Cassini mission today, including views from high above, and below, the ring system. See the full set on their web site.

The mpeg movie of a ring crossing is well worth watching, if you have the time to download it.

Posted by Jimbo at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)