State of Power

As governments take action to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent economic collapse, big law firms are watching the virus too. Yet, their concern is not to save lives or the economy. Instead, the lawyers are urging big business to challenge the social and economic emergency measures that governments around the world have taken to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. 2600 investment protection agreements worldwide have opened the door for transnational companies to sue States for billions of dollars In a parallel corporate justice system called Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).   A new report, Cashing in on the Pandemic, takes a close look at how lawyers are preparing to sue states over COVID-19 measures.   Guests:  Pia Eberhadt (researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory)   Cecilia Olivet (researcher with TNI)    Image: Anastasya Eliseeva

How do we ensure that the economic response to COVID-19 also addresses existing crises, most of all the unfolding climate crisis? How do we build a truly Global Green New Deal that delivers transformation and justice especially in the Global South? This webinar  features leading international activists and thinkers, bringing fresh new perspectives on how to embed just transition into our response to the coronavirus pandemic. Panellists: * Richard Kozul-Wright, Director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, author of Transforming Economies: Making Industrial Policy Work for Growth, Jobs and Development * Karin Nansen, chair of Friends of the Earth International, founding member of REDES – Friends of the Earth Uruguay * Sandra van NIekerk, One Million Climate Jobs Campaign, South Africa * Asad Rehman, Executive Director, War on Want. Co-organiser of Global Green New Deal Campaign.

This episode examines authoritarian and repressive state responses to the Coronavirus pandemic, featuring the UN Special Rapporteur on Protecting Human Rights and other global experts and activists. In response to an unprecedented global health emergency, many states are rolling out measures from deploying armies and drones to control public space, to expanding digital control through facial recognition technology and tracker apps. What if these measures become permanent once the pandemic has subsided? What if health is repurposed as a national security issue? How do we ensure that COVID-19 doesn’t become the new 9/11 – a new milestone in authoritarian states of control? This episode  explores the political dimension of state responses, particularly the securitisation of COVID-19 through the expansion of powers for military, police, and security forces. Panellists explore how we can prevent these practices from being normalised and how to use our collective experiences of solidarity to construct a more just, democratic, and rights-centered world. Panellists- Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, UN Special Rapporteur on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, University of Minnesota Arun Kundnani, New York University, author of The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror and The End of Tolerance: racism in 21st century Britain María Paz Canales, Derechos Digitales (Digital Rights campaign), Chile Anuradha Chenoy, School of International Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, and author of 'Militarisation and Women in South Asia'

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed like never before the perils of governments handing over our right to health and life to corporations. The privatisation of our health has made millions of people vulnerable to infectious diseases and undermined the integrated public systems needed to coordinate an effective response. This webinar brings healthcare experts together with activists at the forefront of struggles for equitable universal public healthcare from across the globe. Panelists speak about the changes that will be needed in terms of access to medicines, the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare systems, and the global governance of health. Organised by TNI and co-sponsored by AIDC, Focus on the Global South, Corporate Accountability International, People's Health Movement (PHM), Public Services International, Global Justice Now (GJN), RedLAM-Red Latinoamericana Acceso a Medicamentos, ABIA-Brazilian AIDS Interdisciplinary Association, and GTPI/Rebrip - Working Group on Intellectual Property. Panellists: • Susan George, President of the Transnational Institute and author of 'Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations are Seizing Power' (2015). • Kajal Bhardwaj, health and human rights lawyer, India • Mark Heywood, Co-founder of Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa • Baba Aye, Health Office, Public Services International (PSI) • David Legge, People’s Health Movement representative

A conversation between Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Indonesia and Europe. This episode explores how globalised industrial food systems set the scene for the emergence of COVID-19 and the structural connections between industrial agriculture, pathogens and precarious working conditions. It also explores the different realities people face right now, and how these impact ongoing struggles for more just food systems and societies. Panelists: - Rob Wallace author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and co-author of Neoliberal Ebola: Modeling Disease Emergence from Finance to Forest and Farm. - Moayyad of Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), member organization of La Via Campesina in Palestine. - Arie Kurniawaty of Indonesian feminist organization Solidaritas Perempuan (SP) which works with women in grassroots communities across the urban-rural spectrum. - Sai Sam Kham of Metta Foundation in Myanmar. - Paula Gioia, peasant farmer in Germany and member of the Coordination Committee of the European Coordination Via Campesina.

What are the likely global impacts of the economic fallout from the Coronavirus pandemic? What would a peoples' agenda look like? How might we be better prepared than in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis to put forward progressive solutions that address the immediate crisis as well as existing crises of poverty, inequality and environmental destruction? Panellists: - Professor Jayati Ghosh, award-winning economist Jawaharlal Nehru University, India - Quinn Slobodian, associate professor of history, Wellesley College. Author of Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018). - Walden Bello, author of Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash (2019) and Capitalism’s Last Stand?: Deglobalization in the Age of Austerity (2013) - Lebohang Liepollo Pheko, Senior Research Fellow of Trade Collective, a thinktank in South Africa that works on international trade, globalisation, regional integration and feminist economics

With Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017) as well as experts on public health systems and activists on the frontlines responding to the crisis in the Global South. Images from Italy of the army unloading coffins, exhausted doctors and fearful citizens in ever more countries shocked the world and pushed even recalcitrant politicians into action. But the real health disaster could still be ahead of us as the pandemic spreads in countries in the Global South, impoverished by decades of policies of neoliberal austerity, with weak public health systems and people already in highly precarious conditions. It will not be enough to respond at only a community or national level. How can social movements mobilise an internationalist response?

This episode is an extract from the first in our series of webinars focused on Covid-19, which featured a presentation by Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017), as well as contributions from experts on public health systems and activists on the frontlines responding to the crisis in the Global South. Images from Italy of the army unloading coffins, exhausted doctors and fearful citizens in ever more countries  shocked the world and pushed even recalcitrant politicians into action. But the real health disaster could still be ahead of us as the pandemic spreads in countries in the Global South, impoverished by decades of policies of neoliberal austerity, with weak public health systems and people already in highly precarious conditions. It will not be enough to respond at only a community or national level. How can social movements mobilise an internationalist response? Panellists:  - Sonia Shah, award-winning investigative science journalist and author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017). - Luis Ortiz Hernandez, public health professor in UAM-Xochimilco, Mexico. Expert on social and economic health inequities. - Benny Kuruvilla, Head of India Office, Focus on the Global South, working closely with Forum For Trade Justice. - Mazibuko Jara, Deputy Director, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, helping to coordinate a national platform of civic organisations in South Africa to confront COVID-19. This webinar, organised by Transnational Institute and co-sponsored by Alternative Information and Development Centre, South Africa and Focus on the Global South/Asia, is available in full:  www.tni.org/webinars 

This episode is an extract from the third edition in our weekly webinar series, which  featured a dialogue between Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Indonesia and Europe. The webinar  explored how globalised industrial food systems set the scene for the emergence of COVID-19, and examined the structural connections between industrial agriculture, pathogens and precarious working conditions. It  also brought out the different realities people face in light of the pandemic, and how these impact ongoing struggles for more just food systems and societies. Panellists: Rob Wallace author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and co-author of Neoliberal Ebola: Modeling Disease Emergence from Finance to Forest and Farm. Moayyad Bsharat of Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), member organization of La Via Campesina in Palestine. Arie Kurniawaty of Indonesian feminist organization Solidaritas Perempuan (SP) which works with women in grassroots communities across the urban-rural spectrum. Sai Sam Kham of Metta Foundation in Myanmar. Paula Gioia, peasant farmer in Germany and member of the Coordination Committee of the European Coordination Via Campesina. Watch the full webinar:  www.tni.org/webinars  Photo: Peasant working in the field / Credit: Dinkum/Wikimedia Commons. 

Two decades ago, and without significant public debate, an obscure international investment agreement entered into force. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) gives foreign investors in the energy sector sweeping powers to sue states for millions of dollars over government actions that have supposedly ‘damaged’ their investments.  In recent years, the ECT has become increasingly controversial – because of its potential to obstruct the transition from climate-wrecking fossil fuels towards renewable energy. It also has the capacity to lock-in failed energy privatisations, and undermines the provision of energy at affordable prices. But despite the growing controversy, countries in the global south, particularly in Africa,  are in the process of joining this outdated and damaging treaty.  Guests:  Faith Lumonya, Programme Officer, Trade and Investment Programme, SEATINI Uganda Pia Eberhardt, researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory Cecilia Olivet, Coordinator, Trade and Investment programme, TNI. You can find out more on www.energy-charter-dirty-secrets.org/ Image source: Gretar Ívarsson: Wikimedia "The Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant in Þingvellir, Iceland"