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Campaign news
© Jess Hurd/Global Justice Now
UK and Germany defend vaccine apartheid
Global Justice Now has continued to demand an end to the global ‘vaccine apartheid’ which has seen billions of Covid-19 vaccines distributed in the rich world while less than 2% of people in low-income countries have been protected. Countries like the UK are hoarding enough doses to vaccinate their populations several times over, while continuing to block the suspension of vaccine patents that would enable the world to escalate production and supply.
In June the UK hosted the G7 summit of rich country leaders in Cornwall and Global Justice Now was there to give them a People’s Vaccine welcome. We joined the protests and helped deliver the demands of over 2.5 million people who have signed the global petition for a patent waiver. But the G7 summit failed to address the root causes of vaccine inequality, opting instead for an empty PR exercise by pledging 1 billion doses in donations, which quickly unravelled. Negotiations over suspension of patents at the World Trade Organization have continued, following the breakthrough of the Biden administration’s pledge of support in May, which was backed up by France. But other EU countries, led by Germany, along with the UK, Norway and a handful of others have continued to block the waiver first proposed
by South Africa and India more than a year ago, and now backed by over 100 governments. The EU put forward an alternative proposal in July in an effort to further delay the negotiations, and once again no agreement was reached. Amid all this lack of action, rich countries have announced plans for booster shots or third doses while not prioritising solutions that can bridge the gap between the vaccine hoarders and the rest of the world. By late August 4.8 billion vaccine doses had been delivered globally, with 75% going to only 10 countries while vaccine coverage in Africa was at less than 2%. As Ninety-Nine goes to press, © Jess Hurd/Global Justice Now the modest WHO goal of vaccinating 10% of the population of each nation by the end of September is unlikely to be met, even as close to 10,000 people a day still dying from Covid-19 across the world.
Top: Projecting our message at the G7 summit near St Ives in June. Insert: Protesting in Cornwall.
UK government feels the heat ahead of COP26
Stop corporate courts blocking climate action
Boris Johnson’s government has been criticised over plans to allow two major fossil fuel extraction projects as it prepares to host the crucial COP26 climate summit in November.
Plans for the UK’s first new deep coal mine for 30 years in Whitehaven, Cumbria, were initially approved by the local council, with the government declining to intervene to prevent it. Thousands of Global Justice Now supporters contacted the communities secretary earlier in the year in support of local campaigners demanding he review the approval of the mine. Eventually, they succeeded, and a public inquiry opened in September.
The approval of drilling in the Cambo oil field off the coast of Scotland has become another flashpoint. It threatens to allow up to 800 million new barrels of oil to be extracted, despite the UK being unable to extract all the North Sea oil from existing fields if it is to meet its climate goals.
Global Justice Now is part of the COP26 Coalition which is organising mass mobilisations in Glasgow and London as part of a global day of action on Saturday 6 November (see page 17), as well as a People’s Summit from 7-10 November.
Find out more at globaljustice.org.uk/cop26
Protesters at the UK government building in Edinburgh in July.
No to ISDS Demand climate justice
Stop trade deals from trashing the planet
In September Global Justice Now held a day of action – ‘Corporate Courts vs The Climate' – to highlight the threat that trade deals pose to effective climate action ahead of COP26. Corporate courts, or investor-state dispute settlement, are written into trade rules enabling transnational companies to sue governments outside of the national legal system, and they are increasingly an obstacle to climate justice (see pages 14-16). Across the country, people took action outside fossil fuel companies and law firms which are using corporate courts to sue governments – over phasing out coal power, over limits on offshore oil drilling, over requiring environmental impact assessments of fracking plans, and more. Earlier in the summer Global Justice Now raised a public outcry when we learned that corporate courts were going to be included in the UK-Australia trade deal – and by the end of the month the government had backed down. We joined over 400 organisations across Europe in calling on our governments to exit the Energy Charter Treaty (a giant corporate court deal for energy investments) © Jessica Kleczka/Friends of the Earth Scotland before COP26. And over 5,000 supporters joined us in responding to a government consultation with a call to drop corporate courts in the UK-Canada trade deal.
Government slashes aid budget despite rebellion
July finally saw the government offer parliament a vote on its cuts to the aid budget, from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income. In the preceding months, Global Justice Now supported the campaign to oppose the cuts by encouraging supporters to write to their MPs, providing talks and resources to local groups, and highlighting the devastating impact of the cuts in the media – thank you again to everyone who took action.
Sadly, despite a decent number of Conservative MPs rebelling, the government won by 35 votes. In fact, this result was doubly damaging as the vote also approved government proposals to prevent a return to 0.7% until there is a national budget surplus (something that has happened only once in twenty years).
Despite this disappointment, we will continue to hold the government to account for how they spend what’s left of the aid budget. An unacceptable amount of UK aid continues to be diverted to corporate contractors, for-profit businesses and polluting projects. In the buildup to COP26, we are focusing our attention on ensuring that the UK development bank, CDC Group, stops funding fossil fuels once and for all.
© Liberty
Handing in the joint petition ahead of MPs voting in July.
Defending the right to protest
Global Justice Now has joined widespread opposition to the government’s latest attack on the right to protest contained in the policing bill tabled in March. Measures include giving police the power to criminalise a protest for causing ‘serious annoyance’ or being ‘too noisy’ – surely the definition of a good protest. One MP said the measures “would make a dictator blush”. More than 600,000 people signed a joint petition calling for the anti-protest and assembly measures in the bill to be scrapped, while people in dozens of towns and cities have taken part in several socially distanced days of action since the spring. Nevertheless, the measures passed through the House of Commons in July. It is hoped amendments will be possible as the bill moves through the House of Lords in the autumn. The crackdown is widely seen as a reaction to protests by groups including Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion in recent years, which have helped put anti-racism and climate action on the political map. It is shameful that rather than address these urgent challenges, the government wants to criminalise those who are sounding the alarm. Sign the petition at:
