Ninety Nine magazine - January 2017

Challenging the power of the

Issue 07 - January 2017

Challenging the rise of corporate power Food, health, education – is nothing safe?

Also in this issue Animals, drugs and superbugs Brandalism: democratising public spaces The greed of big pharma in South Africa

ISSUE 07: January 2017 03 Campaign news 06 Global news 08 Animals, drugs and superbugs 10 The corporation as a psychopath 13 Global Justice Now supporters 14 What’s wrong with TISA? 16 Corporate power and public spaces 18 The greed of big pharma in South Africa 19 Reviews Ninety-Nine is published three times a year by Global Justice Now Global Justice Now campaigns for a world where resources are controlled by the many, not the few.

We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to the rule of the 1%. Our activists and groups in towns and cities around the UK work in solidarity with those at the sharp end of poverty and injustice.

Ninety-Nine magazine, Global Justice Now 66 Offley Road, London SW9 0LS 020 7820 4900 • offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk • globaljustice.org.uk Editor: Kevin Smith Design: Matt Bonner www.revoltdesign.org Cover image: © UPI/Monika Graff Isabel Valesco, 4, of Queens, sits on her father’s shoulders as she is among the thousands of protestors joining the Occupy Wall Street rally in Time Square to call for the end of corporate greed on October 15, 2011 in New York City.

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Laying the blame where it belongs Kevin Smith Press officer It’s safe to say that the tumultuous events of 2016 took almost everyone by surprise. Regardless of your political persuasion, it was a year of enormous change. And we haven’t yet begun to feel the real impacts of those changes. Trump has only just taken office in the White House, and Theresa May has yet to initiate the formal process for the UK to leave the EU. However much many of us might hope for this year to be less eventful than the last, in all likelihood there are rockier roads ahead.

One of the most disturbing aspects of both Trump’s ascendancy in the US and the rise of populist xenophobia in the UK is that they have been skilfully framed as revolts against elites, and as returning control to the neglected masses. These are objectives that we could definitely get behind at Global Justice Now, but sadly this is a case of cynical rhetoric being used to mask a very different political agenda.

In different ways, Trump and the ‘populist’ Brexiteers are taking the uncertainty that people are facing and laying the blame squarely on Mexicans, migrants, Muslims, Brussels, whoever… And in doing so they have very effectively drawn attention away from much more fundamental problems in the world. Problems Trump and Brexiteers such as political and economic systems have effectively where profit is constantly prioritised over people, drawn attention and where big business away from much and corporations are increasing calling the more fundamental shots at the expense of problems in the world. democratic institutions.

That’s why in 2017 we’re going to push back against this trend and highlight the harm that corporate power and influence is having in so many areas of our lives.

In this issue of Ninety-Nine we’ve used health and medicine as one example of how we’ll go about this. Around the world we see bacteria developing deadly resistance to various antibiotics, but corporate power preventing the necessary action from being taken (p8). Meanwhile in South Africa women are needlessly dying of breast cancer because a drug company prices an effective treatment out of reach of ordinary people (p19).

It’s critical this year that we push back against corporate power, and lay the blame for the problems we’re facing it where it belongs, rather than continuing to allow Trump and Brexit populists to scapegoat the ‘other’.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

CETA comes back from the dead In autumn it looked like CETA, the EU-Canada trade deal, was almost dead and buried – but it has made a comeback.

Global Justice Now activists have been campaigning hard against CETA for much the same reasons they did against TTIP, the trade deal between the EU and the USA. These deals are not about lowering trade barriers, but about handing corporations a whole raft of farreaching new powers, including a new system of ‘corporate courts’ that would enable them to sue governments for making laws that could harm their profits.

European and Canadian leaders wanted to sign off CETA smoothly in October, but they hit a stumbling block with one region of Belgium, Wallonia. The Belgian government needs to get the approval of all its devolved regions to sign on to such deals, and Wallonia had been raising concerns about CETA for two years

© Nicholls/Global Justice

in response to public pressure. These had largely been ignored by the EU until they realised at the last moment that Wallonia was serious.

The signing was unable to proceed for the moment. However, Wallonia eventually gave it the go-ahead after winning some concessions.

These included a commitment by the Belgian government to refer the corporate court system to the European Court of Justice to find out if it is actually compatible with EU law – many legal experts think it isn’t.

The deal still needs the approval of the European parliament before it can be provisionally implemented.

Then all the member countries of the EU have to go through national ratification processes before it is fully approved. There are some 38 national and regional parliaments who would need to vote. If any of them reject it, the deal fails!

Some MEPs wanted to get that

European Court of Justice judgement on the legality of the corporate court system to inform their decision before voting, and over 5,000 of you wrote to MEPs to ask them to support this.

Sadly that proposal was lost, but it showed that we are closer to a ‘no’ vote on CETA in the parliament than we ever expected to be.

The European parliament vote is scheduled for the start of February.

Working with allies across Europe, Global Justice Now supporters are emailing, writing to and meeting with MEPs, calling on them to reject this toxic trade deal and put it back in the grave once and for all.

There’s still time to email your representatives in the European parliament before the vote in February: globaljustice.org.uk/stopCETA

Now

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© Joyce Nicholls/Global Justice

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Monsanto on trial: Speaker tour and photo exhibition A Bangladeshi seed campaigner and a photo exhibition toured five UK cities in October in the run-up to the Monsanto People’s Tribunal.

All five events were packed out, with over a hundred attending to hear campaigner Farida Akhtar speak, see the photos and get involved in local activism.

We then travelled with Farida to The Hague, where she gave evidence to the tribunal. Over 30 witnesses gave testimony on the impact of Monsanto on communities, livelihoods and environments across the world. These included a scientist from India, a cotton farmer from Burkina Faso, victims of spraying in Colombia and Argentina and an agricultural specialist from Paraguay.

You can watch some of the testimonies online at monsanto-tribunal.org The tribunal will deliver its opinion in Spring 2017. This will provide legal arguments for affected groups around the world to pursue legal action in national courts.

Calling time on corporate crimes Work is stepping up on a treaty to hold corporations to account for their human rights abuses, with the UN holding a second round of talks on the treaty in October.

In the lead up to the talks more than 90,000 people from across Europe had written to their governments to ask them to take part in the negotiations – including more than 8,000 Global Justice Now supporters. The pressure worked and the EU participated in the talks, alongside campaigners and civil 4 Ninety-Nine 2017

society groups from all over the world.

This is a big step in the right direction, but an international treaty to stop corporate impunity is still a long way off.

Europe’s biggestever gathering on food sovereignty The ‘Nyeleni Europe’ European food sovereignty gathering in Romania brought together small-scale farmers, campaigners and food co-ops from 42 different countries under one roof in November.

Following on from the first European gathering in 2010, where the movement decided on a set of beliefs and themes of shared struggles, this year’s forum took those struggles and turned them into campaigns. Groups discussed in depth how to campaign on issues like workers’ rights, the practice of agroecology and access to land.

Two Global Justice Now campaigners were privileged to be a part of such lively debates and have returned with a wealth of campaign ideas, understanding of the movement and, most importantly, relationships with farmers and activists from all over Europe.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Youth network off to a flying start Global Justice Now has set up a new youth network, run by and for people under the age of 28.

Millions of young people are affected by debt, precarious work, heightened levels of anxiety and rising education costs. Increasing levels of racism and xenophobia, the effects of corporate-led trade deals and climate change are shaping the future the younger generation will grow up in.

But recent years have shown us that young people won’t take this lying down. Young activists were at the heart of the Occupy movement worldwide, the Arab Spring, and the resurgence of the student movement in the UK. Closer to our work, the development of the Students

Against TTIP network showed us that there is real appetite among young people to engage with Global Justice Now campaigns.

The new network launched with two days of political education and training in London and Manchester, and groups have now set up in Leeds, Manchester, Falmouth and London, with interest in other places. These groups have already been organising public meetings, film screenings and stunts on a variety of issues and are gearing up for more action in 2017. Watch this space.

If you want more information about the youth network, email youth.network@globaljustice.org.uk © Luca Neve

Protest at the European Custody and Detention Summit.

Tower of London hosts the profiteers of misery In November, the Tower of London hosted Europe’s private security industry as they gathered for a twoday summit. Disguised as an event to improve care for people in detention, in reality it was a swish £1,500-a-head event for companies such as G4S to forge lucrative business deals.

Global Justice Now joined campaigners from prison justice and refugee rights groups to demand an end to this profiteering from locking people up. With the UK incarcerating thousands of migrants in privately-run immigration detention centres every year, this was an important stand against the increasingly privatised border enforcement industry.

© Joyce Nicholls/Global Justice Now 2017 Ninety-Nine 5

GLOBAL NEWS MOVEMENT NEWS

© Revolution Messaging

Indigenous uprising stops oil pipeline in its tracks

A rider looking over the Sacred Stone Camp.

The Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota have scored a major victory in their battle against the construction of an oil pipeline on their land – with the help of thousands of people who came to their protest camp from across North America. The Sioux people have been resisting the pipeline since spring. It would have desecrated numerous sites of spiritual and cultural significance.

The coming together of representatives of over 200 Native American nations to support the Sacred Stone Camp has been described as “the civil rights issue of our time.” Despite the authorities using tear gas and water cannons in freezing conditions, the camp maintained its presence and in December a key permit for the construction of the pipeline was denied.

While the permit denial was widely celebrated as a victory, Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network urged caution, saying, “More threats are likely in the year to come and we cannot stop until this pipeline is completely and utterly defeated and our water and climate are safe.”

Ghana’s new debt trap The World Bank has broken its own rules on high interest loans to Ghana, according to the Jubilee Debt Campaign. The bank guaranteed payments on a loan with an interest rate of 11%, despite its own assessment that the West African country is at high risk of debt crisis.

Ghana’s debts have increased

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rapidly after falls in gold and oil prices, two of the country’s main exports. Government spending is being cut by 20% per person in response to the crisis, but the high interest rates to foreign speculators continue to be paid.

Ghanaian organisations including the Integrated Social Development

Centre are calling for a public audit and renegotiation of the debt and a clampdown on tax avoidance.

Bernard Anaba from the centre said: “Debt should not be a bad thing, but if money is borrowed in the name of poor people, not spent well, and people are slapped with austerity as a result, that is a gross injustice.”

GLOBAL MOVEMENT GLOBAL NEWS

India’s general strike – the biggest in human history Tens of millions of Indian public sector workers took part in a nationwide strike in September that is widely thought to be the world’s largest ever industrial action. The strike saw activists shut down state banks and power stations and halted public transport. Protesting what they refer to as ‘anti-worker and anti-people’ policies of Narendra Modi’s government, the trade union demands include a 692 rupee (approx £8) daily minimum wage and a ban on privatisation in India’s railways.

Uganda orders closure of 63 UK-backed private schools Uganda’s high court has ordered the closure of a string of private schools run by Bridge International, a private company which received £5.5 million in UK aid money in 2016. The judge ruled that the academies, also funded by Bill Gates and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg, provided unsanitary learning conditions and unqualified teachers. Earlier in 2016, Liberian teachers threatened to strike over government plans to outsource all primary education to Bridge International.

Bolivia hailed as global champion of improving the lives of poor Bolivia has increased the income of some of the poorest people in the world without increasing indebtedness, according to the World Bank. The bank has recognised this achievement by calling Bolivia a ‘global champion’.

Under President Evo Morales, Bolivia has seen a big improvement of incomes for 40% of the poorest population. Despite the global economic downturn, Bolivia will end this year with GDP growth above 4.5%.

Crackdown on landless peasants movement in Brazil Following the installation of a new rightwing government after what activists have described as a coup, police in Brazil raided several offices belonging to the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in November, arresting eight MST leaders.

The police also targeted the MST school, which teaches farmers and activists from around the world. Reports say ten police vehicles broke into the school’s grounds and fired shots into the sky. Analysis of the bullets showed they were lethal rounds,

not rubber bullets.

Joaquim Pinheiro, an MST member, fears that the recent rise in repression will take Brazil back to the period in the late 1990s when the MST were treated as enemies of the state. It was on 17 April 1996 that the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre took place, killing 19 members of the MST. This formed the basis for the day of international peasant struggle that is now celebrated every April.

Climate talks stall in Marrakech © Hoda Baraka 350 org

NEWS SHORTS

A protester in Marrakech holds a placard saying “Climate justice for everyone”.

The annual climate change negotiations, this time held in Marrakech in November, were overshadowed by the US election as many countries fear Trump will follow through on promises to withdraw from the newly ratified Paris Agreement.

Negotiations focused on fleshing out the ‘rule book’ for the agreement—a process which could take a further two years. Thanks to decades-long efforts by civil society, governments had previously agreed to include not only pollution cuts targets but also measures to help communities adapt to climate change and cope with damage. In Marrakech,

talks stalled over disagreements on this point, as well as how to resolve unassigned technical questions about implementing the agreement.

With only a few years left before the window closes on the goal of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees, governments’ plans to decarbonise must be stepped up. Developments such as the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative are poised to bring real results—300GW of new generation capacity by 2030— but this requires an increase in ‘climate finance’ funding from rich countries.

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CORPORATE POWER

When simple infections become deadly Drug-resistant bacteria could be one of the world’s biggest killers by 2050. MORTEN THAYSEN asks: is corporate power stopping us from taking action?

Imagine a world where a small cut could kill you or where treatments such as chemotherapy or caesarean sections would be too dangerous to perform. That could be our all-too-near-future if we don’t take action.

Bacteria across the world are developing resistance to antibiotics, leaving us with no treatment for previously curable diseases, and no way of preventing infections in patients that could kill more people than cancer globally within the next three decades. The more antibiotics are used, the more the bacteria adapt – and the less effective the medicine becomes.

In the debate on climate change, there’s a scientific consensus that we need to take urgent action to avoid catastrophe. Yet the UN process to establish a global strategy to tackle climate change has been watered down to little more than a statement of intent and the USA has elected a climatedenying business tycoon as its president.

The antibiotic resistance crisis fits the same pattern. The scientific community is sounding the alarm bells and civil society organises to mobilise a response. Leading scientists are warning that 300 million people could die in the next 35 years as a result of antibiotic resistance. But no political action is taken and there’s little media interest in the impending downfall of modern medicine. This political inaction is no coincidence but a result of the rise of ever more powerful corporations that manage to throw a spanner in the wheel of any political process that might threaten their profits.

Illustration: Scott Brundrage

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FINGERS POINTED AT INDUSTRIAL FARMING So what’s at the heart of the problem?

Experts are increasingly pointing at rampant use of antibiotics in agriculture as the key contributor to the problem.

Globally, more than two thirds of antibiotics are fed to livestock instead of humans. Most of them go to entire herds in order to prevent rather than cure diseases or to promote faster growth.

At the heart of the problem is way we produce food today. Industrial farming keeps livestock in such unhealthy conditions that they would become ill without treatment. But rather than improving conditions, big farms feed antibiotics to their livestock to avoid diseases, even though feeding a constant low dose of antibiotics to animals creates the perfect environment for bacteria to develop resistance. These resistant bacteria can then enter the food chain and spread across the human population.

It’s shocking that there is no decisive political action on this impending public health crisis. Both the big agribusinesses using the antibiotics and the pharmaceutical companies producing them are lobbying hard to avoid restrictions that could hit their profits – and they are very effective at doing so.

From trade negotiations to the running of public services, short-term corporate profits are increasingly taking priority over our long-term health. The words of business representatives carry more weight than scientific experts. In the UK, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate is responsible for regulating farm use of antibiotics, but it is also 77% funded by granting licenses to businesses. This raises the question of how easy it is for a government institution to regulate if it goes against its own economic interest.

Why should we live in a world where people are killed by simple bacterial infections because shareholders needed higher returns? Ending the

CORPORATE POWER industrial use of antibiotics in animals could and should be a first step to an urgent overhaul of our entire food system so that it can start to meet the needs of people rather than profit.

Morten Thaysen works on the Global Justice Now campaign against corporate power.

AntibioticsTM What you need to know 1

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3

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Antibiotics were discovered in the early 20th century and have revolutionised modern medicine.

Before antibiotics simple cuts could be deadly, and any operation would carr y big risks of deadly infections.

Several new clas ses of antibiotics have been developed in the last 100 years, but as bacteria evolve to adapt to survive new antibiotics, we’re locked in a constant arms race.

New antibiotics have to be restricted to cases where bacteria are resistant to all other drugs, but no new types of antibiotic has been developed in over 30 years, as their development is not sufficiently profitable for pharmaceutical companies.

“Doctors facing patients will have to say, ‘I’m sorry - there’s nothing I can do for you… With few replacement products in the pipeline, the world is heading to a post-antibiotic era in which common infections. . will once again kill.”

World Health Organisation director general, Margaret Chan

To win the fight aga inst resis tant bacteria , we need to brea k the link between corporate profi ts and the develop ment of essentia l med icines.

TAKE ACTION

We’re facing a post-antibiotic era as more and more bacteria develop resistance to the drugs we use to treat infections. With out working antibiotics, simple infections could become deadly killers and routine operations cou ld become too dangerous to per form.

We need to take urgent action

to curb farm use of antibiotics .

Earlier this yea r, a study fou nd drug-resista nt E.coli in one out of fou r chicken sam ples from the seven bigges t supermarket cha ins in the UK. A good first step is to ma ke sure supermarkets clea n their supply cha in of producers that over use antibiotics. Take action here: globaljustice.org.uk/antibiotics

CORPORATE POWER

From the corporation as psychopath, to the financialisation of life Ninety Nine magazine spoke to JOEL BAKAN, the author and film-maker behind The Corporation, about corporate power today and his new project.

How did you first become interested in corporations?

As a law professor, one of my areas of expertise is constitutional law. I wrote a book on the limits of constitutional rights, and its basic argument was that most of the violations of these rights aren’t by governments, they’re happening in the market.

That led me to the question of where power lies in the private sector – what is the institution where power coalesces? It is the corporation. So I began to look at the corporation, how it is constituted legally, and what effects that has.

I saw three pillars of corporate law. One of those pillars is the idea – prevalent in Anglo-American, Canadian and to a large extent European law – that the corporation is a ‘person’. The second pillar is that the corporate ‘person’ is the

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legal entity that’s responsible for what corporations do: in a ‘limited’ company, the legal responsibility of the shareholders is limited, and that responsibility is effectively transferred to the corporate ‘person’.

Then, third, is the ‘best interest’ principle. This means managers of corporations must legally always make the decision which is in the best interests of the company – not the workers, not society, not the environment – and that’s been interpreted by the courts over the years as meaning the best interests of the shareholders in making a return on their investments.

In other words, we’ve legally constituted these organisations to be profoundly self-interested – to put the financial self-interest of shareholders, and thus the corporation itself, above all else.

and engender “negligence and profusion.” No one has accused him of being anti-business.

What has changed in the 12 years since The Corporation was made?

We have had corporate calamities of extraordinary dimensions: the Rana Plaza collapse, Deepwater How do you respond when people Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 accuse you of being anti-business? financial crisis... I mean just blatant irresponsibility driven by deregulation, I’m not anti-business… it’s hard with the reverberations still being felt for me to imagine a society that by many. didn’t have business in some way.

Alongside that we’ve had the rise Really my aim is to warn that this of a kind of new right wing, nationalist entity, the corporation, has certain capitalism. We now have these two compulsions to externalise its costs, competing brands of capitalism in the and therefore we need to think world: a neoliberal, globalised Davosvery seriously as a society about style capitalism on the one hand, how exactly we’re going to govern and then this more nationalistic and it. I mean, even Adam Smith had in a way anti-globalisation capitalism problems with the corporation – he believed it would diffuse responsibility epitomised, most recently, by Donald

CORPORATE POWER Trump. They’re both capitalism, and the role of the corporation in each, and the effects of corporation’s power and influence, may, in certain ways differ but remain the same fundamentally.

What you think the election of Trump means for the rise of corporate power?

That’s one of the questions I want to investigate in this new film and book.

When we look at the rise of so-called populism in the US there are parallels with some of what we hear around the Brexit situation in the UK, and also governments and political movements throughout Europe.

One of the key planks of more neoliberal globalised Davos-style capitalism is free trade and trade deals: the question is, what effect is the nationalist populist trend going to have on that?

As an organisation we’re been campaigning hard against trade deals like TTIP and CETA, how should progressives feel about Trump being opposed to deals like them?

I think this is an uncomfortable place for progressive people. Donald Trump’s rhetoric is strongly against things like CETA and TTIP. So we seem to have become strange bedfellows.

However I think we’re likely to see that many of progressives’ concerns remain after the dust has settled.

In particular the investor protection regimes of all of these deals, which grant corporations rights to sue governments when governments regulate in ways that are costly to them, and which are a major concern for critics, are likely to be left in place.

What I see the incoming US government doing is maybe putting some tariffs in place, imposing costs to penalise companies that take jobs that could be done in the US and effectively move them to the global

south. But meanwhile if you’re a mining company in the US or Canada and you decide that you want to go down to Peru and open a mine, you’ll still have the benefit of the investor protection regimes in these trade deals.

Can you tell us what the new film will be about?

One area we’re looking at is the spread of markets and corporations into areas that they were only just entering when we were making the first film. So now it’s typical rather than exceptional in many places for, to take a few examples,

corporations to be running school systems, running water systems, prisons, heavily involved in running universities, shaping global policy on things like food and water, and freed from mandatory legal regulations to voluntarily regulate themselves.

There’s a prevailing notion that corporations can actually deliver services like education, schools and water systems better than public authorities can, especially in the global south. Related to that is what might be called the financialisation of life: the way that commercial

L-R: Mark Achbar, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott, makers of The Corporation documentary.

THE CORPORATION In his 2004 book, eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contended that the modern business corporation is created by law to function like a psychopathic personality. The book was written during the making of The Corporation (co-created with Mark Achbar) and formed the basis of the research and writing for the film.

Beginning with its origins in the sixteenth century, Bakan traced the corporation’s rise to

dominance and argued that despite its flawed character, governments have freed the corporation from legal constraints through deregulation, and granted it ever greater power over society through privatisation.

Bakan urged re-establishment of democratic control over the institution and, more generally, a deepening of democratic governance of society.

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CORPORATE POWER democratic principle of one vote per and financial values are becoming more person doesn’t exist there. prominent in all domains, in domains they There’s a further problem, that didn’t used to be in, and are shaping our democracy as we have known it has political imaginations. not been very democratic in its actual At the same time since we made the last operations. So-called populist movements film we’ve also seen all sorts of movements can easily play on resisting these people’s legitimate developments: the Even Adam Smith had sense that elites, not Indignados/15M the people, are in movement in problems with the charge. And the rap Spain, the Occupy corporation… no one that corporations movement, and markets are not phenomena like has accused him of democratic can Bernie Sanders and being anti-business. easily be met with Jeremy Corbyn. claims that neither Where are these are governments. things coming from So, when asked to choose between – what do they mean? What will be their putatively democratic but really not impacts? very democratic governments, soThis time we want to look at not just the called populists who claim they’ll rout past and present of the corporation but elites, and corporations with promises the future of democracy. and resources to make the world How do you think corporate power better, the latter two can easily affects democracy? seem more attractive than the As markets spread as the main way to first. For me the real question organise society and social relations, in this context is how can we corporations are, in many ways, becoming pursue an entirely different more important than governments in and new alternative – real governing our lives. and true democracy – and This poses a problem for democracy, what would that look like? because whatever other strengths Joel Bakan is a professor at the Allard School of Law, and weaknesses corporations and University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. ower. markets have, they’re fundamentally not democratic. Yes you have ‘votes’ in a market but they are based on how much money you have, so the fundamental

Global Justice Now campaigning against corporate power For decades, Global Justice Now has been taking on poverty, inequality and global injustices. And over the years we have time and time again come up against the same enemy, big business. Corporations are taking over an increasing part of the world we live in: the food we eat, the energy we use to heat our houses and our water.

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Even our democracy is slowly being corroded by corporate interests. Trade deals like TTIP and CETA are only the latest examples of that.

We have always focussed on the root causes of problems and we want to be more upfront about corporate power as one of the root causes of many of the injustices in the world.

Therefore, we’re campaigning for a new UN treaty to hold corporations to account for their human rights abuses and will be targeting different sectors such as agribusinesses and pharmaceutical companies to lessen their grip over our lives.

For more info, visit globaljustice.org.uk/corporatepower

rs e rt o p p u s w o N e c ti s u Global J

Our promise to you

darity and A world based on equality, soli ll ask. But this democratic control: it’s no sma ultimately what alternative vision of our world is for. You are a vital part Global Justice Now is fighting really challenge the of that. Only together can we world. powerful and build a more just , or supporter, Whether as a member, activist Justice Now to you have put your trust in Global really make a help build a movement that can ’t take for granted. difference. It’s a trust that we don being a democratic In return, we are committed to t and accountable, organisation that is transparen responsibly. and that fundraises ethically and

But we have recently These are not new values to us. to you that make up spelt them out in four promises our new Supporter Promise.

We promise to: fundraise • use your donations wisely and responsibly way you want • communicate with you in the • listen to you tion.

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and the full promise Your can find more information terpromise or at globaljustice.org.uk/suppor copy by post. call 020 7820 490 0 to request a

rence CETA protest at SNP confe y Local campaigning is a key wa ve Ste . we seek to win campaigns Rolfe of Global Justice Glasgow reports on the group’s latest mobilisation.

Global Justice Glasgow, along with activists from across Scotland, were out in force at the Scottish National Party (SNP) g conference in October, arguin A. CET for the party to oppose We made a visual splash with our dastardly ‘corporate rats’ and spoke to several hundred SNP members as they went into the conference.

We formed a working group to work out both the political approach we wanted to use, as well as the practicalities. A template for making rat masks had been circulated on the Global Justice Now activists’ email list, so we ran with that idea, adding our own ‘corporate rats love CETA’ signs as well as a e banner making the positive cas for a ‘people’s trade deal’.

conference and the majority so seemed to be critical of CETA, s it is hard to see why the party wa still swithering just months before the decisive vote. But we’re hopeful that we can help shift their position.

During the conference, first ly minister Nicola Sturgeon explicit pushed for more powers for the Scottish government as a result er of Brexit. That includes the pow e Like Scottish Labour, the SNP hav to strike international deals on ut abo still been reluctant to talk trade, of course. Yet the SNP is CETA, so the SNP conference sitting on the fence over CETA. nity ortu opp seemed like a good A government that wants more ile wh m the e enc influ to try and power for Scotland is failing to ng chi at the same time rea oppose a deal which will hand lly ns. itica pol er, larg a much power to unelected corporatio the ong am engaged audience s We had productive conversation conference delegates. with lots of people outside the

r To get involved in activism in you area or join our activists email list, email activism@ globaljustice.org.uk or call 020 7820 4900.

TRADE JUSTICE

What’s wrong with TISA? JEAN BLAYLOCK outlines the problems with a global trade deal that could hit public services, privacy and the climate.

Take a discredited, toxic approach to doing trade deals: one that has wiped out manufacturing in many countries because it ignores workers’ rights, environmental standards and safety, creating a race to the bottom and replacing decent jobs with sweatshops in the global south. Now decide to apply the same approach to a new deal, not for manufacturing but for services.

This is real and it is called TISA, the Trade in Services Agreement, and it is being negotiated at the moment between 50 countries including the UK. Services are ‘things you cannot drop on your foot’, like a haircut or banking. International trade in services is therefore not about moving actual stuff across borders, which is what usually comes to mind when people talk about trade. It’s mainly about transnational corporations

© Demir Sönmez

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moving in to provide a service, one that maybe used to be provided locally – and more often at the ‘banking’ end of the spectrum than the haircut end.

TISA started after pressure by a group of big businesses called the Global Services Coalition, including Walmart, Google, and Visa. It is not surprising therefore that it responds to their wishes. It is being specifically designed with the intention that it can later on be slotted back into the World Trade Organisation framework, piece by piece if necessary – so a small group of countries will produce an extreme deal and then try to force it on all the rest.

Together with other trade deals such as TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade

TRADE JUSTICE XXX

Agreement), it forms a deliberate attempt to take forward a global corporate agenda on trade. Like the other deals, TISA goes way beyond actual trade, into many areas of public policy in the name of removing ‘trade barriers’.

renationalising the railways looks even more unlikely.

Many countries in the global south have weak public services. These two clauses in TISA would mean they might never be able to build the strong public services that enable people to live in dignity.

Climate: TISA entrenches the idea of technological ‘neutrality’ on energy policy, which could stop countries favouring renewables over coal, oil and gas.

Financial deregulation: Part of the deregulation locked in by TISA would be financial deregulation. Efforts in the wake of the global financial crisis to improve financial regulation would be reversed.

Privacy: Some countries are pushing for TISA to end restrictions on moving data across borders. This means a corporation could collect sensitive personal data from people using a service and then store it in a country with lax privacy laws. Currently this is one of the main areas of disagreement between © De mi r Sö nmez the US and EU on TISA and has helped prevent them reaching agreement.

WHERE ARE WE NOW KEY CONCERNS

© UN

Public services: TISA would lock in privatisation, from trains to postal services to healthcare.

The drive to open up markets to corporate control and never go back plays out in two tools in TISA: a ‘standstill clause’ and a ‘ratchet clause’.

The standstill clause means that if something is privatised and deregulated at the point at which TISA is signed, then you can’t go back – at least without providing compensation which has to be agreed by the other countries.

You can, however, privatise new areas or remove further regulation. The ratchet clause then kicks in and says that this is now your new ‘standstill’ position and you can’t go back to your original one. Thus the creeping privatisation of the NHS could become fixed, experiments in deregulation can’t be reconsidered and Photos: a protest against TISA in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this year.

Negotiations are not yet final on TISA and are currently on hold. The election of president Donald Trump means no-one knows what position the US will take, so a round of negotiations in December was cancelled.

However despite Trump’s strong rhetoric against NAFTA (the 20-plus year old North American Free Trade Agreement), he is not opposed to trade deals – he just thinks the US could do a lot better out of them.

He is strongly in favour of deregulation and may think he can win a lot from TISA for the US, despite the risk it poses to many who voted for him.

It’s a deal that sets many alarm bells ringing – some that are familiar from the movement against TTIP and CETA, some new ones all of their own. That means there are huge numbers of people who can see the dangers if TISA goes ahead and if we come together, we can stop it.

For more information, see globaljustice.org.uk/TISA Jean Blaylock is a policy officer at Global Justice Now.

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B.U.G.A.U.P.

CORPORATE POWER

Our space

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MATT BONNER looks at the history of a growing movement that attempts to free our public spaces from the dominance of corporate messages.

Advertising bombards our daily lives, controlling our desires, shaping our cultural values and legitimising the agenda of multinational corporations. But since the birth of the outdoor advertising industry, a rich and creative resistance to its dominance in our public spaces has evolved alongside it.

Brandalism, also known as subvertising, is a movement that brings public space back into public control by defacing and altering wellknown corporate slogans and logos to subvert their meaning, or by replacing them with entirely new messages. Its purpose is to challenge the mass consumerism that dominates our society, the danger of casual sexism in advertising or the unethical behaviour of a brand.

It’s a tradition that goes back to French avantgarde political art in the 1950s that questioned the motives of the public relations and advertising industries. It inspired waves of billboard defacing in the 1970s and 1980s in cities across the world, critiquing otherwise undisputed consumerist values and turning our public spaces into battlegrounds or canvasses for creative political expression.

In recent years a vibrant subvertising community has arisen in the UK that has renewed the conversation about the legitimacy of outdoor advertising and the dominance of corporate messaging in our public spaces. Coordinated mass takeovers of billboards and bus stop adverts in the UK have gained mainstream attention and become an effective tool for activists and artists in spreading marginalised political ideas.

With big business at the root of some of our most heinous social and environmental problems, challenging their omnipresence in our urban environment is an important and timely act.

Brandalism is a key strategy for challenging corporate power and reclaiming our cultural narrative.

Matt Bonner is a social justice campaigner and graphic artist at revoltdesign.org.

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Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions (B.U.G.A.U.P.)

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Dr. D

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1. With the emergence of spray cans in the 1970s, defacing billboards became a popular strategy in Australia, backed by doctors, in the campaign that helped ban cigarette and alcohol advertising.

2. A doctor defaces a cigarette billboard at an anti-cigarette advertising protest in Sydney, 1979.

3. Challenging casual mysogyny in London, 1979.

4. The digital era gave rise to more slick and

authentic-looking brand parodies and “culture jamming� that became the memes of the antiglobalisation movement in the early 2000s.

5. Just after the brandmania that characterised the London Olympics in 2012, a group of UK activists and artists known as Brandalism provoked a renewed conversation about the legitimacy of outdoor advertising when 36 billboards were replaced with artworks by 36 international artists.

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6. In December 2015, Brandalism installed 600 artworks in advertising spaces across Paris, critiquing the corporate takeover of the COP21 climate talks. Quotes from Brandalism posters where used alongside those of world leaders in mainstream international news media.

Brandalism/revoltdesign.org

Adbusters

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Š Jill Posener

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Brandalism /Bill Posters

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Brandalism/revoltdesign.org

7. In November 2016, as part of a weekend of civil disobedience against TTIP and CETA, over 80 artworks were installed in advertising spaces across Brussels to highlight the links between advertising, corporate lobbying and the power of multinationals.

8. Subvertiser Dr. D takes on media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2016.

2017 Ninety-Nine 17

CORPORATE POWER

Roche gets rich, women die of cancer NKHENSANI MAVASA says drug firms’ profiteering puts life-saving medicine out of reach in South Africa.

Just a few months ago our comrade and friend died in her home following a three year battle against breast cancer. Tobeka Daki, a single mother from Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape, had been living with HER2+ breast cancer since 2013. Her oncologist told her that she needed trastuzumab – a very effective treatment that, together with chemotherapy, could have increased her chances of survival. Tragically, she never got this chance.

In South Africa, pharmaceutical company Roche charges 485,000 rand (£27,560) per treatment course for trastuzumab (marketed in South Africa as Herceptin), or more if higher dosing is required. This is more than the majority of people in the country earn in a year and more than some would earn in a lifetime. It is completely priced out of reach for the women who desperately need access.

At present, public sector access to trastuzumab is extremely limited. Often a patient’s case will be

© xxx

Nkhen sani Mava sa protes ting at the Intern South Africa, in 2016.

18 Ninety-Nine 2017

rejected after a review based on the high cost. The majority of women seeking care who could benefit from this medicine are never even informed about it. Even in the private sector, many medical schemes refuse to pay for it, claiming it is too expensive.

Roche is able to charge such a high price as it holds multiple patents on the medicine. This means they are the only company allowed to make, market and sell the medicine in South Africa. These patents may stop some cheaper versions from being sold in the country until as late as 2033. During this time Roche can continue to charge whatever price they want.

South Africa’s outdated patent laws allow this sort of pharmaceutical profiteering. Currently South Africa hands out patents without examining them to determine if they deserve to be granted. Many patents granted here, are rejected in other countries. Roche’s patents on trastuzumab will expire at least ten years earlier in the UK, US, India and South Korea.

In 2013 Roche earned over 100 million rand from the sale of Herceptin in South Africa’s private sector and approximately $6.6 billion in global sales in 2014. How much profit at the expense of women’s lives is enough?

While the government has work to do in fixing our patent laws, it must also take action to curb the abusive pricing of patented medicines and ensure generic access or lower prices of these medicines instead of waiting and watching to see what companies like Roche will do.

Relying on Roche to take action has cost us Tobeka’s life.

ationa l AIDS Conference in Durba n,

Nkhensani Mavasa is the chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa.

REVIEWS

Reviews NO SHORTCUTS: ORGANISING FOR POWER IN THE NEW GILDED AGE Jane F. McAlevey Oxford University Press, 2016

VIOLENT BORDERS: REFUGEES AND THE RIGHT TO MOVE Reece Jones Verso, 2016 It’s a shame that good storytelling and sharp analysis rarely fill the pages of the same book, because when it’s done well, it’s so powerful. Reece Jones’ book Violent Borders does just that.

The first half of the book tells the stories of people such as 15 year old Sergo experiencing the deadly realities of borders. In the second half Jones employs a more historical approach, exploring how controlling the movement of poorer people, wildlife and the natural environment is part of a long-term attempt to maintain

McAlevey’s analysis of why and how organising is more effective (and faster!) than advocacy is perfect for people who are sick of losing. Her case studies draw from the public, private and community sectors and enable us to add important lessons from struggle to our collective memory bank.

Engagingly imparting insights on dry topics such as governance structures alongside spine-tingling accounts of worker solidarity, McAlevey’s argument is a fierce critique of top-down unions and advocacy organisations as well as a sympathetic critique of the Alinsky community organising tradition.

She concludes that Alinsky-style organising fails where unions are weak, and that union organising is most successful when utilising workerled organising techniques both in the workplace and in the workers’ communities. Acknowledging this interdependency – that, for example, teachers are also parents – can strengthen our strategy.

I, Daniel Blake has been under ferocious attack from the government, maligned in parliament and denigrated in the right wing press. As well they might, because Ken Loach has made a powerful and important film. Departing from his usual examination of previous political struggles, in this film Ken tackles the here and now.

It is angry, but still finds humour in desperate circumstances and abject poverty. Despite the brutality of what happens to the characters, the film is remarkable for its tenderness and the relationships of those at the receiving end of benefits cuts and sanctions Ken Loach’s film is an exquisite cry of anger at injustice, served up to condemn precisely those who have now taken such exception to it.

Carol Peterson

Guy Taylor

oppressive structures in the name of profit.

In the face of this, Jones proposes a clear strategy: demanding freedom of movement will allow us to establish global rules for working conditions and environmental protection. Violent Borders is timely, engaging and a must-read.

Malise Rosbech

I, DANIEL BLAKE Directed by Ken Loach

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7 1 0 2 in e g n e ll a h c a r fo Looking Taking part in one of our sponsored events is an exciting way you can support our campaigns for social and economic justice.

When you fundraise for us you are directly helping to grow the movement against injustice worldwide. And all the while having a truly unforgettable experience.

LONDON TO AMSTERDAM CYCLE Canals, cobbled streets and wonderful architecture. Amsterdam has it all, and this 82-mile two-day cycle trip (12-14 May 2017) from London to the bike capital of the world will take you through some of its best parts.

JURASSIC COAST TREK The exposed cliffs are a fossil hunter’s paradise, with more recent history of mining, shipwrecks and smuggling also on show. This two-day walk (5-7 May 2017) offers both spectacular scenery and captivating wildlife.

LONDON MARATHON WALK Taking you from the Olympic Park in Stratford through the historic heart of the city, the London marathon walk is an exciting one-day challenge event filled with stunning sights (23 September 2017).

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