News from Global Justice Now

Annual General Meeting

As previously noted in Think Global Extra, this year’s AGM will be held separately from our main activist conference (see page 12) and will be held online. Although members were able to listen in to last year’s AGM via Zoom even though it was conducted in-person, those joining online were not able to vote.

This year we will go back to a Zoom-only AGM, held at 11am on Saturday 3 June. You will need to register in order to get the link to join. Registration and other relevant information can be found at globaljustice.org.uk/agm-2023.

Reaffiliation reminder

We contacted local groups in January to ask them to confirm their details and current status as a group. Thanks for all those who did. If you haven’t yet, please get in touch! Call the activism team on 020 7820 4900 or email daisy.pearson@globaljustice.org.uk.

In the media

We worked with the i newspaper in the lead-up to COP27 to release some exclusive research showing that oil giants like Shell and BP could be responsible for more than £7 trillion in climate debt (see picture above right). Our campaigners were featured on BBC News as climate protests got underway across the world and staff members spoke to the Guardian, Sky News, BBC World Service and LBC.

Action checklist

Trade and climate

There was also a shocking story for our pharma team that revealed BioNTech and the German government had pressured Twitter to censor Global Justice Now activists who had been pushing for a generic Covid vaccine at the beginning of the pandemic.

We also worked exclusively with the Mirror to bring to light the serious concerns of medics across the UK and India in regard to the NHS drug price hike plan seen in a leaked draft of the trade deal. In the trade campaign we’ve also worked with a number of journalists covering the government’s upcoming financial deregulation bill and pushed our ongoing campaign against the ECT far and wide.

Write to your MP about the Energy Charter Treaty, and try to arrange a meeting to explain the issue further.

Reach out to other local groups interested in climate change for possible joint activities.

Plan a stall, stunt or public event to raise the profile of the issue.

Climate justice

Write to your local paper about energy company profits and the need for a polluter tax to pay for loss and damage.

Events

Let all your group members and contacts know about Resisting Monopoly Capitalism.

Dying breaths of the toxic ECT

With the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) becoming the sick man of Europe, the UK government is still dithering, or “monitoring the situation”. However, the cascade of countries escaping the sinking ship has made a seismic shift to the political calculus for the UK and the ECT is now truly up for debate across the political spectrum. As a result, we think this is a key moment to increase the pressure via political and parliamentary channels, so we’re encouraging groups to meet with their MPs in the next month and have some new tools to help with this.

As you know, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Slovenia and Luxembourg announced their exit from the ECT at the end of last year, refusing to support the insufficient proposals to reform the treaty. The European parliament also voted for withdrawal. There have not been any new exit announcements since December, but there is quite a lot going on behind the scenes. The European Union is finally exploring a way for countries to leave in coordination to avoid the sting of the treaty’s sunset clause.

With the reform of the ECT dead in the water, the UK government should be left with no excuse: it previously said it could not support the treaty in an unreformed state. While supporters of the ECT are scrabbling to recover support for a delayed vote on the reforms in April, which may or may not happen, we have the next few months to lay out the exit route for the UK. For this we need your help!

Drumming up MP support for exit

Corporate courts thrive on secrecy: the UK government can only get away with repeating that it is ‘monitoring developments’ and avoiding decisive action if members of parliament are unaware of the outrageous risk it is taking by keeping us in the ECT. What we do in the next few months to put pressure on MPs and other officials could really make a difference: about whether we get left behind in an archaic deal that ties the UK’s hands, or seize the chance to be part of a coordinated withdrawal that eliminates most of that risk.

So we’re asking groups to join us in a mobilisation effort across the country to engage as many MPs as possible on the need for the UK to exit, and to exit now.

What we’re asking you to do

We’re keen for groups to get involved with some sustained and targeted lobbying of their local MPs, or even councillors, around the ECT and have put together a pack of materials and guidance to help you do so. This can involve:

• Meet with your MP to discuss the ECT - depending how your MP is working at present this could be in person or on Zoom. We’ve put together a resource pack (below) including:

• Template letter you can use and adapt to write to your MP, telling them about the ECT, sharing our parliamentary briefing and asking to meet to discuss it further

• Messaging guide with all the main headlines, talking points and stats relevant to the different political parties and levels of government. It also includes rebuttals to frequently asked questions.

• We can also arrange online briefings with you/your group to help prepare you.

• Ask your MP to support the call to exit the ECT; maybe they: write to the secretary of state; submit parliamentary questions; organise a backbencher meeting; put out a statement on social media; or help organise Westminster Hall debate with us. Based on their receptiveness, you can keep us in the loop and we can help steer them on any of these actions and provide further guidance and materials.

• Reach out to and join forces with other climate groups to meet with your local MPs or councillors as a collective representing different groups across the constituency. We’re working with Friends of the Earth at a national level, but Extinction Rebellion and other local groups may also be interested.

• Reach out to local councillors about raising a council motion, using our draft and guidance in the How to Lobby DecisionMakers resource listed below, that resolves the council to oppose the ECT and raise concerns with relevant stakeholders.

• Consider holding a demonstration outside your MP’s constituency office in your local area if they are failing to respond to you, to bring the issue to their doorstep and also have the chance to speak to more passers- by about the campaign. We can help you organise this.

• Contact local media outlets to highlight your lobbying efforts or your demonstration, your MPs’ or your council’s response or lack thereof, using our template press release.

There are ways of talking about the ECT which will land better with Conservatives: highlighting sovereignty, and freedom from the “red tape” that lets foreign companies interfere with their laws. More environmentally-minded Tories may be concerned with the UK’s climate leadership status. And speaking to councillors means raising how corporate court claims have overturned democratic decisions by all levels of governments.

Resource pack

Groups will find most of the resource pack included with this mailing. To find it online, including with editable/copiable text, go to globaljustice.org.uk/ECT-pack

The elements of the pack are:

• Messaging guide: how to talk about the ECT

• How to lobby decision-makers

• Template letter to MP about the ECT

• Template press release for ECT MP lobbying

• Parliamentary briefing on the ECT, to send to your MP

• Draft council motion on the ECT

Please contact Cleodie for further advice and guidance, or to request a briefing via Zoom: cleodie.rickard@globaljustice.org.uk

Other resources

Five fossil fuel firms... Petition leaflet (updated September 2022).

Corporate courts versus the climate Photo booklet (February 2022).

Climate injustice How corporate courts block climate action. Four-page briefing (March 2021).

Contact us to order these or view them at globaljustice.org.uk/resources