The Financial Times carries an editorial today about South African President Jacob Zuma’s visit to the UK next week. The FT says Zuma’s proposal that EU sanctions on the thugs who still share power in Zimbabwe is insufficient. On the contrary, it would be a dangerous mistake, and shows Zuma heading down the same route as his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. Read more »

   Filed under: Human rights, International development | No Comments »

Robert Mugabe’s cronies in Zimbabwe – clinging on to power and abusing as much of it as they still can, are furious that the European Union has maintained its sanctions on the elite of the country. They claim that the EU has sanctions against Zimbabwe in place, but in fact they are targeted on the people who used to run Zimbabwe as a brutal dictatorship. Trade unionists in Zimbabwe have welcomed the decision this week to keep up the pressure on Mugabe’s clique, not least because those still in positions of authority continue – a year into the power sharing agreement – to abuse that power. Read more »

   Filed under: Europe, Human rights, International development | No Comments »

Here’s an interesting juxtaposition today.  Just as Google decides it’s had enough of the Chinese Government’s disregard for the rights of businesses and of its own citizens, Carlyle Group (the private equity firm that  specialises in the arms industry) steps up its role in the country.

   Filed under: Corporate governance, Human rights | 1 Comment »

We’d like to wish a very happy Christmas and New Year to all our readers here at ToUChstone blog. It’s been an interesting year for us as the blog has grown and diversified, and we’ve enjoyed sharing our blogging journey with so many people, old acquaintances and new.

Our Christmas card this year marks thirty years of the Amnesty International (UK) trade union network. During 2009, we’ve taken steps to strengthen the links between the work of the TUC and Amnesty. Unions and human rights go way back though. Indeed Amnesty International founder, Peter Benenson, had actually worked many years earlier for the TUC, and had been sent to Spain in the early 50s to observe the trial of some trade unionists persecuted by the Franco Government. (His complaints to the judge were so effective the case against them was, unusually, dismissed and they were set free.) Read more »

   Filed under: Blogging, Human rights | 1 Comment »

Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (MPs and Lords) has published a report today (Wednesday 16 December) which looks at how human rights can be improved at the workplace, home and abroad. The Committee criticises the Government for not having a coherent strategy to address the impact on human rights of British business. It is a serious, understated report which makes the case for a long term review of the global human rights impact of British business, but it also makes some immediate points about the domestic scene. It suggests that British industrial relations laws are out of step with our international obligations and, to quote the report, “we doubt the compatibility of the Government’s blacklisting proposals with the UK’s international human rights obligations.” And it says ”we anticipate revisiting this issue.” The TUC welcomed the report.

More broadly, and unambiguously, the Joint Committee notes that

“the right to freedom of association, the associated right to strike, the right to trade union membership and the right to collective bargaining are rights recognised in the international human rights obligations of the UK and overseen by the European Court of Human Rights, the ILO and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the ILO Committee of Experts consider that current domestic law on the right to strike and the right to collective bargaining places undue restrictions on those rights.”

Read more »

   Filed under: Corporate governance, Employment law, Human rights | 3 Comments »

Today – 10 December – is Human Rights Day 2009. In a new report marking the day, former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson argues that:

“The lens of climate justice, incorporating principles of human rights to guide policy and practical responses to climate change, is an essential aspect of climate change policy – at global and national level”.

With millions risking water shortages, forced migration and the disappearance of entire nations beneath rising seas, the ITUC has itself called on the UN to include human and labour rights in the new agreement here at Copenhagen. Read more »

   Filed under: Copenhagen, Environment, Human rights | 2 Comments »

This year’s World AIDS Day theme focuses on the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. And rightly so. In our view, the rights of the people living with HIV/AIDS have not yet received the attention they deserve. According to the ILO, there are over 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Over 30 million of them are of working age. Most of them are in developing countries, in Africa in particular, and over half of them are women. Read more »

   Filed under: Equality, Human rights | 1 Comment »

At the Refugee Council, an independent human rights charity, we support people who come to this country seeking asylum because it’s not safe for them to stay in their own country. They are forced to flee and come here for safety, for sanctuary, for protection. Read more »

   Filed under: Employment law, Human rights | 1 Comment »

The World Bank has given up attacking workers’ and union rights, and decided to promote ILO conventions instead! This staggering about-turn results from years of lobbying by trade unions and progressive politicians (special respect to Congressman Barney Frank, a personal hero for all sorts of reasons – and now one more.) It is a serious and practical blow to the Washington consensus, because as well as abandoning the rhetoric that stronger workers’ rights and stronger unions are bad for business, the World Bank has told its country offices to stop advising Governments to water down such rights – this was always a bigger issue than what the World Bank said publicly. Read more »

   Filed under: Globalisation, Human rights, International development | Comments Off

Christopher Caldwell from the right-wing US journal The Weekly Standard has returned to the theme of protectionism in the Financial Times today (referring to the ‘Buy American’ clauses in the US rescue package). He takes a sideswipe at requiring labour (and environmental) standards in trade agreements. His argument is that anything which raises prices for consumers is a bad thing, and that labour standards are one of the causes of keeping prices high. But that’s not always the bad thing he makes out, and sometimes prices can be too low for our moral welfare. Read more »

   Filed under: Human rights, Trade | 1 Comment »