NEWS

Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance
Post date: Sat, 08/04/2012 - 16:40
  • Works to normalize relations between the US government and the countries comprising the Bolivarian Alliance
  • Conducts education on the advancement of women's rights under the Cuban Revolution

Contact
The committee is meeting regularly by conference call.  For more information on the committee and how to join, please contact either of the co-chairs:
Co-Chair Cindy Domingo: cindydomingo [AT] gmail.com
Co-Chair Leni Villagomez Reeves: lenivreeves [AT] gmail.com

Projects

The most immediate project of the committee is the US-Cuba-Canada Collaboration to fight COVID-19, in connection with the Saving Lives in the Face of COVID-19 project. Find out more here.

Saving Lives in the Face of COVID-19
Cuba has had a long history of actively implementing an internationalist perspective on healthcare by sending healthcare teams internationally, providing medications and training doctors from all over the world.  In this global pandemic, we call on the US government to put aside political and ideological differences to fight Covid-19.  

We call on the US to lift the blockade and cooperate with Cuba to save lives in the US and worldwide. For more information.

Educational Advocacy
The committee encourages WILPF branches to contact their representatives about the bills dealing with trade and travel with Cuba (see resources list below for sample letter/talking points):

There are travel and trade bills in both the House and the Senate.

H.R.3960, Sponsors McGovern & Emmer. To allow United States citizens and legal residents to travel between the United States and Cuba.  This legislation, which has bipartisan support and sponsorship, would eliminate any restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens and legal residents, as well as restrictions on transactions incident to such travel, such as banking transactions.

S 2303, Sponsors Leahy + 45 co-sponsors. The companion Senate bill to H.R. 3960: to allow US citizens and legal residents to travel between the United States and Cuba.

S.428, Freedom to Export to Cuba Act. Sponsor. Senator Amy Klobuchar, [D-MN). This would lift the trade embargo on Cuba.

H.R.2404, Sponsor: Rep Bobby Rush (D-IL).To lift the trade embargo on Cuba, and for other purposes.

S.1447, Agricultural Export Expansion Act of 2019. Sponsor: Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). A bill to allow the financing by United States persons of sales of agricultural commodities to Cuba.

H.R.1898, Cuba Agricultural Exports Act. Sponsor: Rick Crawford, (R-AR) Similar to S.1447.

City Council Resolutions Against Blockade
Encourage WILPF branches to sponsor these resolutions where possible.  Go to www.nnoc.org for resolutions that have been adopted

Promote Travel to Cuba
Information about all kinds of trips, from P4P and VB to Witness for Peace and Global Exchange. Contact info for groups taking people to Cuba is on resource list
Below.

Inform Students About Latin American School of Medicine
We can let students from families who could never afford medical school know that this exists, what the requirements are, how to apply. 

Resources

Priorities

1. Continue to work in broader coalition with other organizations working on Cuba issues and lifting the blockade
Goals:

  • Participate actively in National Network on Cuba
  • Participate actively in newly formed US-Cuba Normalization Group and any broader coalition that develops out of the conference
  • Participate actively in new campaign US-Cuba-Canada Collaboration Campaign Against Covid-19

2. Expand the number of WILPF members and branches working on our issue committee’s mission
Goals:

  • Hold every other month issues committee meeting
  • Contact directly WILPF members who express interest in joining our work
  • Utilize WILPF communication tools to educate WILPF members and WILPF’s base of supporters (Peace & Freedom, WILPF eNews and eAlerts, Facebook, ONE WILPF Calls, website)
  • Develop educational materials for branches to utilize on Cuba and Bolivarian Alliance countries such as Venezuela
  • Involve branches in campaigns initiated by our broader coalition work such as the covid-19 campaign

3. Work to lift the travel ban
Goals:

  • Bring a delegation within the next year
  • Develop and implement a plan of advocacy with branches after the 2020 election
  • Attend DC lobby day if held in 2021

Mission Statement

WILPF's Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee works by empowering and educating diverse US women to normalize relations between the US and the countries that comprise the Bolivarian Alliance through education, advocacy and travel.

Vision Statement

WILPF's Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee envisions a US foreign policy based on peaceful relations and respect for countries' national sovereignty and right to self-determination.

Background

In response to the 1959 Cuban revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencia Bautista, the US has imposed an informational, cultural, economic, commercial and financial blockade for six decades. Since 1992, the UN General Assembly has passed a resolution every year condemning the ongoing impact of the blockade declaring it in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law. From April 2018 to March 2019, the impact of the US embargo on Cuba’s foreign trade amounts to more than $4 billion. US efforts to overthrow the Cuban government have also included direct invasion at Playa Giron, bombings, biological warfare and other acts of terrorism meant to force “regime change.”  

WILPF US has been sending delegations of mainly women to Cuba to build ties with the Federation of Cuban Women and other Cuban women’s initiatives. We are inspired by the advancements of the Cuban women’s movement and the role they play in creating a participatory democracy in Cuba and its intersection with achieving gender justice.  

At the WILPF US Congress in 2014, this issues committee expanded our work to encompass support for the countries in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the America (ALBA) founded initially by Cuba and Venezuela. 

 

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DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee
Post date: Fri, 08/03/2012 - 19:14

Join Us!

DISARM/End Wars Committee Contact Information –

Chairs: Cherrill Spencer, Dianne Blais, Ellen Thomas

WE WELCOME NEW MEMBERS to our committee. We meet by zoom on the second and last Sundays of each month at 4:30 pm PT, 6:30 pm CT, 7:30 pm ET. 

To find out the zoom link and to request to join the Disarm listserv, write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org.

Mission

  • Work for a Nuclear-Free Future by eliminating all nuclear weapons and phasing out nuclear and fossil fuel energy.
  • Develop resources to educate the public about the importance of moving the money from weapons and war to carbon-free, nuclear-free energy and other crucial societal needs.
  • Encourage diplomacy as the way to deal with conflict, bringing more women to the negotiating table by promoting UN Security Council Resolution 1325.
  • Raise consciousness about the need to address the environmental and economic effects of militarism and nuclear weapons, especially on black, indigenous, and low-income communities.
  • Support members and branches in their own projects for peace and disarmament. 

A Short History

WILPF has been working to disarm the planet since 1915. In 1975, WILPF International convened the Women’s Disarmament Conference in New York, and in 1999 created Reaching Critical Will. Reaching Critical Will leads WILPF’s analysis of the United Nations and advocates for disarmament and the reduction of global military spending and militarism. It also investigates gendered aspects of the impact of weapons and of disarmament processes. 

The WILPF US DISARM / End Wars issue committee was started several decades ago. Current members are the latest in a long line of dedicated women who try to approach disarmament from every direction, welcoming the ideas and assistance of allies in the peace and disarmament movement. The Committee collaborates as appropriate with other WILPF US issue committees. 

Our Vision

A world free of nuclear weapons and militarism, with a feminist economy based on human needs.

Our Goals

Our committee work is driven by the growing threat that nuclear weapons pose to human survival, the environment, socioeconomic development, the global economy, food security, and the health and welfare of current and future generations.

  • Getting support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW): circulate petitions to the House and the Senate, write to our Congressional Representatives and Senators, work on getting resolutions from cities in support of the TPNW.
  • Promoting the Warheads to Windmills campaign to move the money from nuclear weapons and address climate change.
  • Reducing the US military budget. We are partners in Cut the Pentagon, a resource-full website led by Code Pink. Another coalition we work with is People Over Pentagon. Another tactic we are advocating for is divesting from the military-industrial complex, see Divest From the War Machine.
  • Dealing with the radioactive waste and contaminated lands created by the decades of producing nuclear weapons. We are members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, founded by a coalition of organizations near radioactive sites, which educates people via DC Days training in the spring each year, and helps to set up meetings with Congress members. 
  • Advocating for ceasefires in ongoing wars such as the war between Palestine in Gaza and Israel and between Ukraine and Russia. We have attended Peace in Ukraine peace summits, in person and via livestream, such as in Vienna in June 2023. 
  • Collaborate with WILPF sections in Africa to work against AFRICOM and to spread awareness, here and abroad, about the International Congress on Pan-Africanism.
  • End Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (L.A.W.S.) and weaponized drones. This campaign educates the public and legislators about the use of Artificial Intelligence in military weapons, and the need to follow international law.
  • Promote peace via treaties. This campaign draws attention to the arms control treaties that have recently been abandoned by the US and Russia and educates the public about the urgent need to re-negotiate treaties that concern nuclear weapons and their testing. We are members of the LAW NOT WAR coalition which promotes legal alternatives to war. See Project Enduring Peace, a project of A Future Without War.
  • Get institutions and individuals to divest from weapons industries. For example, we collaborate with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to develop strategies to press for divestment in pension plan portfolios, such as Don’t Bank On The Bomb.

Other Activities

Resources

Toolkits developed or supported by WILPF US Disarm Committee, available on the web:

CALL FOR PEACE Resource Guides have been developed which are listed below:

WILPF CALL FOR PEACE RESOURCE GUIDE # 1 Contains Templates for TPNW letters to Biden, corporations, editor; media release. Treaty Compliance actions

WILPF CALL FOR PEACE RESOURCE GUIDE # 2 Two Treaties to Abolish Nuclear Weapons by Dianne Blais

WILPF CALL FOR PEACE RESOURCE GUIDE # 3 National Military Spending and YOUR Town. What .to do about it!

WILPF CALL FOR PEACE RESOURCE GUIDE #4 Moving Money out of the Military Budget into Programs to Help the Poor as suggested by the Poor People’s Campaign

WILPF CALL FOR PEACE RESOURCE GUIDE #5 Your Tax Dollars at Work in the Middle East. Main authors: Middle East Peace and Justice Action Committee

WILPF CALL FOR PEACE RESOURCE GUIDE # 6 Sample Letters to Leaders on Treaties & Reducing Military Spending & City Resolutions 

Toolkits from other organizations

Social Media

Values

At the heart of our work is a commitment to advance freedom, human rights and justice for all, without discrimination based on gender or any other grounds.

Our ultimate goal is a nonviolent world without war, because we believe every human being has an inherent Right to Life. 

We acknowledge the root causes of war - injustice; poverty; militarism; racism and ecological devastation - and do not support violence in any form to rectify challenges. We engage in peaceful forms of protest to promote sustainable and positive approaches to solving problems.

We reject militarism in all its forms as a mindset that weaponizes security and gender relations (because innocent women are raped and abused more in wartime). Militarism is a leading contributor to armed conflict around the world. Nuclear weapons are a paramount concern. We agree with the United Nations Human Rights Commission, which declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons violates the Right to Life. We are also concerned with the development of new weapons enhanced with artificial intelligence, particularly those that operate autonomously. No one should be arbitrarily or intentionally deprived of life.

We value the feminist perspective as applied to the implementation of the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which declares that every human being has the inherent right to life, which shall be protected.

Our issue committee welcomes and appreciates the work of all WILPF members, regardless of their socio-economic status, nationality, race, or sexual orientation.

We are supportive, compassionate and frank in a non-confrontational manner as we carry out our committee tasks.

 

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Earth Democracy
Post date: Thu, 08/02/2012 - 08:50

We are all members of the Earth Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people.

Humans, along with other species, share the ecological space of our planet. We humans must show respect both for other humans and for other life forms. The Earth Democracy issue committee calls for recognition of the Rights of Nature.

Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, as presented by Vandana Shiva in her book, 10 Principles of Earth Democracy.

Earth Democracy Structure

  • Earth Democracy Co-chairs: Nancy Price, Sacramento Branch, & Jean Hays, Fresno Branch
  • General meeting times (monthly, evenings) to be arranged. Contact the co-chairs at earthdemocracy@wilpfus.org for more information.
  • Coordinating Committee group meets Wednesday, 9:00 am PT once or twice a month. Current Coordinating Committee members include the following:
    Lib Hutchby, Triangle Branch, NC
    Eileen Kurkoski, Boston Branch
    Jane Doyle, Randa Solick, Santa Cruz Branch, CA
    Mary Hanson Harrison, at-large WILPF member
    Marybeth Gardam, Chair, WILPF Women, Money & Democracy Issue Committee, Des Moines Branch, IA
    Cindy Piester, Veterans for Peace, Ventura, CA

Earth Democracy’s Subject Areas

At this time, we are broadening the range of our work, although since 2020 we have been focused on the dangerous PFAS group of chemicals called “forever chemicals”. Our PFAS work has relied on several key ongoing leaders. Marguerite Adelman is the Coordinator of the Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition, a project of WILPF US.  Investigator, reporter, and researcher, Pat Elder publishes articles based on his leadership on our MlitaryPoisons.org project website. And Patricia Hynes, a Traprock Peace & Justice Center Board member in Deerfield, Massachusetts, has contributed important articles, books, and works on peace education and women’s health.

Going forward, we will be clustering our work under three campaigns: Human Right to Water and Health, Global Warming and Renewable Energy, and Food Sovereignty and Local Economy. We will be creating special projects for immediate and more intense focus.

To integrate these broad subject areas under Earth Democracy, we highlight two framing initiatives:

People Before Profits

Our Three Campaigns

Human Right to Water and Health

Water, including the privatization of community water systems, has become an increasingly crucial concern. Earth Democracy is tracking these developments:

Water Act Congressional legislation to fund repair, rebuilding, and new infrastructure
Blue Communities: local resolutions to keep water in public hands

In the Human Right to Water and Health campaign, Earth Democracy has these Special Projects:

Exposing the Pentagon: Hidden Polluter of Water
PFAS and WILPF US MilitaryPoisons.org & Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition   
UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030: #6 Clean Water and Sanitation

Global Warming and Renewable Energy

In this campaign we have multiple focuses. Under Climate Justice + Women + Peace we include these areas:

Impact of Militarism and War on Climate and Environment
Toward a Just Transition: From a War Economy to a Peace Economy

Special Projects:

Mobilization to support the Fossil Fuel Treaty and Moving to a Green Economy   
UN Climate Change Conference: COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 11-22, 2024

Food Sovereignty and Local Economy

This campaign includes these areas:

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Rights of Nature
Regeneration, Living Soil and Eco-Feminism

Special Project:

Confined Animal Feeding Operations: CAFOs – water and land pollution
 

How You Can Be a Part of our Earth Democracy Work

As you see, our work is expanding with new campaigns and special projects crucial at this time for the advocacy and action needed to take society in new directions.

We welcome you to join and engage in our Earth Democracy campaigns and special projects. Your work can go to research and writing; developing tactics and strategies; media outreach; and creating and designing actions, events, rallies, signs, banners and more.

You can help build this moment for change – based on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion; climate justice; and peace-building. If you’d like to know more about our Earth Democracy Committee and work, please email Nancy Price at EarthDemocracy@wilpfus.org.

Climate Justice

 

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Leadership Opportunities
Post date: Tue, 07/03/2012 - 06:38

Do you like what WILPF is doing and have ideas about how to further its growth and improve its effectiveness? WILPF is exceptional among non-governmental organizations for the number and variety of opportunities it makes available for its members to involve themselves in its leadership at the national and international levels. That’s because our members are our organization, and our organization’s effectiveness depends—in every way—on the quality of our members.

Interested members are invited to apply for the following leadership positions:  

  • National Board Members

Are you an activist who wants to shape and develop WILPF at the national level? Spread your leadership wings: Consider running for one of the seven open board positions. We need candidates who can  develop respectful working relationships with sister board members and participate in WILPF US deliberations on policy, budget, and other issues.  We seek special qualities of passion, clear sightedness, and leadership abilities. Click here for more information »

  • Mini-Grant Monitoring Committee

You can help the Program work of WILPF US by assisting on the national Mini-Grant Application and Monitoring Committees.  Work can include following applications from first submission, helping people make their applications more acceptable and workable, working out budgets and defining the project.

We especially seek volunteers with some background in strategic planning and/or organizing of issue-related campaigns or projects as well as volunteers with some experience in grant applications or grant writing or project budgeting experience.  Attention to detail is also very helpful.  However, all volunteers with an interest in supporting WILPF US program efforts and giving useful input to grant applicants are encouraged to consider applying.  For further information, please contact either or both of the Program Chairs for further information (see http://wilpfus.org/about/current-national-board/board-directors) or contact Nominating Committee at nominations@wilpfus.org.

 

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News Archives
Post date: Tue, 07/03/2012 - 06:16

E-news banner

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

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Climate and Renewable Energy (continued)
Post date: Sun, 06/24/2012 - 19:23

The earth as we know it today is changing under our eyes as ecosystems, bio-diversity and habitat range of many species is altered.  No carbon-based energy is “clean” and oil and gas drilling wastes and contaminates vast quantities of fresh water, and pollutes air and land. The claim that oil and gas drilling or tar sands mining that harms vast tracks of land ensure energy independence is false – much of this product is bound for export.  Conversion of agricultural land and forests for bio-fuels is also problematic and has negative impacts. A systematic, rapid transition to renewable energy sources must occur now before warming increases exponentially. 

a. Need to cover here: cap and trade and carbon tax as problematic and creating market incentives rather than transition to renewables.

 

b. need to write up the innovative financing mechanism called Feed-in Tariff now renamed to CLEAN and the Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy and Decentralizing the Grid

 

Take Action

Take a Stand: No Fracking  (need handout) 

Advocate for Feed-In Tarifs (need to explain) 

Pass a Precautionary Principle Ordinance

 

Materials:

No Fracking brochure

 

Films

Gasland 

 

Articles

William Nordhaus, "Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong," The New York Review of Books, March 22, 2012, p. 32ff. 

Naomi Klein: "If You Take Climate Change Seriously, You Have to Throw Out the Free-Market Playbook"

Bill McKibben, "Why Not Frack?” The New York Review of Books, March 8, 2012, p. 13, 

 

Books

Anna Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet:The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It (2010) 

James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability

James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment

Bill McKibben, Deep Economy:The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Bill McKibben, The Global Warming Reader

Bill McKibben, Earth: Making A Life On A Tough New Planet

 

Organizations

Indigenous Environmental Network 

Peaceful Uprising

Post-Carbon Institute

350.org

Tar Sands Action

Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy 

Bill McKibben, author, educator, environmentalist 

Read more >>>
Food Democracy and Local Economy (continued)
Post date: Sun, 06/24/2012 - 19:12

Today, in all countries from developing to industrialized, the main cause of hunger is poverty – not a shortage of food. Women play a key role in the fight against global hunger and poverty. Worldwide, roughly 1.6 billion women rely on farming for their livelihoods, and female farmers produce more than half of the world’s food. 

Although women comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries, they typically aren't able to own land. Cultural barriers also limit women's ability to obtain credit and insurance. Strengthening women’s rights can help strengthen the global food system.  According to the World Food Programme, allowing women farmers access to more resources could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100-150 million people. (need footnote to Food First report). 

In successful projects all over the world, communities create food sovereignty by integrating sustainable agro-ecosystems with education, health care, clean water, land and water rights, transportation, and renewable energy.  “The number one challenge in empowering rural women in eradicating poverty and hunger is to stop governments and transnational corporations/international financial institutions from crushing the many successful models of food sovereignty” (quote from Food First report). 

Industrial corporate agriculture contributes to climate change, accounting for at least 13-15% of global, man-made greenhouse gases emissions and these emissions increase faster than an increase in agricultural productivity. (footnote Food First).  The loss of biodiversity, unsustainable use of water, and pollution of soils and water all compromise the ability of natural systems to support agriculture. Climate change, with more frequent droughts, floods and less predictable rainfall is already impairing certain regions to feed themselves, and war leads to loss of agricultural production and abandonment of land. Corporate land grabs for industrial agriculture based on mono-crops and chemical inputs, and for growing bio-fuels impoverishes the land and removes it from food production.  

The world is full of outstanding farmers who exchange knowledge, ideas and seeds with their peers.  Small holder agriculture outside the U.S. feeds most of the world’s people and essentially all of the poor.  Women play a key role in agriculture and any form of sustainable agriculture that lifts people from poverty will have women at the center. 

Many groups across the nation are fighting GMO food; active WILPF chapters in California and Montana are already organizing around food and local democracy.  The theme of this year’s Commission on the Status of Women includes how rural women will be impacted by climate change, an issue that affects all of us and our future generations.

We also want to support food recovery programs.  Grocery stores, bakeries, and other food providers throw away tons of food daily that is perfectly edible but is cosmetically imperfect or has passed its expiration date. In response, food recovery programs run by homeless shelters or food banks collect this food and use it to provide meals for the hungry, helping to divert food away from landfills and into the bellies of people who need it most. You can encourage your local restaurants and grocery stores to partner with food rescue organizations, like City Harvest in New York City or Second Harvest Heartland in Minnesota. 

Returning to a reliance, as much as possible, on local food systems is one way to push back against the giant agrifood corporations that continue to consolidate and vertically integrate food production at every level to lower costs and increase profits for shareholders. 

 

Take Action:

Create a Community Garden or Orchard  (link)

Create a Food Recovery Program in Your Town  (link) 

Support GMO labeling (link) 

 

Materials

Need to develop

 

Books

Anna Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet:The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It (2010) 

Frances Moore Lappé, Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge

Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

Vandana Shiva, War and Peace On Our Farms and Tables, 2000 Talk

 

Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice

Food Movements United

 

Organizations 

Food First and Backgrounder Reports 

Navdanya International movement for biodiversity conservation and farmer’s rights    

Small Planet Institute 

Family Farm Defenders

Organic Consumers Network

 
Read more >>>
Food Democracy and Local Economy
Post date: Sun, 06/24/2012 - 19:07

Women must be front and center in order to solve the issue of food security. Vandana Shiva

Food Democracy and sovereignty is much more than knowing where our food comes form and having the local authority to say how we want it labeled. 

Food sovereignty involves issues with corporations, commodity speculation, water, GMOs’, land grabs, militarization, resource depletion, and climate change. These issues all follow from a global economy and free trade agreements based on “market fundamentals” that turn the people and resources of the planet into commodities to be owned and traded. Women around the world are developing and leading local community models to make sustainable food the accepted global paradigm. In the U.S., alternatives to corporate control of food production and distribution range from community gardens, school programs, CSA’s, food ordinances, GMO labeling, sustainable agriculture, protections for family farms and much more. Read more...

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Human Right to Water and Health
Post date: Wed, 06/20/2012 - 09:59

Human Right to Water:

Water is Life
We affirm that water is sacred because it gives life.  Water connects us all. Water is the foundation of our civilization and cultures.  We will raise water literacy through education, with an emphasis on future generations. The UN affirms the right to water and sanitation as basic human rights; we are responsible to help implement this.

Water is Peace
Safe water resources are shrinking and people have already started to fight over control of their water sources – as in Darfour.  Water is increasingly being treated as a commodity to be controlled by corporations for profit. This has already created conflict, and more is on the horizon.  We must not allow water to become the valued commodity that is an excuse for war.

Water is Justice
People must control their own sources of water and it must remain in the commons.  Privatization and pollution of this vital resource must stop, especially in areas affecting those that have been oppressed.  Our military must be held accountable for its actions that taint any water supply.
Water Justice is the ability of all communities to access safe, affordable water for drinking, fishing, recreational and cultural uses.

The human right to water includes the:

  • Right to clean, safe, affordable drinking water and to adequate sanitation
  • Right to water for growing food, not real estate
  • Right to water for aquatic life
  • Right to water use for human well-being, not for corporate environmental degradation.

In 2010 The United Nations General Assembly made the Human Right to Water part of its Human Rights Declaration. In 2009, California made history by passing AB 1242 in both the Assembly and the Senate, but Governor Schwarzeneger vetoed this bill. This year, 2012, it is possible that Gov. Brown will sign a new Human Right to Water bill (AB 685) (link coming soon), held over from the 2011 Legislative Session and held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
 

Information:
Co-chairs, conference call times, etc.

Take Action:

  • Advocate for and support Human Right to Water law in your community and state (link to the CA bill AB 685)
  • Resist the privatization of your community pubic water services to keep water in local, public and democratic control and, if your water services are provided by a private for-profit corporation, support “re-municipalize drinking and wastewater/sewer systems” (need some more information on this…relate to economic situation)
  • Say No to Bottled Water

Materials:

Flyers

Our Bodies, Our Water (link coming soon)
Save the Water Study Guide (link coming soon)
Bottled Water brochure (link coming soon)  
Santa Cruz portable water system (link coming soon)
CA Human Right to Water bill AB685 (link coming soon)

Advocate/support National Trust Fund for water infrastructructure; but funding mechanism important and this hasn’t come back up because of Federal budget and economy; maybe we don’t need now already have enough actions (Food and Water Watch) global: various issues: how do we frame: we want to have emphasis on local/regional? Peak water: when the politics of water produce changes in access. (More info coming soon)

Books

Coming soon

Articles

Coming soon

Films

Peter H. Gleick, Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession With Bottled Water

More coming soon

Organizations

Regional and State:
     FLOW for Water: Great Lakes
     Community Water Center (California)
     Desal Response Group (California)
     Pacific Institute: Water and Sustainability
National:
     Food and Water Watch
     Alliance for Democracy, Defending Water for Life
     Corporate Accountability International
International:
     Council of Canadians: Blue Planet Project
     Peak Water
 

Human Right to Health:

WILPF women recognize the profound impact of the corporate/military/industrial complex on human health, particularly women of reproductive age and children, through pollution of water. Exposure to such polluted water contributes to an individual’s cumulative “chemical body burden” and creates a pre-condition for disease leading to disability and death any time after exposure. Local, National and International human rights law can be used to hold states, including their corporate and military actors, accountable to advance and protect the human right to health and the realization of the human right to safe water and sanitation.
 
WILPF women recognize the profound impact of the corporate/military/industrial complex on human health, particularly women of reproductive age and children, through pollution of water. Exposure to such polluted water contributes to an individual’s cumulative “chemical body burden” and creates a pre-condition for disease leading to disability and death any time after exposure.  

Local, National and International human rights law can be used to hold states, including their corporate and military actors, accountable to advance and protect the human right to health and the realization of the human right to safe water and sanitation.

Complementing emphasis on the global need for basic sanitation as a human right, we must protect fresh water sources and people from extensive pollution by the military/industrial complex, including, for example, mining, agriculture, and energy.

Polluters regularly violate international and national laws, and use free trade agreements to challenge environmental regulations.  By linking the right to health to the right to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, the case can be made for holding governments, from the local to the global, including member States of the United Nations, accountable for the actions of their corporate and military/industrial actors.  

Take Action:
Pass a Precautionary Principle Ordinance

Materials:
Precautionary Principle (link coming soon)
Our Bodies, Our Water flyer (link coming soon)
The Human Right to Health in UN treaties  (links coming soon)

Books
Theo Colburn, Our Stolen Future
Watch interview of Dr.Theo Colborn on the Health Effects Of Water Contamination from Fracking
Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream (link coming soon)
Health and Human Rights: An International Journal

Films
Living Downstream: The Film, a cinematic feature-length documentary based on the acclaimed book by ecologist and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber

Organizations
Living Downstream
National Economic & Social Rights Initiative
Global Health and Human Rights Program, University of Southern California
The Center for Public Health and Human Rights (CPHHR) at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Center for Health, Environment & Justice
Science and Environmental Health Network
TEDX: The Endocrine Disruption Exchange
 

Read more >>>
Brief History of Rights of Nature Movement
Post date: Wed, 06/20/2012 - 09:44

In 1972, Christopher Stone, Professor at the University of Southern California offered a truly original contribution to the environmental movement, taking up the theme of property rights and nature. In “Should Trees Have Standing?” (link to WILPF handout), he set forth the legal framework for the rights of nature, arguing that since trees and birds cannot exercise those rights themselves, individuals and groups should be able to apply to the court for legal guardianship, and for the right to litigate on behalf of the natural object.

More than 30 years later, environmental lawyers Cormac Cullinan, from South Africa, and Tom Linzey, working in Pennsylvania, came to the same frustrating conclusion: environmental regulations were inadequate and permitted harm to human health and the environment.

In 2003, Cullinan, deep affected by the writings of eco-theologian Thomas Berry and indigenous people’s understanding of the interconnectedness of all life, wrote Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice stating: “We need a new body of law whose first priority is to protect the ecological community in which we live.”

In 2006, Tom Linzey and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, pioneers in rights-based organizing, assisted the small Pennsylvania town of Tamaqua (link to press release) in passing an ordinance to deny the corporate right to spread harmful sewage sludge as fertilizer on farmland and to recognize natural communities and ecosystems as legal persons with legal rights. This was the first “wild law” to be passed anywhere in the world, now followed by communities in PA, NH, and ME that have passed “Rights of Nature” ordinances (link article).

On September 28, 2008, when their new Constitution was passed by national referendum, the nation of Ecuador became the first to codify the traditional wisdom of indigenous people who “recognize Mother Earth as a living being with which they have an indivisible, inter-dependent, complementary and spiritual relationship into a ‘new system’ of environmental protection” based on the rights of nature. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund advised the Ecuador Constitutional Assembly

In April 2009, the United Nations General Assembly declared April 22 “International Mother Earth Day,” following the Bolivia-led Initiative (find link)

April 22, 2010 at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (http://motherearthrights.org/universal-declaration/ ) is approved.

In September 2010, at the International Gathering for the Rights of Nature, “The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature” was founded

On March 31, 2011, The Panchamama Alliance reported (make link) that the Provincial Court in Loja, Ecuador ruled in favor of Nature, specifically the Vilcabamba River marking the first successful case enforcing the Rights of Nature clause in the 2008 Constitution and establishing a legal precedent for future enforcement (need to have a symbol to indicate an important update to postings).

In April 2011, the UN General Assembly sponsored a panel discussion on “Harmony with Nature” (make link) to discuss the creation of a UN Treaty that would grant the same rights found in the Universal Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth” approved at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, April 22, 2010.

For more read “Earth Democracy and the Rights of Mother Earth”
 

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