WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE & FREEDOM UNITED STATES SECTION THIRTY-SECOND TRIENNIAL CONGRESS DETROIT, MICHIGAN August 3, 2014
Resolution passed unanimously by voice vote
This resolution recommends that the Earth Democracy and Corporations vs. Democracy Issue Groups collaborate on an educational and action campaign on the impact of glyphosate and Monsanto’s Roundup on public health and advocate that this product be restricted or banned.
Knowing that since 1993, Monsanto has been aware the even middle and low doses of glyphosate, one of the most active ingredients in Roundup, can cause malformations, such as: absent kidneys and lungs, enlarged hearts, extra ribs, and missing and abnormally formed bones of the limbs, ribs, sternum, spine and skull, and that independent scientists in a number of countries, including, in particular, Argentina and other parts of Latin America where it has been heavily used on crops, have documented the teratogenic [causing birth defects] effects and the specific mechanism by which glyphosate and Roundup produce birth defects; Recognizing that the recent report, “Roundup and Birth Defects: is the Public Being Kept in the Dark?,” authored by eight experts calls for the immediate withdrawal of Roundup and glyphosate from the European Union until a thorough scientific evaluation is done on the herbicide; Understanding that in the United States the public has been kept in the dark by industry and regulators about the ability of glyphosate and Roundup to cause malformations, and that the work of independent scientists has been ignored, denigrated or dismissed, and that in the United States glyphosate is coming up for review by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in late 2014, It is proposed that the Earth Democracy Issue Group, including the subcommittees on the Human Right to Health and on Food Democracy, work with Corporations vs. Democracy to educate WILPF members on the issue, and create an action campaign to begin sometime in September to engage in the EPA process of comment and review. It is also proposed to highlight the two Earth Democracy framing initiatives of Guardianship of Future Generations and the Precautionary Principle as core claims to justify the call for an outright ban of glyphosate and Roundup, And it is suggested that the Corporations vs. Democracy frame would highlight that the illegitimate corporate “person” (Monsanto) has no right to violate the human right to heath asserted in United Nations Declarations and harm the health of actual persons.