Photo: Philipp Rohrer/Alliance Sud

The "Corporate Justice" petition was signed by 135.285 people. This campaign urges the Federal Council of Switzerland and the Parliament to compel Swiss transnational corporations to respect human rights and the environment worldwide, reported Alliance Sud, focal point of Social Watch in the European country.

According to the campaign, subsidiaries of Swiss transnational companies such as Xstrata, Glencore, Syngenta, Nestlé, Danzer, Triumph and Holcim violate human rights or pollute the environment abroad, while there is no way for the parent companies to be held accountable.

Five leading civil society international networks urged the European Union (EU) head of State and Government to “demonstrate a commitment” to ensure at Rio2012 “that policies and practices pursued” within and outside the bloc “are consistent with the principles of sustainable development”.

Photo: ANND

“The popular mobilization” in the Arab world “would not calm whatever the difficulties were until the achievement of the desired goals,” said Ziad Abdel Samad, Executive Director ofhe Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), after its most recent General Assembly, held on 29-30 May in Beirut.

by Roberto Bissio

Twenty years ago, the concept of “sustainable development” was adopted at the highest level in Rio de Janeiro to simultaneously aim at preserving the planet for future generations and promoting a sound development to meet the needs of the present ones. Twenty years after, the volume of international trade has multiplied by five and the per capita world income has doubled to around ten thousand dollars a year. And yet sustainable development is far from being achieved. Increased resources has not accelerated poverty reduction and instead social inequality is on the rise in most countries, North and South, while the unsustainable production and consumption patterns have already overstepped several “planetary boundaries.”

Photo: Chad Magiera/Flickr/CC

The international community must find new indicators to measure the performance of the countries and the world on economy, equity, well-being, human rights and sustainability, suggests the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives, made up of 18 leading activists and scholars from all over the planet.