NGO Watch®

NGO: Businesses Have Duty to Push Social Change

September 14, 2017

The nongovernmental organization Oxfam has published an article highlighting, in the wake of the recent violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, the growing pressure on businesses "to denounce hatred and promote diversity and inclusion" by airing their opposition to unpopular views, and the growing trend of businesses heeding this pressure in their corporate policies.
Report Considers New Global Governance Structures

September 13, 2017

An extensive report from the Council on Foreign Relations examines how transnational institutions might sidestep the reassertion of nationalism in Western democracies to create a new order of global governance arising out of flexible structures influencing policy on human rights, the climate, the internet, and other global issues.
NGOs Rate G20 Countries' Progress on Climate Deal

September 01, 2017

A group of nongovernmental organizations recently released an index purporting to show the progress of individual countries in the Group of 20 (G20) in fulfilling the UN's 2015 Paris climate deal and finding that a substantial G20-backed shift in funding from fossil fuels to "clean" energy projects is needed to meet the Paris climate goals.
NGO: UNHRC’s Proposed Israel Boycott Unlawful

August 31, 2017

The nongovernmental organization Lawfare has issued a press release advising companies targeted by the UN Human Rights Council's (UNHRC) forthcoming database of businesses purportedly operating in Israeli settlements that they may have legal recourse under US law against inclusion on such a "blacklist."
NGO Stresses Role of "Rights" Promotion in SDGs

August 31, 2017

Citing the role of "human rights defenders" in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by "defending the human rights of all people to live free from fear and free from want without discrimination," Amnesty International has called on governments to pass legislation protecting and supporting efforts by such actors.
Activist Criticizes Economic Case for Women's Rights

August 28, 2017

Sanyu Awori of International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific warns that rights activists must reject the economic case made by businesses and others for corporate engagement of women in the workforce, which mistakenly relies on "the neoliberal macroeconomic system" to empower women, in favor of government-centered women's rights efforts.
RB Joins Global Campaign Toward Tax Clampdown

August 25, 2017

In a victory for nongovernmental organization Oxfam's global pressure campaign toward reducing corporate tax "loopholes" to fund the global economic, social, and cultural rights agenda, consumer goods company RB has called on governments to introduce new rules clamping down on corporate tax avoidance.
Paper Seeks Rights-Focused Global Internet Governance

August 24, 2017

A paper from the Global Commission on Internet Governance, a body established by think tanks the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Chatham House, explores how the future global governance of the internet must incorporate the international human rights agenda.
NGO: Trump Border Policies Violate Rights

August 21, 2017

Amnesty International has published a report asserting that US President Donald Trump's executive order establishing "hard line border control policies, including by building a wall along the border with Mexico, violates international laws on human rights and refugee protection by preventing asylum seekers fleeing "violence and persecution" from entering the country.
NGOs Focus on Corporate Pressure to Advance Initiatives

August 21, 2017

An article from Alex Farrow of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in the UK illustrates the strategy of a broad array of activist organizations to place pressure on large corporations to take "voluntary" actions to help advance their global human rights and equality initiatives.