The pursuit of voluntary principles or guidelines regarding companies' responsibilities and obligations in the human rights field should be complemented by the development of a binding instrument guaranteeing the cessation and non-repetition of a violation. This is the view of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) with regards the drafting of the 'Norms of Responsibility of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights' by a UN sub-commission.

CIVICUS took its message of support for broader civic participation and engagement in global policy-making and processes to the recently-held World Economic Forum in Davos and World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. As an international alliance of civil society organisations in more than 100 countries, CIVICUS promotes the rights of citizens and citizen groups to be actively involved in decisions affecting their lives and communities.

What has the impact of recent advances in technology and movements towards trade liberalization been in Namibia? This paper attempts to extend the debate on globalisation and labour markets to Namibia, as the authors suggest the current debate lacks theoretical and empirical rigour.

US President George W Bush discussed possible war against Iraq with Djibouti President Ismael Omar Guelleh on Tuesday and said the United States would soon open an aid office in the tiny African nation. During a cordial half-hour meeting, Bush thanked his guest for his help in the war on terrorism and told him that Washington aims to open an office of the US Agency for International Development in Djibouti.

Back in 2001 the Doha declaration set the TRIPS council a deadline to find a solution to the issue of how developing countries - with limited or no production capacity - can take advantage of access to compulsory licences to respond to health emergencies. That deadline has now passed with no solution agreed and the post-Doha mood of optimism all but forgotten. This web page sifts through the political fallout of this failure to bring you analysis of how this situation came about and background to the declaration and the issues it aimed to address.

Global economic governance refers to the institutions, norms, practices and decision-making processes from which rules, guidelines, standards, and codes arise in order to manage the global economy. This paper from the South Centre looks at suggestions for ways of bringing about the reform of international institutions and therefore the global economic system.

Business leaders, politicians and the rich converge on the Swiss ski resort of Davos from 23 January for the World Economic Forum (WEF) - the annual gathering of the powerful which plays an important role in discussions of world economic and social policy. But the meeting takes place amidst growing criticism of corporate greenwash. Despite a high profile pledge made a year ago at the WEF in New York, WEF corporations have already demonstrated their unwillingness to embrace sustainability if it gets in the way of more profits. Friends of the Earth is highlighting cases of bad practices in the year since WEF 2002.

It has become clear that World Bank privatisation schemes are slated to be the new emphasis for that institution, says this article from The 50 Years Is Enough Network's Economic Justice News, which reviews three years of the global justice movement since large demonstrations and the meltdown in official negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Seattle, November 30 - December 3, 1999. The privatisation agenda is bad news for economic democracy, says the article, with essential services facing a sell off to the highest bidders.

The west's attitude to developing countries when it came to trade was akin to a football team improving its position on the log only to find that the number one team had changed the rules and said three goals had to be scored to count as one, according to a United Kingdom committee of peers, who accused the west of "unjustifiable and objectionable" protectionism in its dealings with developing countries, in a report attacking the "shameful" level of global poverty.

AITEC WEST AFRICA 2003 is a highly interactive event for senior executives in government and the private sector who are seeking new insights into important strategic issues. Participants will exchange views, network and compare experiences with other key decision-makers and with expert speakers from the Information and Technology industry.

By dawn, the convoy is ploughing through the bush, rolling east into a rising sun with 58 tonnes of emergency food for a settlement camp cut off without aid deep in Angola's famine territory. If these vehicles cannot make it, there is little chance of feeding the tens of thousands of people stranded in the province of Cuando Cubango, a wilderness so desolate it is known as "the land at the end of the earth".

The EU has launched an initiative to break the current WTO deadlock on developing countries' access to affordable medicines. WTO members failed to meet the end of a 2002 deadline to find a solution for developing countries without manufacturing capacities, namely given the disagreement over the disease coverage. In a letter addressed to all WTO Trade Ministers, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy proposes a multilateral solution which is workable, sustainable and legally secure, based both on the Doha mandate and on the chair's compromise text of 16 December 2002.

The lives of tens of millions of people around the world are threatened by conflict, ethnic violence, drought and natural disaster. But the response to those needs varies tremendously. For example, Toby Porter, an independent consultant, has calculated that in 1999 the United Nations spent $207 for each person in need in Kosovo, but only $16 per person in Sierra Leone and $8 per person in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Refugees International (RI), a DC-based refugee and IDP advocacy organisation, has launched a new initiative entitled "Forgotten People" about humanitarian emergencies around the world.

How can the world's bioresources be managed so that the social groups most dependent upon them benefit from conservation efforts, or are compensated for negative effects? How can ecological concerns be included in rural development initiatives where conservation is not the primary aim?

Families living outside of their original national boundaries have had, and continue to have, a profound influence over the flow of people, goods, money and information. More in-depth perspectives reveal how immigrants face troubling issues of cultural identity, economic change, political uncertainty and social welfare. From an examination of 19th century transnational families emigrating from Europe, to the Ghanaian Pentecostal diaspora in Europe today, this book combines broadly based analysis with more unusual case studies to reveal the complexities that immigrants and refugees must contend with in their daily lives. This book, wide-ranging in its geographical and thematic scope, is a highly important and timely addition to debates on transnational families, immigrants and refugees.

Deborah Fahy Bryceson (editor)

Bureaucrats are blocking attempts to dispense food relief urgently needed for thousands of poverty-stricken rural people, according to an NGO activist. This accusation follows the discovery of a horrifying statistic - 150 000 South African families are starving. The audit may be just the tip of the iceberg because the study covers only 13 areas that have been identified as economically depressed.

European trade commissioner Pascal Lamy has got a hold of your future and is doing all he can to hand it over to the transnational corporations. The vehicle for Lamy's villainy is an obscure trade agreement called GATS, or the General Agreement on Trade in Services. The agreement itself may be a less-than-riveting read, but its significance is relatively easy to grasp. All human activities are to become, in the fullness of time, profit-oriented commodities that can be invested in and traded, says this article on the web site of the Trans-National Institute.

Although the global community may not be making much progress on the daunting environmental and social problems humanity faces, local and grassroots initiatives are providing cause for optimism, according to the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World report.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks held late last year failed to resolve the issue of access to generic medicines in developing countries after the United States blocked an agreement on granting easier access to the drugs. "Its a tragedy that there is no solution after one year of talks ... millions of people have died from [infectious] diseases this year. The rich countries don't realise how much this has affected poor countries," head of international affairs for treatment lobby group Act-Up Paris, Gaëlle Krikorian, told PlusNews.

The worm has finally turned. In mid-December Kenya Telkom's monopoly, international internet connection company Jambonet decided to block a number of its ports claiming they "were being used to transmit VOIP traffic." The net result was a near two-day shutdown of internet services in Kenya a week before the elections. Private sector lobby groups TESPOK and the Cyber Cafe Operators Association of Kenya first protested and then decided to fight back.