More than fifty percent of the 100 biggest economies in the world today are corporations. With the collusion of governments, they have created a legal system that puts unfettered economic activity above the public good, protects corporate welfare but attacks social welfare, and makes national economies subservient to a global financial casino that turns over $UStrillions per day in speculative transactions. The global financial crisis has increased volatility and insecurity in all economies, with the most significant impact on poorer individuals, groups and countries. The IMF and the World Bank have contributed to this crisis rather than been part of the solution; the prerequisites on which they are based are not fit to create a global, sustainable and just economic system. Therefore, India Greens Party shall:
- affirm that essentials of life such as water, must remain publicly owned and controlled; and that culture, basic access to food, social and public health, education, and a free media are not ‘commodities’ to be subjected to international market agreements.
- support the creation of a World Environment Organisation by combining the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) into a single institution with funding and power to impose sanctions to promote global sustainable development. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) should be subject to the decisions of this body.
- support serious reform of the World Bank and IMF so that their membership and decision-making democratic, and their operations subservient to sustainability principles and to all international conventions on human and labour rights, and environmental protection.
- support serious reform of the WTO to make sustainability its central goal, supported by transparent and democratic processes and the participation of representatives from affected communities. In addition there must be separation of powers to remove the disputes settlement mechanism from the exclusive competence of the WTO. A sustainability impact assessment of earlier Negotiation Rounds is required before any new steps are taken.
- work to prevent the implementation of new regional or hemispheric trade and investment agreements under the WTO rules but support countries’ integration processes that assure people’s welfare and environmental sustainability.
- Help in creating a world environment where financial and economic institutions and organisations will nurture and protect environmentally sustainable projects that will sustain communities at all levels (local, regional, national and international).
- demand that international agreements on the environment, labour conditions and health should take precedence over any international rules on trade.
- work to require corporations to abide by the environmental, labour and social laws of their own country and of the country in which they are operating, whichever are the more stringent.
- work to ensure that all global organisations, especially those with significant capacity to define the rules of international trade, firmly adhere to principles of sustainable development and pursue a training program of cultural change to fully realise this goal.
- want corporate welfare made transparent and subject to the same level of accountability as social welfare, with subsidies to environmentally and socially destructive activities phased out altogether.
- endorse the development of civic entrepreneurship to promote a community based economy as a way of combating social exclusion caused by economic globalisation.
