Free Trade and Globalization
The Crisis of Globalization and the Search for Alternatives
Moving towards genuine self-reliance in times of war and climate collapse. The world is reeling from the crises generated by the war in the Gulf, the disastrous climate and ecological collapse, deepening inequalities, genocides, and other mass atrocities. Multilateral institutions like the United Nations appear to be unable to do much about these. Like any…
Read MoreTrump’s Tariffs = Localist Liberation?
Last week, on so-called “Liberation Day,” the Trump administration announced its new wave of tariffs. The language was poignant. Liberation. It was a word meant to stir, to conjure up the dream of breaking free from foreign exploitation. Dependence on global trade is indeed a trap. For decades, our deepening reliance on faraway markets and…
Read MoreTwenty years of bilaterals.org, twenty years of fighting FTAs
When bilaterals.org was set up back in 2004, the world looked rather different. There was a global network of activist organisations fighting the World Trade Organisation (WTO), coordinated for the most part by Our World is Not for Sale, while social movement struggles against bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) and investment treaties were very isolated from…
Read More50,000 People Say Another World is Possible
World Social Forum Nepal 2024 – Local Futures reports from the World Social Forum, Nepal 2024: From the 15th to the 19th of February, some 50,000 people and 1,400 organizations from 98 countries converged in Kathmandu, Nepal, for the World Social Forum (WSF), reaffirming the central conviction that gave rise to the original WSF in…
Read MoreCatch 22: Phasing Out Fossil Fuels Means Paying Polluters
US$20 billion: That’s how much American investors think Canadian taxpayers should fork over to compensate them for their failed bid to develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Québec. That’s almost a fifth of the province’s total budget for this year. Ruby River Capital LLC, the US-based owner of GNL Québec Inc., filed a…
Read MoreWhy we must abolish the Energy Charter Treaty
Greta Thunberg made international headlines this week when she and other climate activists were briefly detained by police at a protest against the expansion of a coal mine in Germany. Thunberg was among the thousands of protesters who arrived to denounce the expansion of the huge Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine by German energy company RWE.…
Read MoreLocalization and Buen Vivir
Today, there exists what in my estimation is an unprecedented moment for altering the course of human history. The hopes and dreams for a more equitable, peaceful, just and livable world now have an opening for their realization as never before, which has come about due to the impacts on society from accelerating climate fluctuations…
Read MoreLurching from Food Crisis to Food Crisis
When will those occupying spaces of ‘power’ ever get the message right? As the world faces a worsening food crisis – the third in 15 years, experts say – one would think that a convening of so many governments as we saw at the “Uniting for global food security” conference in Berlin in late June…
Read MoreSupply Chain Failures: Another Reason for Localized Economies
The mainstream media – television, print and digital – routinely cycle through the litany of crises gripping the world. One week they’ll tell us about the latest climate disaster. The next, the focus may shift to the war in Ukraine. A few days later, COVID-19’s latest variant might be trending. The hot topic of the…
Read MoreOn Ukraine and the failed Pax Capitalis
During the previous three decades, a particularly new and ahistorical view of the world has arisen in the modern, “civilized,” capitalist West. Famously elaborated by an advisor to Ronald Reagan and later repeated by both liberal and conservative politicians, theorists, and academics, and also iterated constantly through mass news and entertainment media, we have come…
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