News Archives: July - Dec. 2009

December 17th 2009
Verdict Delivered at World's First International Climate Hearing
Mary Robinson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have delivered a global verdict on the human cost of climate change. The judgment was passed at the world???s first international climate hearing on Tuesday, hosted by Oxfam during Humanitarian Day at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. It was later passed to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer, to ensure its delivery to the 192 countries currently negotiating the climate deal.

December 15th 2009
Climate Justice, Ethics and the Copenhagen Agenda
On December 15th 2009 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Mary Robinson and other leaders from the public, academic and NGO sectors led a discussion on emerging institutions and processes for applying equity and human rights to guide the long term vision and decision-making on mitigation, adaptation, REDD, carbon markets and technology transfer.

December 10th 2009
Human Rights Day 2009: New call for companies from key markets to adopt human rights policies
As the world marked International Human Rights Day on 10 December, major companies are being urged to make public commitments to respect human rights. Over 240 companies worldwide now have a policy statement on their commitment to human rights, among them Anglo American, Cerrejуn, Codelco, GE, HSBC, Mitsubishi, Nokia and Statoil.

December 8th 2009
Realizing Rights in Copenhagen for Climate Change Conference
"If we don???t get proper leadership at Copenhagen, soon it will be end of the liveable world; it???s as serious as that." In Copenhagen in the coming days Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative is co-convening and/or supporting a variety of events related to Climate Justice.

December 2nd 2009
Expanding Global Cooperation on Climate Justice
Mary Robinson and Alice M. Miller outline how a human rights framework should be an essential tool in designing strategies, programmes and institutions to help nations mitigate and adapt to climate change. They focus on institutional issues including the role played by the World Bank and highlight reforms needed. Finally they call for building stronger bridges between human rights and development, and between those working on social justice and environmental justice.

December 1st 2009
Universal Access and Human Rights
On World AIDS Day 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released new recommendations on treatment, prevention and infant feeding in the context of HIV, based on the latest scientific evidence. This year???s AIDS day subtheme is "Universal Access and Human Rights," in which global leaders aim to teach prevention of HIV infection and work towards providing better care to people with living with HIV and AIDS.

November 11th 2009
New Reports Offer Practical Guidance on Human Rights Reporting for Companies
'Protect, Respect, Remedy' was the theme of an EU Presidency conference in Stockholm which was attended by Prof. John Ruggie and Mary Robinson. The conference took place against the backdrop of the release of two new reports this week, which examine trends in corporate measurement and reporting on human rights performance and provide practical guidance for companies engaging on this emerging area of corporate citizenship and accountability.

October 22nd 2009
European Development Days 2009
By bringing together politicians, civil society, business leaders, academics, researchers and the media, the European Development Days provide an opportunity for networking, sharing experiences and finding new partners for development projects. Do companies have a baseline responsibility to respect human rights? Mary Robinson participated in a session exploring this issue.

October 19th 2009
Blog by Mary Robinson on her week-long visit to four African countries
I???ve just returned from a week long visit to four African countries where it was encouraging to see positive developments across a number of key issues - good governance, the right to health, climate justice and women???s leadership ??? all of which relate to our work at Realizing Rights...

October 19th 2009
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed in discussion with Mary Robinson
Maldives, the lowest-lying nation on earth, could be submerged by rising sea levels due to climate change. Maldives is calling for concerted global action on climate change ahead of the Copenhagen conference. Watch excerpts of a recent discussion between President Mohamed Nasheed and Mary Robinson.

October 19th 2009
Peace and Security through Women???s Leadership
The Women Leaders Intercultural Forum of Realizing Rights supported Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Tarja Halonen of Finland in co-convening an event on "Peace and Security through Women???s Leadership: Acting on 1325 and Climate Change" during the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 24 September.

October 13th 2009
Jobs, Justice, Climate: A Rally for Labor and Environmental Movements
On September 21st, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative joined with the Cornell Global Labor Institute (GLI) and the New York Society for Ethical Culture to organize a major event - Jobs Justice Climate - which brought together leading labor, environmental, student, and community activists to encourage world leaders to take decisive action on global warming.

October 5th 2009
Realizing the Right to Health
In advance of the World Health Summit, to be held in Berlin on Oct 14???18, this week's issue of The Lancet features a piece contributed by Mary Robinson: "Realizing the human right to health". Excerpt: WHO declared more than six decades ago that the "enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being". Nowadays, most countries have ratified international treaties that make the right to health an international legal obligation that has to be progressively realised nationally...

September 27th 2009
Connecting for Peace: Nobel Laureates in Dialogue
The Vancouver Peace Summit 2009 took place from September 27-29, 2009 at the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. Joining the Dalai Lama were Nobel Laureates Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams and Murray Gell-Mann, as well as a number of respected international leaders from the realms of education, the arts, business, politics and social transformation. Mary Robinson moderated a dialogue with the Nobel Laureates.

September 21st 2009
Jobs Justice Climate
On September 21st, hundreds of labor, environmental, student, and community activists came together for a Jobs|Justice|Climate rally at the New York Society for Ethical Culture as part of Climate Week NYC. Demanding decisive action on global warming in a way that reduces emissions, creates jobs and advances social justice, participants included Mary Robinson, President Mohamed Nasheed of The Maldives, Juan Somavia of the ILO, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Jonathan Pershing, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change, Kumi Naidoo of the Global Campaign on Climate Action and environmentalist Bill McKibben (by video).

September 13th 2009
Weblog: Realizing Rights Team Travels to Tamale, Ghana
Realizing Rights has been supporting the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) in Ghana on a project aimed at "Enhancing Women???s Economic Empowerment for Self Reliance." The initiative seeks to improve the socio-economic status of women and provide them with tools to contribute more effectively to national development efforts. This involves equipping women with business skills and resources for empowerment such as establishing micro-credit loan schemes and promoting functional literacy.

September 10th 2009
2009 Inamori Ethics Prize awarded to Mary Robinson
The Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University has awarded the 2009 Inamori Ethics Prize to Mary Robinson for her work in global human rights, health care, sustainability and corporate responsibility.

September 2nd 2009
Peter Gabriel awarded Polar Music Prize 2009
The Polar Music Prize is awarded to individuals and groups in recognition of exceptional achievements in music. the 2009 winners have also shown a strong social dimension - Peter Gabriel and Josй Antonio Abreu. Mary Robinson delivered the Polar Prize citation for Peter Gabriel, noting that his music has been a megaphone for global society, as well as its most unflinching critic.

August 28th 2009
Webcast: Connecting the Elders, Palestinians and Israelis
Since the Elders were founded, they have closely followed events in the Middle East. Last week, they visited the region for the first time as a group to listen to the people affected by the conflict and to offer their support to all those working for peace. At the end of the week, they brought together the young Israelis and Palestinians they met during their trip to join them for a live discussion, broadcast worldwide via the web.

August 26th 2009
Statement by Mary Robinson on the passing of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy
Mary Robinson issued the following statement today on the passing of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy: "We have lost one of the true champions of human rights in the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy. Ted Kennedy's lifetime commitment to public service and vision of an America that...

August 22nd 2009
New web presence for Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health
The Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health (MLI), a program of Realizing Rights, has recently launched an enhanced version of the MLI website. Check out the new site to learn about the work MLI is supporting with national government ministries of health in Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

August 17th 2009
Weblog: Ghana and Liberia
Heather Grady, Director of Policy and Strategy and the Trade and Decent Work Program, reflects on her recent visits to Ghana and Liberia where she visited some of the partners and activities Realizing Rights supports in these countries.

August 12th 2009
Medal of Freedom conferred on Mary Robinson by President Obama
Mary Robinson has been awarded the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President Barack Obama. The Medal of Freedom is the highest US civilian honor, awarded to "individuals who make an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

July 17th 2009
Putting a gender perspective on the business and human rights agenda
The Special Representative of the Secretary- General on Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, is asked to "integrate a gender perspective throughout his work and give special attention to vulnerable populations, in particular children." In order to help him fulfil this, Realizing Rights convened a small group of experts, in their personal capacity, for a full day meeting in New York on 29 June 2009.

July 10th 2009
High Level Policy Forum - After 2015: Promoting Pro-poor Policy after the MDGs
The Millennium Development Goals have played a major role in focusing development policy since their original incarnation in the 1990s. Some development agencies, notably DFID, have gone as far as to judge their activities on the contribution to achieving the MDGs. What happens when we no longer have the MDGs? How will we promote pro-poor policy after 2015? These were the questions addressed at a High Level Policy Forum on June 23rd 2009 in Brussels.

July 8th 2009
Conference on 'Human Resources for Maternal Survival: Task-shifting to Non-Physician Clinicians'
The first African Regional Meeting on "Human Resources for Maternal Survival: Task-shifting to Non-Physician Clinicians" took place in Addis Ababa from 29 June - 2 July 2009. Some 350 participants, including Ministers of Health, senior government officials, health programme managers, clinicians and heads of health training institutes, from 36 African countries, attended the four-day conference. Staff of Realizing Rights also attended the conference.

July 6th 2009
Road to Copenhagen: 162 days to Save the Planet
Climate justice, opportunities during the economic crisis and the responsibility of developed countries, are burning issues which the climate initiative Road to Copenhagen discussed during the opening seminar of Almedalen week in Visby, Sweden. Dubbed by many as "the rock festival for Swedish politics", the first week of July each year sees the Baltic sea island town of Visby play host to 'anyone who???s anyone' in Swedish politics. The annual event has special significance this year with Sweden taking over the EU Presidency on 1 July.