by Sustainable Pulse
December 03, 2015
from
SustainablePulse Website
Sustainable Pulse
provides the general public with the latest global news
on GMOs, Sustainable Food and Sustainable Agriculture
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The,
...joined by dozens of global food,
farming and environmental justice groups announced today that they
will put Monsanto MON (NYSE), a
US-based transnational corporation, on trial for crimes against
nature and humanity, and ecocide, in The Hague,
Netherlands, next year on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century according to the
groups, Monsanto has developed a steady stream of highly toxic
products which have permanently damaged the environment and caused
illness or death for thousands of people.
These products include:
-
PCBs (polychlorinated
biphenyl), one of the 12 Persistent Organic Pollutants
(POP) that affect human and animal fertility
-
2,4,5 T
(2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), a dioxin-containing
component of
the defoliant, Agent Orange,
which was used by the US Army during the Vietnam War and
continues to cause birth defects and cancer
-
Lasso (Alachlor),
an herbicide that is now banned in Europe
-
RoundUp, the most widely used
herbicide in the world, and the source of the
greatest health and environmental scandal in modern history.
This toxic herbicide, designated a probable human carcinogen
by the World Health Organization, is used in combination
with genetically modified (GM) RoundUp Ready seeds in
large-scale monocultures, primarily to produce soybeans,
maize and rapeseed for animal feed and biofuels
Relying on the "Guiding Principles on
Business and Human Rights" adopted by the UN in 2011, an
international court of lawyers and judges will assess the potential
criminal liability of Monsanto for damages inflicted on human health
and the environment.
The court will also rely on the Rome
Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague
in 2002, and it will consider whether to reform international
criminal law to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide,
as a prosecutable criminal offense.
The International Criminal Court,
established in 2002 in The Hague, has determined that prosecuting
ecocide as a criminal offense is the only way to guarantee the
rights of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to
be protected.
The announcement was made at a press conference held in conjunction
with the
COP21 United Nations Conference on
Climate Change, November 30-December 11, in Paris.
Speaking at the press conference, Ronnie Cummins,
international director of the OCA (US) and Via Organica (Mexico),
and member of the RI Steering Committee, said:
"The time is long overdue for a
global citizens' tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes
against humanity and the environment.
We are in Paris this month to
address the most serious threat that humans have ever faced in
our 100-200,000 year evolution - global warming and climate
disruption.
Why is there so much carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere and not enough
carbon organic matter in the soil?
Corporate agribusiness, industrial
forestry, the garbage and sewage industry and agricultural
biotechnology have literally killed the climate-stabilizing,
carbon-sink capacity of the Earth's living soil."
Andre Leu, president of IFOAM and
a member of the RI Steering Committee, said:
"Monsanto is able to ignore the
human and environmental damage caused by its products, and
maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of
systemic concealment:
-
by lobbying regulatory
agencies and governments
-
by resorting to lying and
corruption
-
by financing fraudulent
scientific studies
-
by pressuring independent
scientists
-
by manipulating the press
and media
Monsanto's history reads like a
text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational
corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute
to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the
planet."
Marie-Monique Robin, journalist
and author of the best-selling documentary, "The
World According to Monsanto," said:
"This International Citizens'
Tribunal is necessary because the defense of the safety of the
planet and the conditions of life on Earth is everyone's
concern.
Only through a collective resurgence
of all living forces will we stop the engine of destruction.
That's why today I am calling on all citizens of the world to
participate in this exemplary tribunal."
Also speaking at the conference were,
-
Valerie Cabanes, lawyer and
spokesperson for End Ecocide on Earth
-
Hans Rudolf Herren, president
and CEO of the Millennium Institute, president and founder
of Biovision, and member of the RI Steering Committee
-
Arnaud Apoteker, creator of the
anti-GMO campaign in France, which became one of the
priority campaigns of Greenpeace France, and author of "Fish
in Our Strawberries: Our Manipulated Food"
-
Olivier De Schutter, co-chair of
the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food
Systems (IPESFood) and former UN Special Rapporteur on the
Right to Food
Additional Information:
-
Full list of founding
organizations (so far)
here.
-
Full list of Monsanto Tribunal
Foundation organizing members
here.
-
More information will be
available at
www.monsanto-tribunal.org/,
after 2:30 p.m. EU time on December 3, 2015.
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