Contents

Don’t abandon Darfur, UN whistleblower says .............................................................................................................. 2

How the US and UN helped defeat Ebola in West Africa .............................................................................................. 4

Propaganda pros.............................................................................................................................................................. 6

Extracts of WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo’s January address ....................................................................... 6

Myanmar: Foreign mining companies colluding in serious abuses and illegality ......................................................... 8

Political portrait of the week ......................................................................................................................................... 13

French Justice Minister Acknowledges Terrorism’s Power to Mobilize ...................................................................... 14

Tasmania drops plans to let corporations sue protesters for defamation ..................................................................... 15

Global Actors Edition 2/1/2015

NEWS FOR YOUR USE

DON’T ABANDON DARFUR , UN WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS

In 2009, a UN and African Union peacekeeping chief declared that the war in Darfur was “over”. But as the war

slipped off the international radar it continued to affect the lives of millions of civilians in the region. Now the

International Criminal Court (ICC) has suspended its investigations into crimes in Darfur, while the joint

peacekeeping force, Unamid, is allegedly preparing for a withdrawal following demands from the Sudanese

government.

For Darfur, this has brought a fresh wave of violence since rebels took up arms in 2003 against President Omar

al-Bashir’s government in Khartoum. In 2008, the UN estimated the conflict had killed more than 300,000

people and displaced 2 million, while fresh reports indicate further “significant” displacement and an

“escalation” in government assaults on Darfur civilians.

I fear that as the ICC and Unamid give up on their commitment to Darfur, the international community will

abandon the civilians it has promised to protect, just as a new surge of violence rears its head.

While I was working as Unamid’s spokesperson between 2012 and 2013, I observed how the UN was actively

covering up mass atrocities committed by the government forces in Darfur, and I decided to blow the whistle.

Now, it’s clear that it’s vital the

international community renews

interest in Darfur. As the dry season

approaches and threatens more

violence, we should leverage, not

abandon, the ICC investigations – and

strengthen Unamid’s presence in the

region.

Credibility & accountability

In December 2014, the ICC’s

announcement that it would postpone its investigations into crimes in Darfur surprised many. This was also a

disappointment: the election of Fatou Bensouda in 2012 – the first Muslim woman and the first African elected

to the position of chief prosecutor – had initially raised hopes for justice in the region.

Indicted Sudanese president Bashir celebrated the announcement, claiming that Sudan had defeated the

“colonialist courts”. It’s clear that Bensouda sent the wrong message to him and other African leaders, and the

issue now threatens the ICC’s wider credibility.

The message that there would be no new cases on recent and ongoing crimes in Darfur has already had

devastating effects on the region. In the past few weeks, Bashir’s Rapid Support Forces have re-launched a

military campaign displacing an estimated 90,000 people.

But I am convinced the international community does not know the whole truth about what is happening in

Darfur. When I blew the whistle over Unamid and the UN’s deeply inadequate reporting on various government

How can this be used to get me dem full marks?

Evaluate the effectiveness of the United Nations (related to peace and stability)

Evaluate effectiveness of ICC

Evaluate the impact/influence of the United Nations (Elbasri suggests that it does have influence over the global political arena)

attacks – from bombings, rapes, to forced displacement and scorched earth campaigns by government forces, as

well as rebel attacks on civilians – little was done.

The UN did publish a review of Unamid’s reporting in October 2014, at the request of the ICC. While the full

report has not been made public, a summary of its findings is available online, and is troubling. The report

found five instances “issues in the reporting” delayed or concealed evidence indicating the culpability of

Sudanese government forces (or their proxies) in crimes against civilians and Unamid “Blue Helmet”

peacekeepers.

Black-out

The effects of these cover-ups, and Unamid’s failure to protect civilians under imminent threat, have been

devastating. With journalistic access nearly impossible in Darfur because of military presence, Unamid’s

troubling reporting has led to an almost total media black-out. Only a few regional media organisations, such as

Radio Dabanga, are able to get information out.

The dangers, if the UN doesn’t put Darfur back on top of the policy agenda, are very real

This was very clear in early November last year, when Unamid conducted a shoddy investigation of the alleged

rape of 200 women and girls by Sudanese armed forces in a village only 30 miles from the mission’s

headquarters. Their initial investigation and press release effectively shut down international media attention, by

claiming they had found “no evidence”, even though Unamid interviewers elsewhere suggested that they

thought the claims were potentially credible.

“Never again”

But despite its weaknesses I believe it is crucial that Unamid stay active in Darfur. Many continue to turn to the

organisation for protection. I remember the 38,000 civilians who took refuge around Unamid bases in the towns

of Labado and Muhajeria during April 2012, when government forces and rebels were fighting in the area.

Right now, Radio Dabanga is reporting hundreds fleeing to displacement camps following new military attacks.

The dangers, if the UN doesn’t put Darfur back on top of the policy agenda, are very real. I predict that there

will be more ethnically targeted onslaught, more mass rape, more displacements and more bombings. The ICC

will become irrelevant, as its landmark case is put out to pasture. The UN must not bow to pressure from

Sudan’s government to draw up an exit strategy. If they do, I fear the international community may once again

be forced to admit that those immortal words, “never again”, were hollow.

Aicha Elbasri was the former spokesperson for the UNAMID mission in Darfur. She resigned in 2013, accusing

the UN of a “conspiracy of silence” over the world’s biggest forgotten war.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/19/dont-abandon-darfur-says-un-whistleblower

HOW THE US AND UN HELPED DEFEAT EBOLA IN WEST AFRICA

Last week, the World Health Organization announced that its response to the ebola outbreak in West Africa had

entered a new phase. They were no longer focused solely on ending transmission of the disease, but totally

eliminate it. here were fewer than 500 cases reported in the last 21 days–and under than 100 new cases reported

in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea in the past week. The end of this outbreak is now tantalizingly in reach.

This is an amazing accomplishment when you consider how fast and furious the virus was spreading just a few

months ago. In September, the rate of new infections were doubling every three weeks. There were nearly

3,000 new infections each month.

The outbreak was out of control. And now it’s under control. So what tipped the scales?

I’ve long had a theory that an unprecedented decision by the United States to bring the ebola outbreak to the

Security Council was the key inflection point after which the pieces of a robust international response

commensurate with the scale of the crisis began to fall into place. There’s anecdotal data to back up this claim,

including a loosening of travel restrictions to and from the affected countries (as called for by the Security

Council resolution) and the creation and development of a new UN Emergency Ebola Response Mission to

better coordinate on-the-ground-response are among the anecdotal data.

New research by Dr. Karen Grepin of NYU offers data that might support my theory. In a piece posted today in

the British Medical Journal, Grepin (who you need to follow on Twitter) takes a deep dive into the level and

speed of international donations to

ebola response. She finds that even as

the WHO kept revising upwards the

estimated financial requirements

needed to fund a response since March

2014, major funding did not reach the

affected regions until October.

Substantial donor support did not reach

affected countries until October, more

than six months after WHO was alerted

to the outbreak. These delays in

disbursements of funding may have

contributed to spread of the virus and

could have increased the financial needs. The problem has not been the generosity of donors but that the

resources have not been deployed rapidly enough.

Grepin concludes that the sluggish pace at which international donors responded to the crisis early on probably

made the response more expensive in the long term. She also suggests that the international community

consider creating a financing facility to quickly disburse funds during an infectious disease outbreak (which is

something the WHO is poised to establish).

This chart offers a good visual demonstration of when the pledges started to materialize.

How can this be used to get me dem full marks?

Evaluate the effectiveness of the United Nations

Evaluate the impact/influence of the United Nations

Shows the continued influence of states within Institutions of Global Governance – UN was reliant on US support to mount an effective effort

As you can see from her chart above, the spike in pledges in mid-September coincides with an increase in paid

contributions weeks later in October.

What happened in mid September to cause that spike?

On September 16, President Obama visited the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in

Atlanta to meet with staff working on the ebola response. In a speech, he announced that the USA was

significantly stepping up its contributions to the ebola response in West Africa, including dispatching 3,000

troops and medics to the region to build and staff medical centers and establish an air bridge to get personnel

and supplies to the affected countries. Two days later, the USA called an emergency meeting of the Security

Council on the ebola crisis. An unprecedented number of countries — over 130 — co-sponsored a resolution

calling for a stepped up international response to the crisis, and outlining measures the international community

needed to take to contain this crisis.

This Security Council meeting effectively internationalized the American decision to make ebola response a top

tier international security priority. And as you can see from Dr. Grepin’s research, starting in mid September,

donor pledges for ebola response started to roll in. By October started to materialize in the ground.

This makes a strong case that this one week in September marked the beginning of the end of the ebola

outbreak. American leadership, including a decision to secure broad international support for a common ebola

response plan at the United Nations, turned the tide against the outbreak.

http://www.undispatch.com/usa-un-helped-defeat-ebola-west-africa/

PROPAGANDA PROS

EXTRACTS OF WTO DIRECTOR-GENERAL ROBERTO AZEVEDO’S JANUARY ADDRESS

This organization, and the global system of transparent, multilaterally-agreed trade rules that it embodies, has helped to:

boost trade growth,

prevent protectionism, particularly in response to the 2008 financial crisis,

and, crucially, it has helped support developing countries to integrate into global trading flows.

We have also helped to resolve numerous trade disputes.

In fact, over these 20 years, we have received almost 500 requests for consultations on disputes — which is a huge increase on the 300 disputes that our predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade received in 47 years.

Resolving disputes is also of significant economic value. Indeed, the disputes that the WTO has dealt with relate to over 1 trillion US dollars in trade flows. So this is clearly important work.

And, since 1995 we have significantly expanded the rule of law. Indeed, our organization has evolved considerably over this period.

In every newsletter we will shine a spotlight on the weird and

wonderful world of propaganda, the all-important attempt by

both state and non-state actors to influence public opinion in

their favour. This week’s example comes from Russia’s

stringently pro-Putin newspaper Pravda:

And a second one that has quite a ring to it, and, like all

good propaganda, a small grain of truth:

We have welcomed 33 new members to the WTO, ranging from some of the world’s largest economies to some of the least developed. Today our 160 members account for approximately 98% of global trade.

Moreover, at our 9th Ministerial Conference in Bali in 2013, we took our first major step in updating the multilateral trade rules. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

But I want to be clear that there is no complacency here. We face some real challenges as an organization and I am determined that we should do everything we can to tackle them — starting now, during this anniversary year.

End of extract 1

Start of extract 2

………After all, more than two thirds of our members are developing or least developed. And without such a central focus on development I don’t think we will be able to help these countries grow economically and address their developmental concerns.

That’s why I think we are seeing the WTO becoming even more responsive to its developing members — and this is the reason they are playing an even bigger role than ever in influencing the agenda.

This was clear in the Bali package which members agreed in December 2013.

Developing countries played a key role throughout the Bali negotiations and their support was instrumental in making it a success.

Bali simply would not have happened without their leadership and very vocal support. And of course the package contained some vital outcomes for developing countries.

BREAKING THE IMPASSE

I’m sure you are all aware that despite the success achieved at Bali, we hit an impasse last summer in implementing what we had agreed in Bali.

This had a paralyzing effect on negotiations across the board — which was of particular concern to many developing countries who desperately wanted to see progress in all areas of the Doha development agenda.

In November, the impasse was finally resolved. And I want to acknowledge the role that India played in this — and particularly to thank Minister Sitharaman and Prime Minister Modi for showing the leadership which made this possible.

It was a major breakthrough — and it enabled WTO members to come together and take a number of important decisions that have helped to bring things back on track.

The first decision, and clearly the most important for India, was a clarification of the Bali Decision on Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes, namely to unequivocally state that the peace clause agreed in Bali would remain in force until a permanent solution is found.

I am very pleased that the WTO, and its members, could deliver for India on this important issue — both in Bali and in Geneva.

How can this be used to get me dem full marks?

Evaluate the effectiveness of the WTO

Evaluate the impact/influence of the WTO

In Extract 2 we see evidence of the continued reliance of the WTO on the agreement of its member states, such as India, suggesting that sovereignty is a) still the foundational principle of Institutions of Global Governance and b) can at times hinder the work of these institutions

But of course, it is just the beginning of this work. Members now have to work constructively together towards finding a permanent solution on this issue.

We have a target date to conclude the negotiations of December this year. So we don’t have any time to lose. I look forward to India playing a leading role in this regard in the coming months.

The second decision that members took was to formally add the Trade Facilitation Agreement to the WTO rulebook.

This clears the path for the Trade Facilitation Agreement that was agreed in Bali to be implemented and for it to come into force. Members are now working to ratify the Agreement according to their domestic procedures.

Here too, I am grateful for the support that Indian industry, and in particular the CII, has given to our work on trade facilitation. I’m sure that you will soon begin to see its positive effects.

It is estimated that the Agreement will reduce trade costs by up to 15% in developing countries. And I think you are likely to see benefits in a number of ways, including from the boost that it will bring to south-south trade.

Trade between India and Africa, for example, has grown exponentially in recent years. This Agreement will cut the costs of that trade, helping to boost those trading links yet further.

Moreover, there will be practical support to make this happen. For the first time in the WTO’s history, this Agreement states that assistance and support must be provided to help developing countries achieve the capacity to implement it. So, for those countries with less-developed customs infrastructure, the Agreement will mean a boost in the technical assistance that is available to them.

MYANMAR: FOREIGN MINING COMPANIES COLLUDING IN SERIOUS ABUSES AND ILLEGALITY

Myanmar: Foreign mining companies colluding in serious abuses and illegality

In December 2014 one woman died and several other people were injured when police opened fire on

protestors at the Letpadaung site.

Myanmar offers the perfect storm of a rich natural resource base, a weak legal system and an economy

dominated by military and

special interests. The

government has forcibly

evicted people, crushed all

attempts at peaceful protest

and displayed a complete

unwillingness to hold

companies to account.

Canadian and Chinese

mining interests have

profited from, and in some

cases colluded with the

Myanmar authorities in

serious human rights abuses and illegal activity around the Monywa copper mine complex, which

includes the notorious Letpadaung mine, Amnesty International said in a report released today.

Open for Business? Corporate Crime and Abuses at Myanmar Copper Mine describes how large-scale

forced evictions and serious pollution linked to the mine have destroyed livelihoods and exposed

thousands of people to health risks. Community protests have been met with excessive force by police,

including, on one occasion, the use of white phosphorous, a highly toxic and explosive substance.

Amnesty International also found evidence of illegal activity including possible breaches of economic

sanctions.

“Myanmar offers the perfect storm of a rich natural resource base, a weak legal system and an economy

dominated by military and special interests. The government has forcibly evicted people, crushed all

attempts at peaceful protest and displayed a complete unwillingness to hold companies to account,” said

Meghna Abraham, Amnesty International’s Corporate Crimes Researcher.

How can this be used to get me dem full marks?

Evaluate the impact of TNCs on the global political arena

Example of TNC political and economic power

Exploring the relationship between sovereignty, responsibility to protect, and non-state actors – is Myanmar’s sovereignty challenged in this case? Have they abdicated sovereignty in favour of profit? If they are not fulfilling their role as a state, do they still possess sovereignty?

Effectiveness of NGOs such as Amnesty – will its recommendations be taken on board? What impact does publishing this report have and how does this show us AI’s role in the global political arena?

“The Monywa project is a cautionary tale on investment in Myanmar, where corporate projects are too

often marked by abuses and communities are ripped apart in the pursuit of profit. Construction of the

Letpadaung mine must be halted immediately until rights issues have been addressed.”

Amnesty International’s report includes evidence of:

Thousands of people forcibly evicted in the 1990s, in violation of international law, to make

way for investment by Canadian company Ivanhoe Mines (now Turquoise Hill Resources); the

company knew their investment would lead to the evictions, yet did nothing. It profited from

more than a decade of copper mining, carried out in partnership with Myanmar’s military

government, without attempting to address the thousands left destitute.

Thousands more people forcibly evicted since 2011 to make way for the Letpadaung mine,

which is run by Chinese company Wanbao and Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings

(UMEHL), the economic arm of the Myanmar military. Wanbao directly engaged in forced

evictions, and colluded with the authorities, including by providing bulldozers to destroy crops.

In November 2012 security forces used white phosphorous, a highly toxic explosive substance,

in a deliberate attack on villagers and monks who were protesting the negative impacts of the

Letpadaung mine. More than 100 people were injured, with some suffering horrific burns and

lifelong disability. Part of the attack was launched from inside the Wanbao company

compound. The use of white phosphorous by the security forces against the protestors

constituted torture – a crime under international law.

In December 2014 one woman died and several other people were injured when police opened

fire on protestors at the Letpadaung site. Protests against the mine have repeatedly been met by

excessive use of force by police.

Ivanhoe Mines was involved, through its Monywa investment, in the sale of copper to a “who’s-

who” of the Myanmar military. These sales took place when economic sanctions were still in

force. Ivanhoe lied publically about the copper sales, and its subsidiary may have breached UK

economic sanctions.

When Ivanhoe Mines divested from Myanmar it did so in a highly secretive process involving

legal entities in the British Virgin Islands. Amnesty International’s investigation found evidence

that Ivanhoe Mines and legal entities associated with the company may have breached Canadian

and UK economic sanctions during the divestment. The organization is calling on Canada and

the UK to initiate criminal investigations into the issue.

The military-owned conglomerate UMEHL illegally operated a sulphuric acid factory linked to

the Monywa mine for six years. When this was exposed, the factory was approved by the

authorities, who made no attempt to take punitive action against UMEHL.

“The people living around Monwya and Letpadaung have suffered more than two decades of abuse

linked to the business operations of Canadian, Myanmar and now Chinese corporations. Investment can

help Myanmar, but this project benefits the companies while harming the people,” said Meghna

Abraham.

Amnesty International calls for:

Investigations by Canada and China into the activities of Ivanhoe Mines and Wanbao in

Myanmar.

Canadian and UK authorities to investigate whether Ivanhoe Mines and related legal entities

breached Canadian and/or UK economic sanctions.

All construction of the Letpadaung mine to be halted until the abuses are addressed.

Investigations by the Myanmar authorities into the police response to protests at Letpadaung,

including the use of while phosphorous and the role played by Wanbao in allowing the police to

use a company compound to launch part of the attack.

The Myanmar authorities to provide adequate compensation and resettlement to people who

were forcibly evicted and to reform its legal framework to better protect rights of mine-affected

communities.

Background

The Monywa project comprises the Sabetaung and Kyisintaung (S&K) and the Letpadaung copper

mines. S&K has been operational since the 1980s. Letpadaung is under construction.

In 1996 Canadian company Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. entered into a joint venture with a Myanmar state

company, Mining Enterprise No. 1 (ME1), to set up the Myanmar Ivanhoe Copper Company Limited

(MICCL), in which both held a 50 per cent interest. MICCL operated the S&K mine.

In 2007 Ivanhoe Mines decided to divest from Myanmar and established a third-party-Trust to which its

Myanmar assets were transferred.

In 2010 it was announced that China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) and UMEHL had

entered into an agreement about the Monywa project, which includes both S&K and Letpadaung mines.

Subsidiaries of Wanbao Mining Ltd (owned by NORINCO) operate both mines today The process by

which the ME1-Ivanhoe Mines assets transferred to the China-Myanmar military partnership of

Wanbao-UMHEL has never been disclosed.

Amnesty International approached the companies named in this report for comments on the allegations

against them. Where responses were provided, these have been incorporated in the report.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/myanmar-foreign-mining-companies-colluding-serious-abuses-and-

illegality-2015-02-10

POLITICAL PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

Staying in Russia, this week we bring you an image of a state leader doing what a state leader does

best – riding his bear shirtless into the sunset. Critics of the traditional Westphalian model of state

relations point to this as an example of the excessive use of force needed to assert sovereignty,

claiming sovereignty should instead be based on the extent to which a state fulfills its obligations

to citizens. Defenders of the model point out that Putin looks funky fresh, the authority he exerts

simply ensures stability on his territory and the West is just jealous of his pecs and that’s why they

hatin’.

FRENCH JUSTICE MINISTER ACKNOWLEDGES TERRORISM’S POWER TO MOBILIZE

Lara Jakes

Foreign Policy | February 9, 2015 - 7:05 pm

Between the massacre at Charlie Hebdo and the killings of Jewish shoppers at a kosher grocery store, it

would be easy to conclude that today’s crop of radical jihadists are simply madmen willing to commit

wanton acts of violence against those they consider infidels. The French government, still reeling from

those attacks, has a very different view: The terrorists responsible for the bloodshed know exactly what

they’re aiming to do, and they’re quite good at it.

“It is a terrorism that is very innovative, because it shows that it can mobilize people,” French Justice

Minister Christiane Taubira said in an interview Monday. “This is why the response to this cannot only

be surveillance or security.”

Even before the three days of violence in Paris last month that left 17 people dead, France already had

ratcheted up its spying powers. Since last April, for example, surveillance on French telephone and

Internet networks blocked would-be jihadis from as many as 15 terror networks from heading abroad.

Taubira said.

But that didn’t stop the attacks, which were carried out by two men born and radicalized in France. In

the last six weeks alone, terror investigations rose from 800 to 1,000 active cases. Of these open

investigations, a quarter involve suspects that are recent converts to what Taubira described as “Islamic

terrorism.”

“When you act [after] terrorists act, it is motivated by the feeling of belonging to an army that is fighting

a war of civilization,” said Taubira, in Washington for meetings with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

and Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza.

With Western fighters streaming into Syria, security officials in France and across Europe are struggling

to keep track of the many men returning from that battlefield to their home countries. An estimated 800

individuals have left France to join militants in Iraq and Syria, Taubira said. Of those, about 200 have

since returned to France and 73 were killed on the battlefield.

The rest, presumably, remain in Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic State extremist group is seeking to

carve out a caliphate.

In propaganda videos, Islamic State fighters have repeatedly urged Muslims living in the West to rise up

and carry out terrorist attacks at home. It is unclear what the three men who attacked the offices Charlie

Hebdo and a kosher supermarket had with militants abroad, but they at the very least felt a kinship with

international jihadist movement. One of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen is reported to have travelled to

Yemen for meetings and training with the local al Qaeda branch, and the supermarket gunman pledged

allegiance before his death to the Islamic State.

At the very least, they showed how deeply they could strike at the French state.

TASMANIA DROPS PLANS TO LET CORPORATIONS SUE PROTESTERS FOR DEFAMATION

Government abandons proposal that would have allowed corporations to sue protesters for disparaging

their reputation with false or misleading claims

How can this be used to get me dem full marks?

Shows influence of non-state actors on the global political arena (could use Taubira quote in second paragraph)

The importance of public opinion for non-state actors aiming to achieve their goals

The increasing difficulty of asserting state sovereignty in a globalised world where ideological barriers are beginning to be drawn more sharply than state borders

The Tasmanian government has abandoned changes to defamation laws that would have allowed

corporations to sue protesters, part of its crackdown on opponents of the state’s forestry industry.

Corporations could have sued protesters for disparaging their reputation with false or misleading claims

under the proposal, which the Hodgman government took to the election last March and reaffirmed as

recently as January.

It was aimed at curbing “radical environmental groups who make a hobby of spreading misinformation

to markets with the aim of destroying Tasmanian jobs”, the state attorney general, Vanessa Goodwin,

said at the time.

The proposal would have caused Tasmania to deviate from nationally consistent libel laws introduced in

2006, unless other states also signed on.

But Goodwin said on Thursday there was little appetite among other attorney generals for the change.

“My conversations to date with my interstate colleagues, and broader issues raised by community

stakeholders, indicates there isn’t national consensus for altering the uniform law,” she said.

“Given that changes to the national uniform law aren’t going to be supported, I have made the decision

that there is sufficient uncertainty about the unintended consequences of forum shopping for Tasmania

not to proceed with a change to state legislation.

The change had been criticised by the president of the Tasmanian Law Society, Matthew Verney, who

warned it was draconian and “impinged on people’s ability to speak freely”.

“Ostensibly it would look like the current state government is trying to limit speech and limit criticism

of things like the forestry industry. But the worry for us is that it would go far beyond the forestry

industry,” he told Guardian Australia.

Critics had also raised the prospect that Tasmania would become a magnet for corporate lawsuits

targeting other campaigns, such as those against sweatshop labour, fracking or animal cruelty.

A leading Tasmanian environmental group, the Bob Brown Foundation, said the government had

relented “to avoid becoming the legal laughing stock of Australia”.

“[The proposed changes] were

poorly thought out by a

government that is bent on

persecuting environmental

advocates and the environment

to the benefit of large

resource-extraction

companies,” a campaigner

manager with the foundation,

Jenny Weber, said.

“Australian governments

should not be penalising their

citizens practising freedoms in

a democracy.”

An Environment Tasmania spokesman, Andrew Perry, said the policy “sought to fix a problem that not

only didn’t exist, but for which there was already a remedy”.

“We’re glad the government listened to the people on this particular policy, but then how could they not,

as its universal condemnation from around Australia was deafening.”

Goodwin said the backdown was “disappointing”. “Jobs are our first priority and the last thing we want

to see is Tasmanians lose their jobs because of false and misleading campaigns against their employees,”

she said.

Corporations still have the right to make a similar claim, injurious falsehood, where they can prove a

malicious statement had a financial impact.

Last year the Tasmanian government passed legislation increasing financial penalties and maximum jail

terms for protesters who “prevent, hinder or obstruct the carrying out of a business activity”.

It also tore up a historic agreement between the forestry industry and major green groups that placed

400,000 hectares of native trees in reserve, and called for an end to the state’s bitter, three-decade “forest

wars”.

The state’s resource minister, Paul Harriss, argued the agreement killed jobs and that “the use of our

forest assets for economic gain is not something of which we should be ashamed”.

How can this be used to get me dem full marks?

Continued primacy of sovereignty – TNC’s can’t get everything they want

Can use examples at the end of the article (starting from ‘Last year…’) as evidence of the economic and political power of TNCs