Book Search
- Series: Global Issues Series
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Rocks and Hard Places
The Globalization of Mining
The world of international mining is changing rapidly, with mining corporations encroaching on more and more Greenfield sites in Africa, the Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Moody shows that large-scale mining imposes a heavy toll on local communities, on their fragile economies and ways of life, as well as on the environment. He reveals the unprecedented wave of community and trade union opposition to projects in both the South and the North. He provides concrete proposals for the resolution of issues in a sector that has always stood at the gateway of North-South exploitation.
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Water Under Threat
This richly documented book asks the major questions about the enormously important political and geostrategic issue of water. Does water have a price? Is it a right or a need? Is there a water crisis? Will wars be fought over water? Should we be worried about water pollution? Can available technological solutions keep pollution under control? It also provides some elements of an answer. It shows the ways in which water is used and managed, and raises central issues about our lifestyles, our ethics and our relationship to nature and the biosphere. It makes the case for a society that is more economical with water and calls for global management of water resources in a spirit of solidarity, openness and respect for the rules of democracy.
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Food is Different
Why we Must Get the WTO out of Agriculture
This book explains what is happening to the world’s agricultural systems and farmers under the impact of neoliberal economics. What is at stake is the very future of our global food system and each country’s agricultural and farming systems. The livelihoods of rural people in both industrial and developing countries are under threat. The book explains what is happening to agriculture in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiating context, and unravels the complex ways in which agriculture in the North is subsidized. It sets out an alternative vision for agricultural policy, which would take it completely out of the WTO’s ambit. Food is not just another commodity, but something that goes to the heart of human livelihood, culture and security.
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Creating Criminals
Prisons and People in a Market Society
Everywhere, the market society is producing more crime. More acts are being defined as crimes. More people are classified as criminals and more are being locked up in prison. With globalization, the crime and punishment problem is no longer insulated from pressures beyond national borders. The rich may retreat behind their expensive security into gated communities, but the poor are more and more at the mercy of criminals and corrupt policing. Vivien Stern argues that the trends towards more criminalization and more imprisonment are not making for more effective crime control or safer communities. She shows how the poor are criminalized and how commercial interests now shape society’s response to crime. She argues that the prospects for the future are serious without a new movement for reform.
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International Migration
Globalization’s Last Frontier
Abolish border controls? Let in large numbers of immigrants? Can this author can be serious? That may be the immediate response to this book’s evidence in favour of getting rid of costly, often inhumane and only partially effective barriers. Jonathon Moses puts the arguments in favour of free mobility, and counters those against. His conclusions are clear and profound: free international migration can lessen the huge inequalities and injustices of globalization.
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The Water Business
Corporations Versus People
Privatization of water supplies began in England in 1989 under Margaret Thatcher; in the next 10 years, nearly £10 billion went in profits to the new water companies. Today, two giant corporations, Veolia and Suez, control 80% of the international private water market and have some 300 million customers. Protests have broken out in country after country and the water giants are switching to new markets in China, North America and Europe. Meanwhile well over a billion people still lack access to clean water supplies. Drawing on her own interviews with the poor, the experts and the corporate executives in Latin America, Africa and Europe, the author bring us a story much more complicated that simply public or private provision, or innovative mixes of the two. The ultimate question is this: is water a human right or just another tradable commodity?
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Oil
Politics, Poverty and the Planet
Access to oil and natural gas, and their prices, have been axes of geo-political and economic strategy for a century. This book gives readers all they need to understand the shifting structure of the global oil and gas economy-where the reserves lie, who produces what, trade patterns, consumption trends, prices. It highlights the domestic inequality, civil conflict and widespread poverty that dependence on oil exports inflicts on developing countries and the strategies of wealthy countries (especially the United States) to control oil-rich regions. Energy demand is on a strong upward trend, and the reality of the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels cannot be doubted. What are the likely human consequences? And what is to be done? Are alternative energy sources a panacea? Or will the much vaunted hydrogen economy still be based on oil, natural gas and coal?
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Human Rights
Social Justice in the Age of the Market
Rampant market economics has led to violations of human rights. Koen de Feyter questions how far the international human rights system provides effective protection against the adverse effects of globalization. His innovative suggestions for improving the human rights system include rethinking the states’ obligations, creating human rights responsibilities for big companies and international financial institutions and developing human rights obligations for states beyond their own national territories. In explaining the relevance of a human rights approach for combating the downsides of globalization, he reveals the potential for a strategic alliance among human rights activists and participants in the anti-globalization and development movements.
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Sex Traffic
Prostitution, Crime and Exploitation
The trafficking of women and girls for prostitution is big business. This book focuses on the experiences of migrant women and girls who have very little choice or control over their lives. In the context of neo-liberal globalization, they are the new ‘slaves’ of the contemporary era. The annual worth of this global industry is now estimated to be approximately $7 billion, making it particularly attractive to organized crime networks. Women are forced to compete for work in conditions of extreme sexual exploitation, often being exposed to risky sexual practices, high levels of HIV, violence and murder. The laws of the marketplace are applied with extreme brutality. This book examines the techniques of recruitment, methods of transportation and forms of exploitation abroad, and focuses on women’s own experiences of migration. It explains the mechanisms of supply and demand and assesses attempts at controlling trafficking and strategies for resistance and change.
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Global Trade
Past Mistakes, Future Choices
Trade, along with the free movement of capital, is at the heart of today’s international economy. But international trade is an intensely political and contested subject. This book traces the history of global trade, the impact of current global trading arrangements on poverty, inequality and the environment, its hugely differential consequences for high-income and low-income countries, and future options for revised trading arrangements. It argues that factors like future fossil fuel costs, global warming and the economic imbalances between North and South are likely to impel a radical reshaping of the WTO and the principles enshrined in its agreements. It outlines the diverse proposals advocated by the global justice movement to make global trade more sustainable.
