Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Ideas to save the planet - April 2008

Mike Brady | 08.04.2008 11:57 | Climate Chaos | Globalisation | Social Struggles

Update on ideas doing well and new submissions to the Simultaneous Policy campaign.

SP Policy Update – April 2008

In this edition you will find the following:

New policy suggestions.

Other policy suggestions.

How to gather support for ideas you like.

Policy Committee membership

New policy suggestions

Title: Beyond GDP: Complement Gross Domestic Product as a money-based index of national wealth with a basket of indicators that prioritise health, social and environmental criteria.

Discussion board:
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30.0

Proposer: Brian Wills

Contact:  brian.wills@wanadoo.fr

Seconders: Diana Trimble, Brendan Maher, Graham Edwards, Doug Everingham, Peter Challen, Brian Jenkins, Hugh Steadman, Richard Lawson, Mark Braund..

Summary: In the knowledge that health, social and environmental statistics are as important as economic ones in the comparative measurement of each nation's wealth, governments should agree to complement GDP with a basket of indicators that prioritise these additional criteria, presented in a document for implementation through the UN or another appropriate international organisation or treaty.

---

Title: World Transnational Corporation Regulatory Authority

Proposer: Mike Brady

Discussion board:
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=31.0

Email:  mikebrady@simpol.org.uk

Seconders: John Bunzl, Peter Challen, Bill Clarke, Graham Edwards, Doug Everingham, Gerard O’Donovan, Morgan Gallagher, Linda Gamlin, Brian Jenkins, Dawn Johnson, Chaitanya Kalevar, Brendan Maher, Caroline Mitchinson Lawther, Ruth Moss, Jill Phillips, Jilna Shah, Shilpa Shah, Jonathan Ward, Brian Wills, Valerie Yule.

Summary: This new body will be responsible for ensuring that transnational corporations abide by existing human rights, environmental, labour and other relevant agreements. It will accept reports of breaches from appropriate authorities or public petition and, if it finds there is a case to answer, will bring a prosecution before the International Criminal Court. The Court will be empowered to levy fines based on annual turnover on the corporation and to award governments the right to levy punitive tariffs on the home government of the corporation for seeking an unfair competitive advantage by failing to enforce the agreements. Corporations with a turnover and geographic coverage above set minimums will be required to register as 'globally incorporated companies' and submit annual independently-audited reports of their performance against standards already agreed to in the UN Global Compact for assessment.

---

Other policy suggestions

Titles are given here with the level of support in the last annual round of voting (October 2007). For full details and to comment, follow the link to the discussion board for the policy.

Annual votes are used to give an indication of the priorities of Adopters and to remove policies that are not gaining support. Policies can be resubmitted, with or without modification, at any time. Those not yet involved in the campaign still have the right to a vote and the actual policies to be implemented will be finalised in voting closer to the time of implementation.

Do participate in the discussion, both on the discussion boards provided by Simpol and everywhere else you can think of. This will help to improve the policies and bring more people to the campaign. SP provides a way to introduce the policies that are necessary to save the planet and achieve global justice, so wherever you meet people concerned about these issues tell them to join the discussion and sign up as SP Adopters so their voices are heard.

Contraction and Convergence: 80%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=16.0

The Oil Depletion Protocol: 69%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4.0

International Clearing Union: 63%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5.0

Remodelling Companies to Become Stakeholder-Governed Organisations: 61%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=6.0

Nuclear Disarmament: 61%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=20.0

The Tobin Tax: 59%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=14.0

Weapons spending excluded from GDP calculations: 57%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8.0

A Defensive Defence Policy: 54%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18.0

Monetary Reform: 52%
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=7.0

ETI (Environmental Tax on Imports) - Submitted since last vote
 http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=28.0

---

How to gather support for ideas you like

SP provides a democratic space for discussing, developing and ultimately deciding the policies to address global problems.

The policy package is to be implemented when all, or sufficient, governments have pledged to implement SP alongside other governments. Simultaneous implementation removes the genuine fear that governments have that acting alone will put their country at a disadvantage and cost investment and jobs. An increasing number of politicians have signed the pledge. Each signature moves us closer to implementation, so do encourage your elected representatives to sign up. See the Simpol website  http://www.simpol.org/ for more information. SP Adopters, undertake to vote for candidates at elections, within reason, who have signed the pledge or, if they have a party preference, to encourage their preferred party to support SP as official policy.

So SP is intended for policies that governments fear implementing unilaterally. It is also for problems that are global in their nature, and so need a coordinated approach.

If you have a proposal to put forward, you are welcome to do so. It does not have to be your own creation. It could be a proposal you have seen elsewhere.

As a first step discuss the idea with other Adopters through the  simpolicies-general@yahoogroups.com discussion group. If you are not a member of the group you can join at:
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simpolicies-general/

You can discuss ideas with your local SP Adopters’ Group. Find details of groups – or how to set one up – on the Simpol website.

Also discuss the idea with others who are not yet involved with SP, on the internet and elsewhere, explaining that SP provides a way to make the policy a reality.

If you wish, a discussion board can also be set up on the Simpol-UK website for the policy as a work in progress. Contact  policy@simpol.org.uk

When you are ready and have support from at least 9 other people who are Adopters, or willing to sign up as Adopters, then you can submit your suggestion using the form on the Simpol website. It will be processed by the Policy Committee, added to the website and published in the newsletter.

To submit the policy you need a clear title, an explanation as to why it cannot be implemented by a government acting alone and so needs the SP approach, a summary (ideally no more than 100 words) and as much additional information as you wish to provide (which will be included on the website).

Submitting the policy is not the end of the process. It will be included in the next voting round, so continue to promote it so people will vote for it. When doing so, encourage people to sign up as Adopters. This will bring more people into the campaign. For this democratic process to work, there needs to be as many people involved as possible.

If you require further information or wish to discuss anything further, email  policy@simpol.org.uk

There will be an article on policy development in the next issue of the It’s Simpol ! newsletter.

---

Policy Committee membership

There will be elections for the Committee later in the year. The next It’s Simpol ! newsletter will include an appeal for Adopters to stand in the election. If you are interested in knowing more about the work of the Committee email  policy@simpol.org.uk

There will be more information in a future update.

Mike Brady
Chair
Simpol-UK Policy Committee

Mike Brady
- e-mail: mikebrady@simpol.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.simpol.org.uk/

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech