IICPH Newsletter  /  Spring/Summer 2003

Marion Odell & Rosalie Bertell

Continuing to work for peace in the present world situation can seem like an utterly impossible task. However, rather than giving up in dismay, people the world over are working harder than ever for justice and equality, the needed foundations for a peaceful world. A realization of the links between peace and the environment is a rising trend. This is a point that has been made many times over by our much loved President Emeritus, Rosalie Bertell. Now we are seeing more signs that the Canadian peace and environment NGOs are thinking along the same lines. Two examples where IICPH took part were a presentation by Rosalie at an Environment and Peace evening event in Guelph in June. In October, Shirley Farlinger, a long-time peace activist and member of our board, Keri Jordan, an IICPH volunteer and recent graduate of U. of T. and I led a workshop at the Youth Forum put on by the Ontario Environment Network.

On the global front, the collapse of the Cancun WTO trade talks were a major expression of the newly formed alliances taking place in the developing world. The African, Caribbean and Pacific countries including Brazil, known as the G21,were actually instrumental in conferring the fatal blow to the conference when they refused to give their consent to new issues around investment, competition policy, government procurement and trade facilitation procurement and trade facilitation at the DOHA negotiations. They were being asked to settle for an essentially meaningless cut to agricultural subsidies by the US, EU and Japan with no guarantee they would get anything in return for relinquishing large parts of their sovereignty. Having met together before the talks, they were able to present a common front- a notable achievement!