law enforcement

Towards Environmental Justice: The Role of the Legally Binding Instrument for Business Accountability in Combatting the Triple Planetary Crisis

On Oct. 25, please join Franciscans International for this side event during the 8th session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and human rights.

Panelists will discuss specific local cases and recent developments such as the recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to explore how the current draft text of the legally binding instrument may serve to mitigate the triple planetary crisis and hold corporations accountable.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K0bBCBYjRHylqmFKzQIPDg

Speakers:

  • Erika Mendes (Justiça Ambiental / Friends of the Earth Mozambique) on gas projects in Cabo Delgado
  • Viviana Tacha (Centro Sociojurídico para la Defensa Territorial) on the La Colosa Mine in Colombia
  • Layla Hughes (Lawyer and Consultant) on the impact of oil and gas industries in the United States
  • Debbie Stothard (ALTSEAN – Burma)
  • David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment

Interpretation available in English, Español, and Português.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. 

SPSSI’s 75th Anniversary Celebration

Program will include remarks from:
  • Ambassador Maritza Chan, Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations 
  • Mr. Rio Hada, Chief of the Equality, Development, and Rule of Law Section, UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights – NYC  
  • Lily Gray, Senior Liaison Officer, UNESCO  
  • Daniel Seymour, UN Women 
  • Levi Bautista, President, CoNGO  
  • Patrick Sciarratta, President, Global NGO Executive Committee 
  • Houry Geudelekian, NGO Committee on the Status of Women
This is an invitation-only event. If you plan to bring a guest, please ask them to RSVP to this invitation as well so that they will be on the guest list (or RSVP for them separately after you submit your own RSVP).

Please RSVP here by the end of the day on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/NY, please visit ngocsw.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Vienna, please visit ngocswvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/Geneva, please visit ngocsw-geneva.ch. For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee on Mental Health, please visit ngomentalhealth.org.

Land Dialogue: Pandemic, social unrest and war echoing in the Amazon

Over two years into the pandemic, its unwelcome impacts stemming have become apparent, particularly for tropical rainforests. A variety of factors, from decreases in ecotourism, to spikes in illegal fishing and wildlife trafficking and opportunistic criminals taking advantage of COVID-19-distracted governments to ramp up illegal logging activity, have had adverse impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who are vital in maintaining healthy rainforests. Overall, these activities have led to considerably higher tropical rainforest deforestation than in previous years, with the pandemic playing a part. More recently, the war in Ukraine has caused serious disruption to the global timber trade and these impacts are echoing in the Amazon rainforest.

This webinar will thus look at how global events are impacting the Amazon region, but will place a specific focus on solutions and what needs to change.

Register here!

* Webinar will be available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese*

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit un-ngocrip.net. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/Vienna, please visit csr-sustainability.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Language and Languages, please email the co-chairs at fmhult@umbc.edu or tonkin@hartford.edu. For more information on the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, please visit ngocdps.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. 

Criminalising Ecocide: A New Deterrent to Crimes that Affect the Environment

You’re invited to this important side event of the 31st Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice (CCPCJ)!

Register here: unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CCPCJ/session/31_Session_2022/registration.html

The regular thirty-first session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice is scheduled for 16-20 May 2022. The provisional annotated agenda will be published on the website of the Commission following the present arrangements. The present proposed organizational arrangements were drafted in response to the recent
developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into consideration the regulations by the host country, Austria, and the guidelines of the Vienna International Centre. Based on the developments of the global health situation and to possible changes to the regulations by the host Country Austria, arrangements may be revised closer to the regular session.

Organization Format
The sessions will be conducted in a hybrid format, in the M-building of the Vienna International Centre. The meetings of the plenary and COW will be held in parallel. The plenary meetings will be held in the plenary hall of the M-building. The meetings of the COW will be held in Boardroom A.

In-person participation will be possible for a limited number of delegates from United Nations Member States, UN Entities, IGOs and NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC. Due to COVID-requirements the number of seats in the room is limited and as such only a limited number of in-person participants can join. In-person participants are required to confirm adherence to relevant provisions contained in the COVID guidelines for participants and are expected to provide supporting documents as necessary.

Participation In line with the Rules of Procedure of the Functional Commissions of ECOSOC, Member States, as well as representatives of UN Entities, IGOs and NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC can participate in the session.

More information about this specific side event, and the full schedule of events, will be provided here at a later stage: unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CCPCJ/session/31_Session_2022/session-31-of-the-ccpcj.html

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CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-New York, please visit . For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security, please visit ngocdps.wordpress.com.

COVID-19 and the Increasing Risks of Substandard and Falsified Pharmaceutical Products in Africa

Dear CoNGO members,

I am delighted to get in touch with you for the first time since the Brazzaville Foundation’s membership in November 2020 to the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO).

On the occasion of the upcoming World Health Assembly and Africa Day, the Brazzaville Foundation is pleased to invite you to an online high-level roundtable on Tuesday 25th May to discuss “Covid-19 and the Increasing Risks of Substandard and Falsified Pharmaceutical Products in Africa: A public health and security issue”. High-level speakers are expected such as Prof. Moustafa Mijiyawa, Minister of Health of the Republic of Togo; Michel Sidibé, African Union Special Envoy for the African Medicines Agency (AMA) and Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.

If you are interested in taking part in global health and security discussions, please register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Z0sYZHfPQnWICzmnQY2r0g. Simultaneous translation will be available in French/English.

We are eager to share this event with you and we look forward to collaborating together in the future.

Best regards,

Richard Amalvy, Chief Executive, The Brazzaville Foundation

À l’occasion de la 74e Assemblée mondiale de la Santé et de la Journée de l’Afrique, la Fondation Brazzaville réunira des intervenants de haut niveau pour discuter des enjeux de santé publique et de sécurité liés aux risques croissants des médicaments falsifiés et de qualité inférieure dans le contexte de la pandémie de la COVID-19. Traduction simultanée en français/anglais.

Background notes:

Poor-quality medicines can be both falsified and substandard:

  • Falsified medicines are deliberately fake medical products. Criminals manufacture, traffic and sell fake products to unsuspecting customers.
  • Substandard medicines can be the result of poor manufacturing and quality-control practices in the manufacture or distribution of the product.

Poor-quality medicines lead to death and illness:

  • Both fake and substandard medicines pose a threat to public health because they can lead to death, additional illness in individuals, the spread of disease within a community and antibiotic resistance.
  • The link between the traffic in falsified medicines and organised crime has been well established by intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. They are smuggled onto markets using the same routes and techniques as drug, weapon, or human trafficking.
  • Transnational organised crime also funds terrorism, destabilising countries and weakening state structures.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Drugs-NY, please visit nyngoc.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, please visit ngocdps.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. 

14th United Nations Crime Congress

The 14th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice will be held from 7 to 12 March 2021 in Kyoto, Japan. The UN General Assembly has formally decided on these dates (A/DEC/74/550 B), which had been recommended by the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, as the preparatory body of the Crime Congress. There will be pre-Congress consultations on 6 March 2021. The 14th Congress was originally scheduled to take place in Kyoto, Japan, on 20-27 April 2020, and postponed, due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

As per General Assembly Resolution 72/192, the substantive Agenda Items of the 14th Congress are the following:

  1. Comprehensive strategies for crime prevention towards social and economic development
  2. Integrated approaches to challenges facing the criminal justice system.
  3. Multidimensional approaches by Governments to promoting the rule of law by, inter alia, providing access to justice for all; building effective, accountable, impartial and inclusive institutions; and considering social, educational and other relevant measures, including fostering a culture of lawfulness while respecting cultural identities, in line with the Doha Declaration.
  4. International cooperation and technical assistance to prevent and address all forms of crime:

(a) Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations;

(b) New and emerging forms of crime.

The proposed organization of work indicates approximately when these topics will be discussed by the Congress in Kyoto (Japan Standard Time, UTC/GMT +9 hours).

Registration information is available here, and the registration deadline is February 18.

Read more about the event and full program here.

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, please visit crimealliance.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, please visit ngocdps.wordpress.com.

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