Global Witness

Global Witness
founding	1993
founder	Charmian Gooch , Patrick Alley, Simon Taylor
Seat	London United Kingdom
main emphasis	Transparency , anti-corruption
Action space	worldwide
Website	www.new.globalwitness.org

Global Witness (“Worldwide Witness”) is an international non-governmental organization . It was founded in 1993 and tries to break the link between the exploitation of raw materials, conflict, poverty, corruption and disregard for human rights . It has offices in London (headquarters) and Washington, DC and describes itself as politically independent.

profile

The aim is to expose the exploitation of natural resources and the international trading systems and to organize campaigns to end impunity , resource conflicts, human rights violations and environmental pollution . The organization investigates how wars and corruption are financed with diamonds and other raw materials. She conducts research into the involvement of individuals and companies in illegal and unsustainable forest use and corruption in the oil, gas and mining industries.

The organization combines investigative research , report publishing and lobbying . The reports are distributed to governments, intergovernmental organizations and the media. This is intended to influence world politics and attitudes towards the extraction and trade of raw materials; the aim is to show how corruption affects economic development and endangers human rights.

Campaigns

The organization has worked on diamonds, oil, wood, cocoa, gas, gold and other commodities. She has conducted research and case studies in Cambodia , Angola , Liberia , the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Equatorial Guinea , Kazakhstan , Burma , Indonesia , Zimbabwe , Turkmenistan and the Ivory Coast . She has co-founded international initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the Kimberley Process and the Publish What You Pay Coalition .

The first campaign was against the trade in illegal timber between Cambodia and Thailand, which had financed the guerrilla warfare of the Khmer Rouge .

The organization argues that raw materials have been used to finance armies and militias that murder and rape and violate the human rights of the population. She says that "raw materials can be used to negotiate and keep peace" and "could be the key to ending poverty in Africa".

Cambodia

The organization's first campaign took place in Cambodia in the 1990s, where the Khmer Rouge financed itself by illegally smuggling wood across the border into Thailand. The campaign led to the closing of the border. The British Observer attributed the closing of the border to "detailed and accurate reporting" by Global Witness.

After a report uncovered the involvement of relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior government officials, Prime Minister Hun Neng's brother, who was also provincial governor, was quoted in a Cambodian newspaper as saying that if someone from Global Witness returned to Cambodia, " he beat them until their heads were broken ". In 2009 Global Witness published Country for Sale, a report on corruption in Cambodia's raw material licenses. In 2010 the report "Shifting Sand" was published, which looked at dredging work for the export of sand to Singapore. The report claimed that the trade "was monopolized by two prominent Cambodian senators with close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen".

Blood diamonds

In 1998, Global Witness published a report, "A Rough Trade - The Role of Companies and Governments in the Angolan Conflict," which described the role of the international diamond trade in financing the Angolan civil war .

Sierra Leone

Diamond washer in Sierra Leone

The organization has also got involved in Sierra Leone . As part of their campaign against blood diamonds , Global Witness helped establish the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). The international state certification system, which was set up to end the diamond trade, from which wars and civil wars were financed, ensures that only rough diamonds can be traded that have been certified by the government of their country of origin to be free from conflict. Like many other African countries south of the Sahara, Sierra Leone is a country of natural resources, social inequality, great poverty and many conflicts.

Under Charles Taylor's rebel movement , which dominated the diamond industry, diamonds were traded for arms with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). This rebel group alone brought in a peak of 125 million US dollars. In 1998, Global Witness found that diamonds fuel these conflicts. A UN investigation in 2000 showed that the gemstones from eastern Sierra Leone were smuggled into the international market via Liberia. In March 2001, the UN then imposed sanctions on Liberian diamonds.

On July 19, 2000, the World Diamond Congress in Antwerp passed a resolution to strengthen the diamond industry's ability to block the sale of blood diamonds. Under the increasing international pressure from Global Witness and other NGOs, meetings were held with diamond-producing countries for three years. In January 2003, they decided to create an international certification system for the export and import of diamonds, known as KCPS . It obliged the legislation of all countries to only allow the dispatch of diamonds with officially sealed packaging for which a KP certificate guarantees freedom from conflict. Anyone who deals in conflict diamonds will be reported and charged.

The Kimberley Process (KP) limited the blood diamond trade in Sierra Leone in a short time; he helped to make people's lives peaceful, safe and stable again. He channeled larger quantities of diamonds into the international market, increased government revenues and supported development. An estimated US $ 125 million worth of diamonds were legally exported from Sierra Leone in 2006, compared to almost nothing in the 1990s.

Despite its success, Global Witness announced nine years later, on December 5, 2011, that it had left the Kimberley Process because governments had shown no further interest in reform.

Oil and gas production, mining

The organization is committed to greater transparency in the oil, gas and mining sectors. She is a founding member of Publish What You Pay (PWYP), which advocates "mandatory disclosure of corporate payments and government revenues from the oil, gas and mining sectors." Over 300 organizations worldwide are members of PWYP. Other PWYP founders are CAFOD, Oxfam , Save the Children UK, Transparency International UK and George Soros , Chairman of the Open Society Institute .

The organization also supported the establishment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative , announced by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Economic Summit in Johannesburg in September 2002 and officially established by the World Bank in Évian-les-Bains in December 2003 .

Republic of the Congo

The organization is active on a number of issues in the Republic of the Congo . She has repeatedly shown how the country's oil wealth is handled, how the Congolese government has repeatedly pledged future oil revenues for quick cash, although it has repeatedly promised to stop this practice. In 2007, Global Witness showed how the president's son Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso used state oil revenues to purchase personal luxury items. In its report "Undue Diligence: How banks do business with corrupt regimes", Global Witness showed the cash flows behind corruption and highlighted how gaps in the global financial system enable banks to do business with corrupt politicians.

Woods

The organization has worked a lot on forests. She made reports on how wood is helping finance the civil war in Liberia and looked at the smuggling of wood from Burma to China. Recently, Global Witness in France sued the Danish company DLH ( Dalhoff Larsen & Horneman ), a company that they accused of buying wood from Liberian companies during the civil war between 2001 and 2003 in support of Charles Taylor's regime.

The organization describes forests as the "last bastion against climate change". Deforestation causes around a seventh of global carbon dioxide emissions, similar to all global traffic. Laura Furones of Global Witness says in a press release about UN efforts to reach an agreement on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD): "REDD carries and will take significant risks for forests and local communities only succeed if civil society acts as an independent watchdog to ensure that the money is used in accordance with national laws and international guidelines ”.

The organization criticizes World Bank-backed industrial export-based deforestation as a means of promoting economic growth in developing countries, which it has repeatedly shown has failed. Instead, Global Witness advocates management strategies that promote forest-dependent communities, home countries and the environment and treat forests as "international capital".

Banks

In 2009 the organization launched a campaign to support corruption by banks. Their Undue Diligence report names some of the major banks that have done business with corrupt regimes. He argues that "by accepting these customers, banks support those who are enriching themselves with government assets" and that "this corruption robs the poorest people in the world of the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and leaves them dependent on aid".

The organization is a member of the coordinating committee of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development , BankTrack , an association of NGOs that works on private banks and their involvement in projects that pose a risk to the environment, society and human rights the UNCAC Coalition . In May 2009, Global Witness employee Anthea Lawson testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, on 'Capital Loss, Corruption, and the Role of Western Financial Institutions' and in a letter to the Guardian dated Sept. In February 2010 she accused English banks of participating in corruption.

Sudan

The organization fought for transparency in the Sudanese oil industry. It published the Fuelling Mistrust report in June 2009, which showed differences of up to 26 percent between the production figures published by the Sudanese government and those published by CNCP ( China National Petroleum Corporation ), the main oil company in the region.

Zimbabwe diamonds

In June 2010, the organization criticized Zimbabwe for violating human rights on a large scale in the Marange diamond fields . It published the Return of the Blood Diamond report , which criticized the Kimberley Process Certification System for repeatedly failing to respond effectively to the Zimbabwean crisis.

Malaysia

The organization exposed corruption in land trade in the administration of Taib Mahmud, the governor of the Malaysian state of Sarawak , through a video titled Inside Malaysia's Shadow State . The video contains footage of conversations with Taib Mahmud's relatives and her lawyer, in which Global Witness agents appear as potential investors.

Anonymous societies

In 2013 the organization started a campaign against anonymous companies: companies whose shares are traded as bearer securities , where the owners remain anonymous and can therefore hardly be held accountable in public.

financing

The organization is largely funded by grants from foundations, governments and aid organizations. One of its most important sponsors is the Open Society Foundations of the American billionaire George Soros , which also supports Human Rights Watch . The organization also receives money from the Norwegian and UK governments and the Dutch Adessium Foundation, and Oxfam Novib.

In a 2007 interview with The Guardian newspaper , Patrick Alley, one of the founding directors, dismissed claims that government funds could influence their campaigns: "Being campaign-led, rather than funding-led, means that our independence is never comprised , "he argued. "The Department for Trade and Industry did once ask if we'd like to sign a confidentiality clause. We said we wouldn't take the funding under those conditions. No other government has ever tried to impose any restrictions."

From December 2008 to November 2009 Global Witness had revenues of £ 3,831,831 . Of this, around 61% came in the form of grants from private companies and foundations, 33% from governments and 6% from other sources. Global Witness says it spends 75% of its revenue on campaigns, 7% on communications and fundraising, and 18% on support and administration.

honors and awards

• Together with Partnership Africa Canada nomination for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize by the US House of Representatives and members of the Senate for the work on links between armed conflicts and diamonds in several African countries.
• Gleitsman Foundation Prize for International Activism (2005)
• Commitment to Development Award (2007)
• TED Price 2014
• Prize of the Skoll Foundation (2014)

Web links

• Official website
• Video Charmian Gooch: Meet global corruption's hidden players, TED Talks, July 8, 2013

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, About us : Archive link ( Memento of the original dated May 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ http://www.kimberleyprocess.com/en/about
4. ↑ http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/about
5. ↑ Global Witness website, 20 Years of Global Impact : http://new.globalwitness.org/20yearsimpact.php
6. ↑ Global Witness Annual Report, 2009: Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, about us : Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ^ Observer Newspaper, Going Underground , by John Sweeney, March 26, 2000
9. ↑ Reporters Without Borders, The dangers for journalists who expose environmental issues , September 2009, p. 2: Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Country for Sale , February 5, 2009: Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Shifting Sand, how Singapore's demand for Cambodian sand threatens ecosystems and undermines good governance , May 2010: Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ↑ Global Witness File, A Rough Trade. The Role of Companies and Governments in the Angolan Conflict: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/A_Rough_Trade.pdf
13. ↑ Global Witness website, The Kimberley Process : http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/conflict/conflict-diamonds/kimberley-process
14. ↑ K. Omeje (ed.). Extractive Economies and Conflicts in the Global South Multi Regional Perspectives on Rentier Politics. Hampshire / Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008.
15. ^ Global Witness website, History of the Conflict : http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/conflict/post-conflict/liberia/liberia-sierra-leone-and-charles-taylor
16. ↑ http://diamondfacts.org/
17. ↑ CNN.com, Diamond industry approves ban on war-related gems , July 19, 2000: http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/07/19/blood.diamonds.02/index.html? iref = allsearch
18. ↑ CNN.com, Diamond industry approves ban on war-related gems , July 19, 2000: http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/07/19/blood.diamonds.02/index.html? iref = allsearch
19. ↑ Global Witness website, The Kimberley Process : http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/conflict/conflict-diamonds/kimberley-process .
20. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Global Witness leaves Kimberley Process, calls for diamond trade to be held accountable , December 5, 2011: http://www.globalwitness.org/library/global-witness-leaves-kimberley-process-calls -diamond-trade-be-held-accountable
21. ^ The Guardian, Letters . Banks, tax havens and corruption , February 9, 2010: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/09/bae-systems-corruption-tax-havens
22. ↑ Global Witness File, Undue Diligence. How banks do business with corrupt regimes , March 2009: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/undue_diligence_lowres_0.pdf
23. ↑ Global Witness Website, Republic of Congo : http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/corruption/oil-gas-and-mining/republic-of-congo
24. ↑ Global-Witness-File, Timber, Taylor, Soldier, Spy: How Liberia's uncontrolled resource exploitation, Charles Taylor's manipulation and the re-recruitment of ex-combatants are threatening regional peace , June 2005: http://www.globalwitness.org /sites/default/files/import/TimberTaylorSoldierSpy.pdf (PDF)
25. ↑ Global-Witness-File, Bankrolling Brutality: Why European timber company DLH should be held to account for profiting from Liberian conflict timber , 2010: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/library/bankrolling_brutality_low.pdf
26. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Forests and Climate Change : Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
27. ↑ Laura Furones of Global Witness quoted in an article by Jeremy Hance on Mongabay.com, June 3, 2010: Corruption could undermine REDD : http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0603-hance_corruption_redd.html
28. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Forests and Climate Change : Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
29. ↑ Global Witness File, Undue Diligence. How banks do business with corrupt regimes , March 2009: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/undue_diligence_lowres_0.pdf
30. ↑ Global Witness File, Undue Diligence. How banks do business with corrupt regimes , March 2009: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/undue_diligence_lowres_0.pdf
31. ↑ http://www.uncaccoalition.org/en/
32. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
33. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/09/bae-systems-corruption-tax-havens
34. ↑ Global Witness File, Fueling Mistrust , September 20109: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/v12_final_sudan_fuelling_mistrust_lowres.pdf
35. ↑ http://www.cnpc.com.cn/en/?COLLCC=3405067029&
36. ↑ Global Witness File, Return of the blood diamond: The Deadly Race to Control Zimbabwe's New Found Diamond Wealth , 2010: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/return_of_blood_diamond.pdf (PDF)
37. ↑ Global Witness File, Inside Malaysia's Shadow State : http://www.globalwitness.org/insideshadowstate/
38. ↑ http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2013/03/19/Taib-denies-cousins-his-land-brokers-says-he-goes-by-government-procedures/
39. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Anonymous Companies : https://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/corruption/anonymous-companies
40. ↑ Andreas Zielcke. The new underworld : Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 8, 2014. p. 11
41. ↑ Global-Witness-Website, Our supporters : Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
42. ↑ http://www.adessium.org/
43. ↑ http://www.oxfamnovib.nl/
44. ↑ The Guardian, Rough diamonds by Alison Benjamin, January 31, 2007: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jan/31/voluntarysector.conservation
45. ↑ Global Witness File, Global Witness Limited, Report and Financial Statements , November 30, 2010, p. 8: http://www.globalwitness.org/sites/default/files/GW%20Limited%20Audited%20Financial%20Statements % 2C% 20ending% 2030% 20Nov% 202010.pdf
46. ↑ http://www.cgdev.org/article/global-witness-winner-2007-commitment-development-award
47. ↑ Global-Witness website, TED Prize Winner Charmian Gooch Announces Global Campaign to Abolish Anonymous Companies : https://www.globalwitness.org/library/ted-prize-winner-charmian-gooch-announces-global-campaign-abolish- anonymous-companies
48. ^ TED website. Charmian Gooch: My wish: To launch a new era of openness in business , Transscript of the award speech , March 2014: http://www.ted.com/talks/charmian_gooch_my_wish_to_launch_a_new_era_of_openness_in_business/transcript
49. ↑ Andreas Zielcke. The new underworld : Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 8, 2014. p. 11
50. ↑ Skoll Foundation website, Announcing the 2014 Skoll Awardees : http://www.skollfoundation.org/skoll-entrepreneurs/announcing-the-2014-skoll-awardees/