Global Justice is a US-based
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...
, founded in 2001 at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
by undergraduate and graduate students. With several different issue campaigns, the organization has chapters on over 15 high school and college campuses across the country.
Mission
Global Justice's mission is to mobilize students and youth to be activists for a particular form of economic and social justice. According to its mission statement, "We produce an immediate impact by promoting policies that strengthen global communities, and long-term change by empowering young people to become global justice activists for life. We achieve these goals through student owned and led campaigns, leadership development, advocacy, and education."
History and campaigns
Global Justice is based on student-driven, grassroots campaigns aimed to change the policies of governments and corporations. The
Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) was founded in 2001 with the goal of mobilizing a more effective and coordinated global response to the crisis of
HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
/
AIDS. The second campaign of Global Justice, the Student Campaign for Child Survival (SCCS), was founded in 2002 to focus international attention on the over 10 million children under five who die annually from preventable infectious diseases. A final campaign, the Student Trade Justice Campaign, is focused on changing international trade rules to promote workers' rights, preserve farmers' livelihoods, and widen access to lifesaving medicines.
Major events and successes
The organization uses education, media work, and protest and has won several major victories since its foundation. Highlights include:
*
Global Fund
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (or simply the Global Fund) is an international financing and partnership organization that aims to "attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, t ...
Advocacy: Members of the SGAC and SCCS campaigns have been involved for years in pushing for increased US funding for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which rose to over $100million in 2005.
* "Kick Coke Off Campus": Global Justice's SGAC joined with other AIDS activists to pressure
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...
to treat HIV+ workers in its African bottling plants.
* 04.Stop.AIDS: a loose network of HIV and AIDS activists, many of them SGACers, who went to presidential candidates events and asked pointed questions until every
democratic candidate adopted a progressive platform on global AIDS (President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
refused to talk with the activists or allow them into events).
* Student March Against AIDS: on February 26, 2005, Global Justice's SGAC held the second largest HIV and AIDS mobilization in U.S. history. More than 4,000 students and young people from around the country rallied in DC for the Student March Against AIDS.
*
SACU
The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is a customs union among five countries of Southern Africa: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Its headquarters are in the Namibian capital, Windhoek. It was established in 1910.
...
&
CAFTA: in 2006, Global Justice's STJC was involved in opposing the Free Trade Agreement with Southern Africa, which was put on hold, and before that in opposing CAFTA, which did go through.
* Gilead Sciences Corporate Campaign: in spring 2006, SGAC took on its second corporate campaign, this time targeting the marketers of second-line AIDS drugs who had failed to make those medicines accessible to lower and middle income countries. The company Gilead Sciences eventually made major concessions to make its drug Tenofovir more available and allow generic competition.
See also
*
Anti-globalization
*
Alter-globalization
Alter-globalization (also known as alternative globalization or alter-mundialization—from the French alter- mondialisation—and overlapping with the global justice movement) is a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation an ...
*
Democratic globalization Democratic globalization is a social movement towards an institutional system of global democracy. One of its proponents is the British political thinker David Held. In the last decade, Held published a dozen books regarding the spread of democracy ...
*
Global Citizens Movement The global citizens movement is a constellation of organized and overlapping citizens' groups seeking to foster global solidarity in policy and consciousness. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global ju ...
*
Global justice
Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern about unfairness. It is sometimes understood as a form of internationalism.
History
Henrik Syse claims that global ethics and international justice in western traditi ...
*
Global Justice Movement
The global justice movement is a network of globalized social movements demanding global justice by opposing what is often known as the “ corporate globalization” and promoting equal distribution of economic resources.
Movement of movements
...
*
Movement of Movements
*
World Social Forum
The World Social Forum (WSF, pt, Fórum Social Mundial ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemoni ...
,
European Social Forum
The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also known as the Global Justice Movement). In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but late ...
External links
Global JusticeStudent Global AIDS CampaignStudent Trade Justice CampaignStudent Campaign for Child Survival
{{authority control
Political advocacy groups in the United States
Organizations established in 2001