Global Justice (organization)
Encyclopedia
Global Justice is a US-based NGO, founded in 2001 at Harvard University
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.
(SGAC) was founded in 2001 with the goal of mobilizing a more effective and coordinated global response to the crisis of HIV
/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 livesaving medicines.
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
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 CampaignStudent Global AIDS Campaign
The Student Global AIDS Campaign is an advocacy group with more than 85 chapters at high schools, colleges, and universities across the United States. The group is committed to bringing an end to HIV and AIDS in the U.S...
(SGAC) was founded in 2001 with the goal of mobilizing a more effective and coordinated global response to the crisis of HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. 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 livesaving 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 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-ColaCoca-ColaCoca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
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 democraticDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
candidate adopted a progressive platform on global AIDS (President George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
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 ralied together in DC for the Student March Against AIDS.
- SACUSacuSacu is a commune in Caraş-Severin County, western Romania with a population of 1681 people. It is composed of three villages: Sacu, Sălbăgelu Nou and Tincova.-References:...
& 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 consessions to make its drug Tenofovir more available and allow generic competition.
See also
- Anti-globalizationAnti-globalizationCriticism of globalization is skepticism of the claimed benefits of the globalization of capitalism. Many of these views are held by the anti-globalization movement however other groups also are critical of the policies of globalization....
- Alter-globalizationAlter-globalizationAlter-globalization is the name of a social movement that supports global cooperation and interaction, but which opposes the negative effects of economic globalization, feeling that it often works to the detriment of, or does not...
- Democratic globalizationDemocratic globalizationDemocratic globalization is a movement towards an institutional system of global democracy that would give world citizens a say in world organizations. This would, in their view, bypass nation-states, corporate oligopolies, ideological NGOs, cults and mafias. One of its most prolific proponents...
- Global Citizens MovementGlobal citizens movementIn most discussions, the global citizens movement is a socio-political process rather than a political organization or party structure. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global justice movement. Colloquially the term is also used in this imprecise manner...
- Global justiceGlobal justiceGlobal justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern that the world at large is unjust.-Context:The broader philosophical context of the global justice debate, in both its contemporary and historical forms, is the issue of impartiality...
- Global Justice MovementGlobal Justice MovementThe Global Justice Movement is a network or constellation of globalized social movements opposing what is often known as the “corporate globalization” and promoting equal distribution of economic resources.-Movement of movements:...
- Movement of Movements
- World Social ForumWorld Social ForumThe World Social Forum 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-hegemonic globalization...
| European Social ForumEuropean Social ForumThe European Social Forum is a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement . In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but later it became biannual due to difficulties with finding host countries...