Human Rights : Research

The western Amazon is the most biologically rich part of the Amazon basin and is home to a great diversity of indigenous ethnic groups, including some of the world's last uncontacted peoples living in voluntary isolation. Unlike the eastern Brazilian Amazon, it is still a largely intact ecosystem. Underlying this landscape are large reserves of oil and gas, many yet untapped. The growing global demand is leading to unprecedented exploration and development in the region.

This report by the Environmental Justice Foundation shows that cotton production in Uzbekistan represents one of the most exploitative enterprises in the world.

Imagine how powerful it would be if some, or even one, Olympic athlete would speak out against the systematic exploitation of Chinese workers in plants producing Sporting Goods for Export to Official U.S. Olympics sponsors like Speedo. These athletes have the stature, and voice, to demand that these Olympics workers be treated as human beings, with their rights respected and paid fair wages.

CBSR has been contracted by a Canadian mining company to find a qualified party to conduct a Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) at their operations in Guatemala. The company is looking for a qualified person/group to perform the HRIA in the fall of 2008 using the Danish Institute's Human Rights Compliance Assessment (HRCA) Tool. Submissions are due August 22th, 2008. Any inquiries should be directed to Zoe Le Good at zoe@cbsr.ca or Melissa Whellams at melissa@cbsr.ca Zoe Le Good Advisory Services Coordinator 604.323.2714 x 228 zoe@cbsr.ca

Human rights can be used as a threshold for minimum standards that climate change, or policies to deal with it, must not breach, says this report

This report is an analysis of the implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol which was meant to eliminate child labor in the cocoa industry in West Africa.

The report shows how governments inadvertently use tax dollars to increase the downward pressure on labor rights, wages, and working conditions.

This report is about why and how to put girls at the center of development. It is about how the health of economies and families depends on protecting the rights of and fostering opportunities for today’s girls. It is about how far girls in many developing countries have come—but how far we remain from a world in which girls’ rights are respected.

A growing number of nations including Canada, Chile, the EU, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the U.S., now include labor rights provisions in their free trade agreements. But we don’t yet know if such links actually empower workers or lead to improved labor rights governance.

The series explores the practical application of the Global Compact’s human rights Principles using case studies.