World Bank Raises The Bar On Human Rights. Will Private Banks Follow?

Last December, I hinted that the World Bank was moving to adopt stronger new standards on Indigenous rights. After nearly three years of deliberation, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, announced its revised Sustainability Framework last month. As the largest source of international financing for companies in the [...]

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RBC Takes Step Away From Tar Sands

It took nearly two years, but today Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) finally adopted environmental and social standards on its financing in the tar sands. Great! So what does that mean? Clearly, it means a significant about-face on tar sands for one of the world’s biggest banks. Before today, RBC trailed its peers on basic [...]

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Rainforest Action Network Victories: Top Ten of 2010

Making change in the world is hard work — some times decades-long hard work. But with the right combination of strategies, experience, tenacity, and allies, it is possible to achieve victories that have a lasting impact. This year, Rainforest Action Network took on corporate titans and secured real wins for the world’s forests, the climate, [...]

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U.S. Announces Support for UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights

With President Barack Obama’s announcement that the United States will “lend its support” to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the U.S. has at last joined the global consensus on this critical human rights issue. In a decision that reverses the position taken by the Bush administration in 2007, when the [...]

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U.S. Should Join World In Supporting Indigenous Rights

Canada has now formally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), leaving the United States as the only country to remain opposed to the most comprehensive international statement on Indigenous rights to date. After its adoption in 2007 by the UN General Assembly, UNDRIP was heralded around the world by [...]

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