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Welcome to The Jus Semper Global Alliance!
The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI) constitutes the sole program of The Jus Semper Global Alliance (TJSGA). TLWNSI is a long-term program developed to contribute to social justice in the world by achieving fair labour endowments for the workers of all the countries immersed in the global market system. It is applied through its program of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and it focuses on gradual wage equalization, for real democracy, the rule of law and living wages are the three fundamental elements in a community's quest for social justice. Again, welcome, learn all about TLWNSI and find out how you can get involved.
LATEST NEWS
BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Towards a New Paradigm of True Democracy and the Sustainability of People and Planet, or Rhetoric Rights in a Sea of Deception and Posturing.
The good old formula of changing so that everything remains the same...!
This study is motivated by the concern and frustration for the lack of meaningful progress in the struggle to establish a normative framework to protect human rights (HR) along the entire domain of business activity.
The author, Álvaro de Regil, Executive Director of TJSGA, approaches this critical issue with the conviction that we endure an era in which,
to say the least, a savage and perverse market ethos has been imposed upon humanity and the planet as a paradigm of life, with rules and structures designed in direct line with the conditions demanded by business for its exclusive benefit.
As a consequence, societies' human rights are systematically stamped on by business activity in the name of free marketeering. In this context, The Jus Semper Global Alliance (TJSGA) has closely followed the development of the debate, beginning with the publication in 2003 of the draft of the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regards to Human Rights. In those days we expressed our restrained support of such Norms. To be sure, despite their broad ambiguity, such Norms constitute a first positive step upon which to build, with the direct participation of global civil society, a true regulating framework that effectively protects HR from the impact of business activity.
Taking into account that, by now, different sectors of civil society and the business world -including the work of the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights- have conveyed their positions, regarding both the Norms as well as the work of the UN on the matter, through Mr. John Ruggie -Special Representative on HR of the UN Secretary General- and the UN Global Compact, it was better to wait to obtain a comprehensive vision instead of assessing these activities individually as they were taking place.
In this way, this is an assessment of the debate on the responsibilities of business regarding human rights in particular, but also generally on the political, civil, economic, cultural and labour rights; an assessment that, furthermore, constitutes the position of our only initiative: The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI), relative to business and HR. Hence, the assessment ends by proposing a new HR paradigm with respect to business, from TLWNSI'S perspective, with true democracy and real sustainability as its underpinnings.
Prior to embarking on the assessment, nonetheless, the author clearly establishes the context of the world's stage, from the economic, democratic, true sustainability and the current state of HR in business perspectives, from which he performs his assessment.
This is how, from the very title, de Regil reveals his conviction that, in the struggle for establishing a framework regulating the responsibilities of business in respecting HR in their environs, there is a dominant position rejecting regulating the impact of business on the enjoyment of HR through a binding framework, with no other argument but the primacy of business over people and planet. In his perception, it is more than evident the clear reluctance of the UN member governments to comply with their most basic responsibility: to enhance the current HR framework, in a world globalised by the owners of the market, and guarantee the protection of the current rights.
De Regil contends that the governments of the world and their multilateral agencies have clearly imposed, in a completely undemocratic fashion, an ethos where the market reigns supreme over people and planet. Consequently, they not only condone but enthusiastically support the systematic and customary violation of HR in business, with the payment of misery wages, vis-à-vis living wages, standing out prominently in what today constitutes a modern-day-slavery business practice; the shining feature of this era's Darwinian business culture.
Accordingly, despite the overwhelming evidence of the systematic and customary violation of HR by business, what is clearly observed is an unrelenting litany of postures and gesticulations that pretend to change to remain the same, in line with the will of the owners of the market.
Nevertheless, de Regil asserts that the last word has not been said, and that we, civil society, the common citizens of both rich and poor countries, are not letting up nor will we weaken our vigour and pace to completely and radically change the current ethos.
Download the new Business and Human Rights study here!
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PPP WAGE GAPS TO 2005 - EUROPEAN AND G7 PURCHASING POWER LOSS RELATIVE TO THE U.S. ONLY SOUTH KOREA AND BRAZIL IMPROVE THEIR REAL WAGES!
PPP WAGE GAPS FOR SELECTED DEVELOPED AND "EMERGING" ECONOMIES FOR MANUFACTURING WORKERS. (Updated from 1975 up to 2005)
In 2004 France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain eliminated or almost closed their wage gaps with the U.S., yet they 
reopened them in 2005. This is due to the fact that all European countries included in our annual analysis lost purchasing power by an average of 10,4%. Even Germany reduced significantly its traditional purchasing-power advantage over the U.S. Canada and Japan endured the same trend. Only South Korea and Brazil increased their purchasing power by 5%. In fact, South Korea, for the first time in thirty years, surpassed Japan by having a smaller wage gap than Japan with the U.S. Hong Kong barely improved and Singapore kept losing ground. Mexico, continues fixed with the worst real-wage -with no improvement whatosoever- given that it has the greatest wage gap with the U.S., a dramatic 85%, far worse than Hong Kong's 70%, the next worst gap in 2005.
The Classic Problem Scenario
With market liberalization, MNCs sell their products in both the host countries and in all other markets where they are active, including their home country, at the same or at a very similar sales price. They achieve maximum profitability when the manufacturing process in their developing countries' operations is at par in quality and production efficiency with the standards used in their home operations, but their cost of labour is dramatically lower. The MNCs' markets, manufacturing and marketing operations are globalised but their labour costs remain strategically very low in order to achieve maximum competitiveness at the expense of the South's workers. As a result, the MNCs get all the benefit. Sometimes the salaries that they pay are higher than the legal minimum wage in the host country. But, these wages still keep the workers in dire poverty. A minimum wage does not make a living wage even in the most developed economies. What has occurred, with market globalisation, is the dramatic widening of the gap between wages in the North and in the South.
The Argument
Workers performing the same or an equivalent job for the same business entity, in the generation of products and services that this entity markets at global prices in the global market, must enjoy an equivalent remuneration. This equivalent remuneration is considered a living wage, which is a human right. A living wage provides workers in the South with the same ability to fulfil their needs, in terms of food, housing, clothing, healthcare, education, transportation, savings and even leisure, as that enjoyed by equivalent workers in the North, which we define in terms of the purchasing power parities (PPP) as defined by the World Bank and the OECD.
The definition of a living wage of The Jus Semper Global Alliance is as follows: A living wage is that which, using the same logic of ILO´s Convention 100, awards "equal pay for work of equal value" between North and South in PPPs terms.
The premise is that workers must earn equal pay for equal work in terms of material quality of life for obvious reasons of social justice but also, and equally important, for reasons of global sustainability.
The argument of an equivalent living wages is anchored on two criteria:
- Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work
- Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
The proposal is to make workers in the South earn living wages at par with those of the First World in terms of PPPs in the course of a generation (thirty years). There will not be any real progress in the sustainability of the market system -in all three economic, environmental and social dimensions- if there is no sustained generation of aggregate demand, in that period, through the gradual closing of the wage gap between North and South. This does not mean, whatsoever, that progress should be equivalent to the increase of irrational consumption, depleting all non-renewable resources. Eventually, during the twenty-first Century, a new paradigm must be built in which the purpose of the market is the welfare of all ranks of society, and the privileging of sustainability and not of capitalist accumulation.
Yet, while that stage is reached, there is no justification at all, moral or economical, for the workers of the South not to earn wages equivalent to those of their counterparts in the North, in PPP terms, based on equal pay for equal work of equal market value. Just as the International Labour Organisation's Decent Work Agenda states, the decent work concept has led to an international consensus that productive employment and decent work are key elements to achieving poverty reduction. The blatant and perverse exploitation of workers in the South must be stopped.
The analysis is and update for 12 economies and the U.S., prepared by TJSGA, using hourly compensation costs for manufacturing workers (1975-2005) as reported by the U.S. Department of Labour, and PPP data from the World Bank and the OECD. The report exposes once again a global labour system that profits over the majority of the people in favour of a global elite.
Download the pdf file with the wage gap update for 12 economies (Germany, France, Italy, Canada, U.K., Spain, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Hong Kong and Mexico) here.
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MEXICO MAINTAINS THE DUBIOUS HONOUR OF ENDURING THE WORST MANUFACTURING REAL-WAGE PURCHASING POWER -CUSTOMARY AND PREMEDITATED EXPLOITATIVE WAGES - MODERN SLAVE WORK WAGES-
In 2005, Mexico continues showing the worst real wage -with no improvement- in purchasing power parities (PPPs), for it has the greatest equalized wage gap with the U.S. (85%), when compared against other emerging economies and against eight developed economies. In other words, a Mexican worker earns only 15% of the purchasing power (material quality of life) 
enjoyed by the equivalent U.S. counterpart, for a product that will be marketed globally at global prices. Even in Brazil's case -the most similar economy with available data- the wage gap is clearly less dramatic (60%) than in the Mexican case.
In the last 30 years, all the G7 nations, Spain and South Korea surpassed, eliminated or, at least, experienced a very significant reduction of their PPP wage gaps equalized with equivalent U.S. jobs. In dramatic contrast, Mexico moved in the opposite direction. That is, in 30 years, Mexico increased its equalization gap from 70% to a dramatic 85% with respect to the U.S. excluding in this way a great part of its population by maintaining a labour market with hunger wages and, in consequence, an absence of generation of aggregate demand.
Beginning with a string of abrupt devaluations since 1976, real wages -relative to their equalization with the U.S. based on PPPs- initiate a constant loss of purchasing power, dropping 50%, between 1975 and 2005, since employers adjust prices but not wages. Beginning with the great financial debacle of 1994 and Mexico's insertion in the North American Free Trade Agreement, wages collapse losing more than ever their purchasing power. From that moment on, prices, relative to the U.S., partially reach in 2005 94% of the 1975 level, increasing the cost of living -in relation to the U.S.- 59% between 1995 and 2005, reaching in 2005 a ratio of 73¢ against $1 dollar in the U.S. (PPP= 73), whilst wages fall 21% (from 19 to 15 index). This generates and keeps generating, through a premeditated and perverse system, an extremely hash impoverishment of the population.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Mexico's wage gap here.
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The state of Brazil's manufacturing wages continued improving in 2005, albeit it is still clearly negative
In 2005 Brazil's manufacturing real wages continued enduring one the largest wage gaps with the U.S. (60%), only less wide than in Singapore, Hong Kong and Mexico; yet with a good improvement over 2004. Since 1996, (first year with manufacturing wage comparable data available) real wages lost 
31% up to 2002 -relative to their PPP equalization with the U.S. Prices drop with the 1999 crisis but wages do even more; thus, real wages collapse in the span of six years. The gap between nominal and PPP equalized wage deepens, growing from 53% to 68% between 1996 and 2002. That is, although PPP cost of living drops from 69¢ to 38¢ against $1 in the U.S., between 1996 and 2002, Brazilian PPP purchasing power drops from a 47 to a 32 index. This is due to the fact that employers increase price levels over wage levels.
Nonetheless, in Brazil's case, since 2003 wage equalization shows a consistent improvement, averaging a 7,7% increase annually. Thus, by 2005, with an 8,1% growth in equalization, the cumulated growth since 2002 already reaches 25%. In this way, the equalization index increases from 32 to 40. That is, the real wages gap decreases from 68 to 60%. In contrast with Mexico, a country with similar development, Brazil's gap has not increased as dramatically (PPP equalization of 40 vs. 15 in Mexico in 2005). Yet, the situation in Brazil, after more than two decades of supply-side economics, shows the same overwhelming features of pauperization of workers and their families in favour of employers as in Mexico. Although we are yet to see if the small recovery in the last three years continues or if it retreats, the ground recovered is meaningful and it exhibits even more dramatically the policy of wage pauperisation that has been imposed in Mexico.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Brazil's wage gap here.
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SPAIN'S WAGE GAP
The state of manufacturing wages in Spain loses ground in its PPP equalization with the U.S, as a result of its loss in purchasing power
In 2005 Spain suffers a clear loss of 12,3% in wage purchasing power vis-à-vis its U.S. counterparts. This loss occurs in all European countries (averaging -10,4%), Japan (-3,6%) and Canada (-3.9%). Thus, Spain's real manufacturing wage gap increases from 14 to 23%. This loss of purchasing power of Spanish wages generates a deterioration of its equalization index, moving from 86 to 77. In this way, South Korea, the only country with an increase in its purchasing power (4,9%), takes a better position than Spain and Japan, with an equalization index of 79.
Nonetheless, its situation is in dramatic contrast with Mexico's. In 1975 Mexico and Spain had the same PPP cost-of-living index (78). Although, during the period of thirty years, price levels have been more equalized in Spain than in Mexico (a generally higher cost of living in Spain), relative
to the U.S., the insertion of Spain in the European Union and of Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement have drawn dramatically different results. The hard facts are that Spain's economic strategy gives sustained support to aggregate demand and Mexico's depresses it. Thus, while nominal manufacturing wages increase seven fold in Spain, in Mexico they grow a meagre 80% -well below the 284% growth of wages in the U.S., its main trading partner. Thus, the Spanish economy joins fully the group of developed economies whilst Mexico retreats into poverty levels that precede, at the very least, the levels prevalent three decades ago.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Spain's wage gap here.
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TABLE T4*: 1975 - 2005 REAL-WAGE GAPS FOR TWELVE ECONOMIES, IN PURCHASING POWER PARITY (PPP) TERMS, FOR MANUFACTURING WORKERS. *(The base table used for all PPP real-wage gap analysis)
International comparisons of hourly compensation costs for manufacturing workers between the US and selected developed and "emerging" markets, barring South Korea, Brazil and Hong Kong, show clear declines in real wages (Canada, Europe, Japan and Singapore) and no improvement in Mexico!
2005 has signalled a change in trends since 2000 in selected European economies, with consistent drops in real wages and in their corresponding purchasing-power parities (PPPs), using comparable wages in the U.S. as the benchmark. Canada, Japan and Singapore also 
experienced similar declines whilst Mexico retained the worst real wages of all economies in this assessment. During 2005, a clear contention of real wages was the tone, particularly in the G7 countries. Only South Korea, Hong Kong and Brazil reduced their equalisation wage gaps and increased their real wages. In contrast, Mexico retained the dubious honour of having the worst real-wage gap with the U.S., dramatically below Hong Kong, the next worst gap.
The euro area countries included in the analysis (France, Germany, Italy and Spain, plus the UK), experienced marked declines in real wages versus the U.S. in 2005, averaging a drop of 10,4%. The U.K. experienced the lowest decline (7,3%) whilst Spain had the greatest decline (11%).
In Asia, South Korea and Hong Kong increased their real wages 4,9 and 5,7% respectively, whereas Japan, and Singapore's hourly wages slightly lost value by 1,5 and 0,8% respectively. The major highlight is, however, that South Korea, for the first time in thirty years, has surpassed Japan and has now a smaller wage gap and greater real wages than Japan, relative to comparable U.S. wages.
In the Americas, Brazil continues to recover ground lost since 2003.Mexico shows no sign of improvement. It is expected that this will worsen even further in the future, given that the nominal minimum wage in 2008 was increased by 4%, which is below real inflation and a 35% increase in the cost of the basic-goods basket during 2007. Canada lost 2,3% in real-wage value and, in PPP terms, it is now nearly at par with equivalent wages in the U.S.
Download the pdf file of Table 4 here.
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UNEQUAL EXCHANGE
On how the South endows the "North's good living" through the miniscule wages of its labour force, subsidising the wages of Northern workers, through a premeditated and perverse system of exploitation. TLWNSI's raison d''etre!
In this Brief Claudio Jedlicki* assesses economist Arghiri Emmanuel's theory of Unequal Exchange, to delve, from an economic analysis angle, into TLWNSI`'s central argument: that we endure a North-South system
of exploitation, which, among other features, has a direct and premeditated impact on the misery wages paid in all countries in the South. This unequal exchange constitutes a trade imperialism that historically has generated vast earnings for the North, greater than the interests recovered by banks and the profits obtained by transnationals.
Nonetheless, the author alerts us, these are only the traceable evidence left by the system of exploitation, for the earnings, in themselves, cannot be seen, since they are hidden in the prices the North manages for all the goods and services in its transactions with the South, as well as for the miniscule value of Southern exports, which is mainly the result of its low labour endowments.
Indeed, in this commercial imperialism labour endowments stand out, which, in a fashion exogenous to the so-called logic of market economies, are established by way of institutional policies. In this way, the author's assertion that the North-South unequal exchange constitutes a very meaningful endowment for the high average living standard of Northern Societies becomes an indisputable argument. To be sure, the South's misery subsidises "the North's good living".
This is why Jedlicki argues that any serious assessment in pursuit of a solution to the North-South's unequal exchange cannot escape this reality. Thus, any re-assessment of the South's exports, with the sustainability of people and planet in mind, forcefully entails rebalancing living standards on both sides, increasing in the South and diminishing in the North.
*Researcher at the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation de l'Amérique Latine (CREDAL), which is part of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France.
Download our full brief here!
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CORPORATE DESIGN. The Missing Business and Public Policy Issue of Our Time
How can corporations be designed so as to blend social, environmental, and financial mission at their very core? This is the design challenge of the 21st century
Corporation 20/20 is a new multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to answer this question. Its goal is to develop and disseminate
corporate designs where social purpose moves from the periphery to the heart of future organizations. To this endeavour, this initiative has developed six principles to be followed for corporate redesign:
These principles seek to address the imbalance caused by nearly two centuries of legal decisions and corporate practices, which together have expanded the rights of corporations without a commensurate expansion of their obligations.
Elaborating on the subject, Corporation 20/20 has just published a report that explores different routes for redesigning the purpose of business, describing the roles that the different stakeholders may adopt towards this objective. The authors, Marjorie Kelly and Allen White, argue that implementing these principles in the 21st century requires the true commitment of business, governments and civil society.
Corporate redesign seeks to change the narrow purpose of business inherited from the 19th century: shareholder value, to now place at the same level -as the first principle declares- the responsibility of serving the public good. Why does society allow corporations to exist? To serve the public good. Why do individuals start corporations? To serve their own interests. Effective design knits these two together. In this way, the first principle articulates an emerging social consensus: corporations have social responsibilities, and when those conflict with profit-making, without a doubt, the public good comes first. In sync with Jus Semper's position, the purpose of democratic societies must be the long-term and dignified sustainability of people and planet. The market must only be a mean to this goal and not its end, as it is today.
The authors correctly consider that resistance to such changes should not be underestimated. Parties with a vested interest in the status quo will undoubtedly oppose corporate redesign. Yet, from a broader societal perspective, the authors tell us that there is no choice. There is simply no doubt that, as dominant institutions in society, corporations have societal obligations. Thus, shaping future corporate forms to honour these obligations is the design imperative of the 21st century. In this way, the authors conclude their report by further exploring the subject, envisioning the roles that different stakeholders may adopt and illustrating them with case studies of real businesses that were designed with human welfare as their main purpose.
Download the report on corporate redesign here!
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PAPER SERIES ON CORPORATE REDESIGN PRESENTED DURING THE SUMMIT OF CORPORATION 20/20
Paper series prepared for distribution at the recent Summit on the Future of the Corporation
This document offers a collection of ten papers exploring key components of corporate design, prepared to set the stage for 
The Summit on the Future of the Corporation. All papers seek to answer this question: What would corporations look like that were designed to seamlessly integrate social purpose into the core of the organisation? Rather than constraining themselves to a debate between government regulation and free markets, these essays explore the design of a new business system: structure, culture, management practice, ownership control, business and investment law, as well as the key role of stakeholders, from consumers to investors. The papers depart from conventional wisdom to foster dialogue and action among an ever-growing circle of citizens who believe that corporations can and must play a pivotal role in achieving a sustainable future.
Download the paper series on corporate redesign here!
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OECD Watch - the Model national contact points (MNCP): Proposals for improving and harmonizing the procedures of the National Contact Points for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
New survey finds governments failing to curb corporate abuse. Thus, unless improvements are made, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises -one of the few CSR instruments with some value- will lack credibility
As a response from civil society, OECD Watch has just published its Model National Contact Point (Model NCP) to make recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of the OECD Guidelines, based on
the findings from extensive consultations among government officials, trade unions, business representatives and NGOs in 20 OECD countries. The study found, as could be expected, that almost none of the countries surveyed had properly functioning bodies to deal with formal complaints about violations of the OECD Guidelines.
In this way, the Model NCP contains proposals and recommendations to improve and harmonise the functioning of the NCPs. Proposals range from basic principles such as the independence of the NCP and equal treatment of parties to detailed recommendations towards better handling of complaints. The study denounces that governments seem to have forgotten that they have an obligation to prevent and punish irresponsible behaviour by their companies, especially when such behaviour leads to human rights violations, whether companies are active in Burma, Jordan, Zimbabwe or Mexico, for governments must act accordingly to stop and punish these abuses.
Hence, OECD Watch calls on OECD member governments to adopt the recommendations contained in the Model National Contact Point and to act accordingly. Nonetheless, naturally, the only way these days to make governments listen and fulfil their responsibilities is when social organisations -both in OECD member governments as well as in host countries of companies from OECD member countries- get involved and exert constant pressure over accountable government institutions. It is indispensable for us to get involved or, otherwise, governments will premeditatedly continue to put deaf ears to corporate malfeasance.
Download the Model NCP here.
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OECD Watch - THE OECD GUIDELINES AND SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT (SRI).
Fact sheets to help investors and SRI agencies better understand the scope of the OECD Guidelines and facilitate their use
The OECD Guidelines cover a range of issues, including labour and human rights, bribery and corruption, the environment 
and information disclosure. These guidelines can be a useful tool for the socially responsible investment (SRI) community because of their broad coverage of corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues, commitment from governments, and support from business, labour and some civil society groups. Therefore, OECD Watch, a network of 78 international NGOs and Eurosif (the European Social Investment Forum) partnered to develop a series of fact sheets to help investors and SRI agencies better understand the scope of the OECD Guidelines and facilitate their use.
Download the four fact sheets here!
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Human Development Report 2007/2008. Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world. THE HDR 2007/08 SAYS THAT CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS WITH SETBACKS IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT PRECEDENT IN THE REDUCTION OF POVERTY, NUTRITION, HEALTH AND EDUCATION
What we do today about climate change has consequences that will last a century or more. The part of that change that is due to greenhouse gas emissions is not reversible in the foreseeable future. The heat trapping gases we send into the atmosphere in 2008 will stay there until 2108 and beyond. We are therefore making choices today that will affect our own lives, but even more so the lives of our children and grandchildren. This makes climate change different and more difficult than other policy challenges
For those willing to listen instead of putting deaf ears, the prognosis and the call of Kemal Dervi and Achim Steiner, the people responsible 
for the HDR 2007/08 will not surprise them, for they are already conscientious and they are taking action accordingly. For those refusing to accept the evident environmental decay, will suffer anyway the same consequences, few or many, for the planet does not make distinctions between conscientious people and their antipodes. Thus, they have nothing to lose by acknowledging what surely will occur to all in some measure; and instead, if they get involved, we will all have much to gain.
The United Nations Human Development Programme officers confirm to us that climate change is now a scientifically established fact. The exact impact of greenhouse gas emission is not easy to forecast and there is a lot of uncertainty in the science when it comes to predictive capability. But we now know enough to recognise that there are large risks, potentially catastrophic ones, including the melting of ice-sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic (which would place many countries under water) and changes in the course of the Gulf Stream that would bring about drastic climatic changes.
Hence, Dervi and Steiner argue that prudence and care about the future of our children and their children requires that we act now. This is a form of insurance against possibly very large losses. The fact that we do not know the probability of such losses or their likely exact timing is not a valid argument. We know the danger exists. We know the damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions is irreversible for a long time. We know it is growing with every day of inaction. For these reasons, and for a basic instinct of survival, we all have to act, changing our consumer habits and lifestyles in a rather significant manner.
The report includes a large collection of statistical reports and data sets, including the annual Human Development Index.
Download directly from the UNDP website here or in French here
Visit the UNDP Human Development Report website here.
Or, if the urls do not respond, download the pdf of the full report here or the French version here.
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HOW SUSTAINABLE IS OUR LATTE?
An Assessment of Trends and Standards in Fair-Trade From the Perspective of a New Truly Sustainable People and Planet-Centred Paradigm
This work is an assessment of the current development of the fair trade concept from the perspective of the pursuit of an ethos that generates true sustainability for all participants, especially those who have been dispossessed of their right to live a dignified life due to today's market system, designed for the benefit of the big global corporations.
The research considers that with the current market-driven structures governing societies worldwide, it is sheer wishful thinking to imagine that the millions of small landholders and labourers of the South would be able
to enjoy a dignified life, equivalent to that in the North, through fair trade. To make it a realistic expectation, conventional wisdom both North and South must be radically changed to redefine the purpose of society, democracy and business. Thus, to change the current ethos, the sustainability for people and planet, instead of the logic of the market of today's untrammelled Darwinian capitalism, has to be the only purpose of societies.
The author, Álvaro de Regil, Executive Director of the TJSGA, supports its arguments on a detailed assessment of fair-trade coffee; undoubtedly the most important of all FT activities in the number of participating stakeholders, in the market value generated and in the level of consumer awareness. In this way, the study shows how the interaction of the visions and missions of a diversity of stakeholders, from large corporations to small retailers, and from small landholders to crop labourers, illustrates the deviations, failures, shortcomings and also successes generated supposedly in pursuit of a truly sustainable ethos. The assessment of the realities of Fair Trade coffee -and FT in the broader ethos of sustainable business practice- as an economic and social interaction, enables this research to develop a sound case study to assert that there will be no realistic sustainability and, thus, no true fair trade and no such thing as a truly socially responsible corporation unless we transform the purpose of society, of government and business to build a new paradigm that is centred on the welfare of people and planet and nothing else.
In this way, through the detailed analysis of the core elements that define the limits of the sustainability that fair trade offers to Southern participants, such as the norms for their participation, the price mechanisms, the channels of distribution, the competition of opposing concepts (FLO, Starbucks, Utz Kapéh...) as well as the fundamental role of consumers, the author drafts the path that the authentic fair-trade movement will have to go through to build a truly dignified and sustainable ethos in the long term for all participants.
This is how the author concludes that the fair-trade movement is in an enviable position to contribute to this mission given the soundness of its claims and the growing disposition of the majority of the population, in our role as consumers, to build a truly sustainable world.
Consequently, as outlandish as it may sound to some today, the author asserts that the only way to achieve true sustainability for people and planet both North and South is to replace the current market ethos with the new paradigm. Not doing so would not only render fair trade as another useful token effort, a mere poverty-mitigating mechanism, full of rhetorical claims, that provides cover for the owners of the market, but would contribute meaningfully to further the decay of mankind and of our planet until we cross a threshold of no return.
Download our new fair-trade study here!
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MODERN SLAVE WORK - A CRASS REALITY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Despite all the international organisations and conventions created by the world's governments in favour of human rights, with respect to labour, the crass reality is that today labour under slavery conditions has become, with the blessing of governments, a strategic factor in the operations of many multinationals that own brands well known by the world's consumers. In this way,
slave work, predominantly in the Southern countries, is quite a stark reality in spite of all the statements in favour of good corporate citizenship and of a sustainable ethos, which only serve to appease our "good conscience," but that will not rest until we dare to eradicate this subhuman practice from the face of the earth.
This commentary clearly exhibits the absolute impossibility of sustaining the current North-South system of exploitation, of quasi-slavery in which the South's role is, essentially, to supply labour at a cost that perpetuates it in servitude and to surrender its natural resources to the global corporations of the institutional investors. It also shows us how, despite the official rhetoric that states that the decent work concept has led to the international consensus that productive employment and decent work are key elements to achieving poverty reduction, everything remains the same.
Download the TLWNSI Issue Commentary here.
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NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) IN IBERIAN AMERICA
While decades ago CSR acquired much importance on the agenda of the European Union and of some of its member countries, in Iberian America there is little interest among national governments, the business community and universities. Nonetheless, some countries (Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc.) have begun developing a corporate social responsibility conscience thanks to the efforts of nongovernmental organisations, frequently supported by international organisations.
This work, comprised of five sections, is an assessment of the state of CSR in Iberian America from the perspective of civil society. 
The first section ponders the diverse scenarios under which CSR is approached by business and the second describes the current state of CSR practice among the different actors in the region. The third and fourth sections emphasise two key aspects absent from CSR culture worldwide but critical for Iberian America: the exclusion of the payment of living wages as a CSR standard and the lack of pre-established and mandatory standards for the accountability of corporations before governments and society, of which the first aspect is discussed in great detail. The last section argues (to some extent) in favour of the strategic value for Iberian America of leveraging the market via consumer pressure on a global scale. These last three aspects are examined in a global context, parting from the premise that the only successful CSR strategy for Iberian America is a global CSR strategy.
The authors' (Cardozo and de Regil) global prognosis regarding CSR is that both institutional investors and corporations will gradually conclude that they cannot maintain a zero-sum game ethos for too long if they want to have a future, and they will move to shift their vision from the extremely short-term to a balanced approach in the pursuit of their own sustainability. In this way, relative to Iberian America, if the problems caused by the impact of corporate activity are to be addressed, Iberian America's organised civil societies must mobilise with urgency to include, in the pursuit of a truly sustainable global CSR, the elements that are of keen interest for the region.
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This paper constitutes an updated and unabridged research work prepared in June 2004 to be edited and published as a chapter in: Jose Allouche (author/editor), Corporate Social Responsibility, Volume 2, Performances and Stakeholders, United Kingdom, October 2006, Palgrave Macmillan/European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). Because of the long period between the date of delivery and the date of publication, some of the data have been updated when appropriate.
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