Global Witness
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| Founded | 1993 in London |
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| Type |
Non-profit NGO |
| Focus | Natural resource-related conflict and corruption and associated environmental and human rights abuses. |
| Location |
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| Website | http://www.globalwitness.org/ |
 Charmian Gooch: Meet global corruption's hidden players, TED Talks, July 8, 2013 |
Global Witness is an international NGO established in 1993 that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide. The organisation has offices in London and Washington, D.C.. Global Witness states that it does not have any political affiliation. Gillian Caldwell joined the organisation as Executive Director in July 2015 and Mark Stephens (solicitor) was appointed Chair in March 2016.
Investigation by Global Witness in April 2014 revealed there were nearly three times as many environmental defenders killed in 2012 than 10 years previously. Global Witness documented 147 deaths in 2012, compared to 51 in 2002. In Brazil 448 activists defending natural resources were killed between 2002 and 2013, in Honduras 109, Peru 58, Philippines 67 and Thailand 16. Many of those facing threats are ordinary people opposing land grabs, mining operations and the industrial timber trade, often forced from their homes and severely threatened by environmental devastation. Others have been killed for protests over hydroelectric dams, pollution and wildlife conservation.
Global Witness states that its goals are to expose the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems, to drive campaigns that end impunity, resource linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses. The organisation explores how diamonds and other natural resources can fund conflict or fuel corruption. It carries out investigations into the involvement of specific individuals and business entities in activities such as illegal and unsustainable forest exploitation, and corruption in oil, gas and mining industries.
Global Witness’ methodology combines investigative research, publishing reports and conducting advocacy campaigns. Reports are disseminated to governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and the media. This is intended to shape global policy and change international thinking about the extraction and trading of natural resources and the impacts that corrupt and unsustainable exploitation can have upon development, human rights and geopolitical and economic stability.
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