News Archives » Human Dignity
Climate Change Will Strike the Poorest Countries Hardest April 30th, 2014
Late monsoons in Bangladesh in 2013 affected all rain-fed agriculture.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading climate science body, declared in its recent report that global warming is wreaking havoc “on all continents and across the oceans,” with the worst yet to come. But by far the most severe impacts will strike the poorest countries that bear little or no historical responsibility for causing climate change, the report said.
“Those countries who have contributed least to the manifestation of this problem are in jeopardy of being the most vulnerable to it,” said Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University and a coordinating lead author of the IPCC report. “The poor, the young, the old and the people who live along the coasts will be hit the hardest.”
Continue reading this article from Inside Climate News…
Spring/Summer 2014 Issue of JPIC Report Available On-Line April 28th, 2014
The Spring/Summer 2014 issue of JPIC Report is now available on line as a PDF. It will soon be available in print form.
Please contact Mary O’Herron in the JPIC Office if you want to be added to the mailing list.
You can find all issues of JPIC Report on this website in the Resources section. (Download a PDF of the latest issue)
Solitary Nation April 28th, 2014
Last week, PBS FRONTLINE aired Solitary Nation, portraying the brutal reality of solitary confinement in a Maine maximum-security prison. FRONTLINE has made a significant contribution to the work to end torture by revealing, in graphic detail, the heart wrenching inhumanity of isolation.
Viewers meet a young father, desperate to earn his GED, who deteriorates repeatedly under the crushing reality of daily life in solitary confinement. And yet the inhumanity of isolation in this one prison is ongoing in prisons, jails and detention centers throughout the U.S. The full video is free and available for viewing here: http://to.pbs.org/1lNv83j
We invite you to view the video, and share it with members of your community. Thoughts and additional resources to consider when viewing the film are enclosed in a viewers guide below, and available for download here. This material is from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture: www.tortureisamoralissue.org, of which Oblate JPIC is a member.
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Fr. Finn Speaking at Islamic Forum at Harvard University April 24th, 2014
Fr. Seamus Finn, OMI has been invited to present a paper on Shared Risk and Shared Responsibility at the Eleventh Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance in April. The theme of the conference was Takaful and Alternative Cooperative Finance: Challenges and Opportunities. Takaful is an Islamic cooperative insurance system.
See here for conference details.
Investors Call for Stronger Financial Commitments from Brands and Retailers to Aid Victims of Rana Plaza April 24th, 2014
On the one-year anniversary of the tragic garment factory building collapse in Bangladesh, a global investor initiative reminds companies of their corporate responsibility to protect, respect and remediate human rights violations throughout their supply chains.
A global coalition of 134 institutional investors representing over $4.1 trillion in managed assets and led by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) today released a statement marking the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh. The Missionary Oblates are closely involved in the investor initiative urging companies to use their influence to improve work and safety conditions in Bangladesh.
Rana Plaza was one of the worst workplace disasters in history, resulting in the deaths of over 1,100 garment factory workers who were forced to work in the building even though they had left the building the day before because of major cracks in a wall. The tragedy underscored the need for heightened vigilance on the part of apparel companies for potential human rights risks in their global supply chains, particularly when they source from low-cost producing nations such as Bangladesh.
The investor initiative comprises responsible institutional investors from a dozen countries who actively engage the companies in their portfolios to promote corporate responsibility on critical environmental and social issues, including the human rights risks of trafficking and slavery. The coalition was convened by ICCR after the Rana Plaza disaster to urge apparel brands and retailers sourcing from Bangladesh to use their collective influence to help institute system-wide changes that will ensure the future safety of apparel workers.
Investors point to several key achievements over the last 12 months, many of which emerged through the formation of the multi-stakeholder initiative the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, which includes trade unions and apparel brands and retailers, with an independent chair from the International Labor Organization.
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