Human Rights & the Environment Resources

UNU project targets environmental hazards of silicon production
URL: http://www.unu.edu/hq/ginfo/nex/jun98-e/nex-06-98-e.html
Review: The UNU’s Institute of Advanced Studies recently launched a project to reduce the environmental damage brought about when quartz is turned into electronics-grade silicon required by high-tech industries. From UNUnexions, June 1998.

Mazurek, Jan, 1998. Making Microchips: Policy, Globalization, and Economic Restructuring in the Semiconductor Industry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Review: Microchips, unlike automobiles, are resource intensive – when sold, they contain very few of the raw materials used to manufacture them. According to Jan Mazurek, “the computer microchip industry’s clean outward appearance and clean image tends to eclipse its glaringly poor environmental record.” Mazurek’s excellently researched work shows how reorganization and relocation of manufacturing facilities divert attention from trends in toxic emissions and how they complicate public and private efforts to improve the industry’s environmental performance.

Drillbits and Trailings
Purpose: Project Underground’s electronic fortnightly on the mineral industries. Includes Drillbits and Trailings’ archives from 1996 and mineral industry vital statistics and resources.
Focus on the Corporation
Purpose: Corp-Focus is a moderated listserve which distributes the weekly column “Focus on the Corporation,” co-authored by Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, and Robert Weissman, editor of Multinational Monitor magazine. To subscribe to Corp-Focus, send an e-mail message to listproc@essential.org with the following all in one line: subscribe corp-focus <your name> or log on to http://lists.essential.org/. Focus on the Corporation scrutinizes the multinational corporation – the most powerful institution of our time. Once a week, it reports and comments critically on corporate actions, plans, abuses and trends.

Corporate Welfare Information Center
URL: http://www.corporations.org/welfare/index.html
Purpose: The Corporate Accountability Project is a part of the Activists’ Center for Training In Organizing and Networking (ACTION), an activist’s collective in Philadelphia, PA. The center collects information concerning corporate welfare in the United States, including examples, media reports, and mailing lists.
Global Business Responsibility Resource Center
URL: http://www.bsr.org
Purpose: The Global Business Responsibility Resource Center is a continually expanding resource covering the full spectrum of corporate social responsibility issues. At the heart of the Center is a growing collection of topic overviews providing basic information, company examples, and links to helping resources. The web site is the Center’s primary vehicle for disseminating this information. Included are links for Environment and for Human Rights.
Human Rights Internet Forum
URL: http://www.hri.ca
Purpose: Founded in 1976, Human Rights Internet (HRI) is a world leader in the exchange of information within the worldwide human rights community. HRI’s primary role is to serve the information needs of international scholars, human rights activists, asylum lawyers, and other organizations via an extensive documentation centre and computerized databases.

Gallon Environment Letter
Example email
Purpose: The Gallon Environment Letter, provided twice a month, includes current environmental business and government policy information in Canada. It is available by subscription.

EarthRights International. Human Rights and the Environment, January 1997.
URL: http://www.earthrights.org/our_publication/H_and_E/home.htmlPurpose: Comments on the issues raised in the final report submitted to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities by its Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Ms. Fatma Zohra Ksentini (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/9); BURMA: A case study on the issues raised in the final report submitted to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities by its Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Ms. Fatma Zohra Ksentini, (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/9); and Draft Principles on Human Rights and the Environment.
United States Department of State. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
URL:http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/hrp_reports_mainhp.htmlPurpose: The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are submitted annually by the U.S. Department of State to the U.S. Congress. The reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.