It is an ongoing worry that global corporations, most with US origins, appear to be usurping democratically elected governments through their donations to political campaigns and the lack of “arms length” of key government employees with these corporates, many having been employees of corporates themselves – and vise-versa.
It is likened to a perpetual revolving door.
While the above comments relate mainly to the US it is disturbing to see similar trends and patterns emerging in Australia.
Finally we are seeing an alternative form of “check and balance” where substantial numbers of citizen movements are joining hands across national borders in the form of an International Tribunal.
While not recognised legally, it will provide a court of public opinion based on evidence and the results will reach concerned citizens by mainstream or alternate media – it will be too big to ignore.
And it will also decide whether to pursue the crime of “ecocide”.

Media giants (such as Rupert Murdoch’s media empire) are also part of the cartel of corporates.
I doubt if anyone will have read about the Monsanto Tribunal in any mainstream media format, particularly the Murdoch Press.
Collectively, the corporates are riding roughshod through our freedoms with devices such as international treaties (the TPPA recently signed by the Australian government is one such device.
Developed in secret with the full effects yet to be uncovered by a general public forced into a deliberate “dumbing down” process.
This type of corporate device increasingly looks like a method of creating a “one world cartel government”.
It is a frightening prospect!
And in Australia we have already lost basic freedoms such as created in coercive vaccination legislation and other anomalies such as consumers not having adequate labelling information on products that may contain GMO’s and other contaminants, to name just a handful.

For an increasing number of people from around the world, Monsanto today is the symbol of industrial agriculture (Big-Ag).
This chemical-intensive form of production pollutes the environment, accelerates biodiversity loss, and massively contributes to global warming.
Monsanto will be investigated by a tribunal of environmentalists, activists, and scientists in The Hague, Netherlands, next year, against charges of “ecocide”.
The citizens’ trial was announced at a press conference on December 3 2015 in Paris, to tie in with the COP21 UN Conference on Climate Change.

This tribunal model will create a counter-balance by concerned citizens of any country and will probably be developed further to counter the effects of other cartel members – Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Utilities, Big Food Processors and Big Information Technology.

Calling themselves the Monsanto Tribunal, the crowd-funded group will evaluate allegations made against Monsanto with regards to damage caused to the environment and human health – but regardless of the outcome, they won’t be able to sentence or charge the agriculture giant.
Still, they claim the trial is more than just a symbolic act, with the larger goal of establishing ‘ecocide’ as a crime for the first time.
At least it provides a rallying point for all concerned citizens and an infrastructure that is a simple one to represent individuals, and they in turn can provide grass-roots support and donations.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Monsanto, a US-based company, has developed a number of highly toxic products, which have permanently damaged the environment and caused illness or death for thousands of people.
These products include:

•  PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), one of the twelve Persistent Organic  Pollutants (POP) that affect human and animal fertility;
•  2,4,5 T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid), a dioxin-containing component of the defoliant, Agent Orange, which was used by the US Army during the Vietnam War and continues to cause birth defects and cancer;
•  Lasso, an herbicide that is now banned in Europe;
•  and RoundUp, the most widely used herbicide in the world, and the source of the greatest health and environmental scandal in modern history – this toxic herbicide is used in combination with genetically modified (GM) RoundUp Ready seeds in large-scale monocultures, primarily to produce soybeans, maize and rapeseed for animal feed and biofuels.

Monsanto promotes an agroindustrial model that contributes at least one third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; it is also largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction and declining biodiversity, and the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide. This is a model that threatens peoples’ food sovereignty by patenting seeds and privatizing life.

According to its critics, Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, by manipulating the press and media, etc.
The history of Monsanto would thereby constitute a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet.

The Monsanto Tribunal, which will be held in The Hague from 12 to 16 October 2016, aims to assess these allegations made against Monsanto, and to evaluate the damages caused by this transnational company.
The Tribunal will rely on the “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights” adopted at the UN in 2011.
It will also assess potential criminal liability on the basis of the Rome Statue that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether a reform of international criminal law is warranted to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense, so that natural persons could incurr criminal liability.
Recognizing ecocide as a crime is the only way to guarantee the right of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.

Aware of these planetary stakes, the initiators of the Monsanto Tribunal are appealing to civil society and to all citizens of the world to participate in financing this unique operation through the biggest international crowd-funding campaign ever carried out.

The Steering Committee of the Monsanto Tribunal decided that the costs incurred in the organisation and running of the Tribunal should be financed by the citizens of the world and by civil society organizations. Indeed, the steering Committee believes that the defense of the safety of the planet and its inhabitants is the concern of all people!
This is why it launched the largest crowdfunding platform ever to date.

Each person, whether he or she lives in Africa, North or South America, Europe, Asia or Australia, is invited to contribute to this exceptional crowdfunding initiative to ensure that the funds are secured in time for the organisation and running of the Monsanto Tribunal, on the 12 to 16 October 2016 in The Hague (Netherlands).
For now, the Tribunal’s budget is estimated at one million euros.

For those who do not have access to online payment means, the committee recommends organizing a collection of funds in the most remote parts of the world, in the countryside or in the city, by approaching a supportive NGO or trade union, an association, or a partner of this initiative, in order to make a financial contribution to the organization of the Tribunal.

The funds raised will go to the Monsanto Tribunal Foundation, headquartered in Amsterdam. Through its commitment to transparent, ethical and exemplary governance, the Steering Committee will exercise its utmost vigilance to ensure the proper use of money given to the Foundation”.