THE RIGHT LIVELIHOOD AWARDS 2007
Speech by
Jakob von Uexkull
December 7th, 2007
Madam Speaker, Recipients of the Right Livelihood Award, Honorable Guests, Members of Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This year the Right Livelihood family lost one of its elders, Dr. John Gofman. His pioneering work on the dangers of low-level nuclear radiation was often attacked by the nuclear lobby, but never disproved. He was a gentle giant, dedicated to science and truth. Please join me in a minute of silence for the life and work of John Gofman!
Accelerating climate chaos has made us aware of our power to destroy our future. The strategic implications of the ecological crisis are huge. All political parties in Sweden now agree that climate change is the greatest security threat. Unless it is stabilised, defence priorities will have to shift to defending resources for survival.
But there is another way! For while wars about oil are already with us, wars about access to solar energy are unimaginable. The "inconvenient truth" (Al Gore) can be countered by the convenient truths which these awards represent: there are many ways forward which provide a good life without costing the earth!
The critical mass needed for the radical changes now required may not yet be evident. But values are changing. In British villages, now competing to reduce their CO2 emissions, the neighbour with a second home abroad is no longer admired... The egoistic "me" generation of self enrichment is no longer the global model. Decision-makers in government and business, facing growing public distrust, are no longer in charge of the debate and increasingly unsure and insecure.
"The belief in the market as a divine ordinance became a secular ideology of universal progress that in the late 20th century was embraced by international institutions" writes the philosopher John Gray. But, after Sir Nicholas Stern, ex World Bank Chief economist, described climate change as the greatest market failure ever, what credibility do the market fundamentalists still have?
In Rio in 1992 the "global players" assured the world that they could and would deal with global environmental threats. But since then, global CO2 emissions have increased by almost 40%. Climate chaos is now growing more quickly than even pessimistic experts expected, threatening human progress and security in almost every area. If a terrorist organisation had developed the means to inflict such actual and potential damage, a global emergency would be declared and we would deploy every possible means to neutralize this threat!
Many surveys show that most people are ready to respond to these challenges. But political leadership is needed. "Only decisions in the public sector determine basic changes in values and rules, and thus unleash the market's enormous power to accelerate the transition to a new model," writes Peter Goldmark, Director of Environmental Defence (USA). It is therefore appropriate that we celebrate this award in parliament, as our elected representatives now have the responsibility to do what our earth and future require.
For climate chaos is also a massive political and media failure. Few people would have voted for the policies causing it - and political parties allowing it to happen - if informed of the risks, known for over 30 years!
What duties and responsibilities, what quality of life, what combinations of state and market are compatible with the need to ensure that human production and consumption do not endanger the future of life on earth? That is now the crucial question. The creation of life quality with fewer resources has to replace the expansion of consumer choice as our chief economic goal if we want to avoid a global future of escalating chaos and conflict.
This requires economies based on encouraging maturity and co-operation, not immaturity and greed. The urgently required solar energy revolution is not held up by a lack of resources but by an absurd and outdated cost accounting system. The energy of today's sun and wind cannot be harnessed tomorrow - and it is that waste we cannot afford! We must reduce to ridicule those who claim that we must only do what is 'competitive' and makes yet more money.
Rather than try to re-structure how the planet functions, we must re-structure our ways of life according to Right Livelihood principles.
This year's award recipients show how we can live together in peace and protect our global ecosystems by co-operation, mutual respect and the rule of law which puts the diversity of life before the privileges of the few.
The jury honours Judge Christopher Weeramantry for "his lifetime of ground-breaking work to strengthen and expand the rule of international law," in dealing with global challenges such as the continued threat of nuclear weapons, the protection of human rights and the protection of the environment.
Judge Weeramantry joined the Sri Lanka Supreme Court in 1967. In 1972, he moved to Australia to be Professor of Law at Monash University, Melbourne. There he initiated the annual Law Week, where numerous events are organised for members of the legal profession to discuss with and explain their work to the public.
Judge Weeramantry was elected to fill the Asian seat on the International Court of Justice in 1990. When the Court made its decision on nuclear weapons in 1996, he strongly disagreed with the majority's decision to leave undetermined the legality of one area: the use of nuclear weapons in self-defence when the survival of the state is at stake. His dissenting opinion recognised that this exception would in practice be widely used by the nuclear weapons states, and he categorically asserted their illegality "in any circumstances whatsoever".
"The threat and use of nuclear weapons", he wrote, "contradicts the fundamental principle of the dignity and worth of the human person on which all law depends. It violates the fundamental principles of international law, and represents the very negation of the humanitarian concerns which underlie the structure of humanitarian law."
Judge Weeramantry has also focused on other areas of cutting-edge jurisprudence, where social questions and theology and philosophy meet, e.g. the impact of technology on human rights, and the environmental principles in international law. He sees current international law as "mono-cultural and Euro-centred" and has repeatedly cited old religious principles as customary law in his judgements.
He set up the Weeramantry International Centre for Peace Education and Research in Sri Lanka in 2001. It rests on the three pillars of Peace Education, Cross Cultural Understanding and International Law as an Instrument of Peace and holds camps for school children and university students from different Sri Lankan backgrounds, in order to foster inter-cultural understanding.
In its 1996 judgement, the International Court of Justice ruled that nuclear weapons states have an obligation under international law to continue and to conclude negotiations leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Judge Weeramantry is currently working to bring back to the International Court the violation of these obligations by the nuclear weapons states.
It is with very great pleasure that I present the 2007 Right Livelihood Award to Judge Christopher Weeramantry!
Dekha Ibrahim Abdi has engaged in effective peace work and conflict resolution in many of the world's most divided countries. The Jury commends her "for showing in diverse ethnic and cultural situations how religious and other differences can be reconciled, even after violent conflict, through a cooperative process that leads to peace and development".
At her secondary school pupils were divided along religious and ethnic lines, but Dekha and her friends created a space between these opposing camps. It is this background which informs her philosophy of inter-religious co-operation and subsequent peace work.
In 1992 Dekha helped start a grassroots peace initiative in her native Wajir (Kenya), torn by civil war, bringing together people from all clans. Despite opposition from traditional leaders, they organised mediation between the warring parties and set up the Wajir Peace Committee, of which Dekha was elected Secretary.
Fostering inter-faith dialogue to resolve tensions and conflict between religions has been a central focus of Dekha's activity. Her methods have been copied elsewhere in Kenya, and in Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Africa. In addition, Dekha has taught in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Canada, Cambodia, Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria, Netherlands, Zimbabwe, and the UK.
She was a founding member of the regional Coalition of Peace in Africa (COPA). As East African Regional Coordinator, she was involved in the Linking Peace Practice to Policy (LPP) programme of the COPA. LPP seeks to support and link communities in volatile areas in conflict prevention and peace-building work. In 1998 Dekha became Training and Learning Co-ordinator of Responding to Conflict (RTC) which engages in conflict transformation: planning, organizing and facilitating a range of conflict resolution training programmes. She is also a Board Member of Co-existence International, an initiative committed to strengthening the field of policymakers, practitioners, researchers, advocates, organizations and networks promoting co-existence. Dekha is a founding Member of the Global Peace Practitioners Network ACTION for conflict transformation. Since 2000, she has been active in a consortium of international conflict transformation specialists working to develop a series of intensive, participatory workshops for the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). Dekha is a patron of Peace Direct (London) working to provide a platform for young UK Muslims, after the London bombings, to explore issues and challenges around being a Muslim and British in the UK.
It is with very great pleasure that I present the 2007 Right Livelihood Award to Dekha Ibrahim Abdi.
Percy and Louise Schmeiser have given the world a wake-up call about the dangers to farmers and biodiversity everywhere from the growing dominance and market aggression of companies engaged in the genetic engineering of crops. The Jury honours the Schmeisers "for their courage in defending biodiversity and farmers' rights, and challenging the environmental and moral perversity of current interpretations of patent laws".
Percy and Louise Schmeiser were born into farming families in Saskatchewan. Percy has been a Member of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly (1967-71) and Mayor of his home town of Bruno (1963-82).
In 1998 Percy Schmeiser and his wife received a letter from the US agribusiness giant Monsanto claiming that they had used Monsanto seeds without a license. It turned out that some Monsanto genetically modified canola (rape) seeds had blown over from the Schmeisers' neighbour or from passing trucks. Thus, genes that Monsanto claimed to "own" under Canadian patent law had ended up in the Schmeisers' seeds. Monsanto threatened to sue the Schmeisers for 'infringement of patent', seeking damages totalling $400,000 (CAD) but offered to withdraw the legal challenge if the Schmeisers signed a contract to buy their seeds from Monsanto in the future - their standard practise.
But the Schmeisers refused this attempt to blackmail them. They contested the case up to the Canadian Supreme Court, whose ruling supported Monsanto in their claim to own the gene. Thus the Schmeisers lost their breeding research, and the varieties that they had adapted to their local environment for years through cross-pollination, because they now contained the Monsanto-"owned" gene.
Now, in a new legal case, the Schmeisers are trying to turn the notion of benefit to farmers from Monsanto genes around, claiming that Monsanto-"owned" genes are to be regarded as contamination.
The Schmeiser case was one of the first and most prominent involving a company claiming to own patents on life. It revealed how traditional seed economics and treatment is currently giving way to a dependency on only a few big multinational enterprises, such that in the end the whole food production chain could be dominated by a few giant food corporations, relying on very few genetically engineered crops. This would drastically reduce the genetic diversity of staple crops and the economic autonomy of farmers, especially in developing countries.
Percy Schmeiser is a member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and was a core member of the drafting group of the Manifesto on the Future of Seed which has had a worldwide impact.
It is with very great pleasure that I present the 2007 Right Livelihood Award to Percy and Louise Schmeiser.
Grameen Shakti has shown that solar energy applications can be scaled up massively and rapidly to provide an affordable and climate-friendly energy option for the rural poor. The Jury commends Grameen Shakti "for bringing sustainable light and power to thousands of Bangladeshi villages, promoting health, education and productivity."
Their work not only focuses on the technical and capacity-building sides of renewable energy promotion. They have also adopted the Grameen Bank's experience in micro financing to make renewable energy applications affordable for the rural poor.
Grameen Shakti employs 1500 field staff, and has trained 1000 engineers and 1000 local technicians in renewable energy technology. They have built a network of 390 village unit offices, in all of Bangladesh's 64 districts, reaching the rural areas where 70% of the country's 135m inhabitants live. In these areas, there is no grid and the population often has no access to electricity. Grameen Shakti especially promotes solar home systems, which typically consist of a small photovoltaic panel connected to a battery for storage. By June 2007 Grameen Shakti had installed more than 110,000 solar home systems, covering 30,000 villages, with plans to reach 1 million installations in 2015. In addition, 4 wind energy plants, 1000 biogas plants and 3 solar thermal projects have been installed, and 9 solar-powered computer training centres have been created.
Grameen Shakti has always sought to involve the local community and has started a network of technology centres, managed mainly by women engineers, who train women as solar technicians.
Solar home systems are replacing kerosene lamps, avoiding their fumes and fire-risks. Each system avoids about 375 kg CO2 per year and saves money on kerosene, which in many cases covers the loan repayment.
Solar home systems bring significant social benefits. Many clinics and schools use them to provide lighting. Children have a better environment for studying at home in the evening. The availability of power for mobile phone chargers has made it possible for more people to maintain contact with family members throughout Bangladesh and abroad. Solar home systems have significant income-generating potential, enabling many businesses to remain open for longer, and facilitating increased production. New jobs and business opportunities have been created. Grameen Shakti set up the micro-utility model to help shopkeepers get access to photovoltaic lights and extend their business hours. There are now more than 10,000 micro-utility lights operating in rural market places.
It is with very great pleasure that I present the 2007 Right Livelihood Award to Grameen Shakti, represented here by its Founding Managing Director Dipal Barua and its Manager Rezaul Karim.
These awards are wake-up calls. They show what can be done and together represent a different story of who we are and what progress means, than the one we are commonly told. But it is no longer enough to celebrate their inspiring examples. It is time for each one of us to face up to our responsibilities as citizens of this planet. Giving freely of our time, money, resources and knowledge to support best practises and policies is not charity. It is our moral duty. It is investing in the foundation of all wealth - a healthy planet. To claim that we cannot afford this is to state that we cannot afford to live on this planet!
It is outrageous that individuals and organisations, who have spent the last decade sounding the alarm and working on sustainable alternatives, still have to struggle to keep their increasingly vital work going! It is scandalous that those dedicated to protecting our common future still have to spend much of their time begging for the support they need and deserve!
These awards are a challenge to each one of us to change our lives - now. I am often told not to expect too much of ordinary people. But I have never yet met an ordinary person! We are all in one way or another extraordinary - although some go to great efforts to hide their extraordinaryness! But I am firmly convinced that everyone is a potential Right Livelihood Award recipient!
Just look at the "ordinary" biographies of those who decided to stand up against evil in the past! Look at those who challenged the mighty institution of slavery - because their conscience told them to!
Today we hold the future of the planet in our hands. Our actions over the next few years will be decisive. What we do - or do not do - will change the world.
Never were the words of the US anti-slavery campaigner William Channing more appropriate: 'There are times in history when to dare is the highest wisdom!'
