Monsanto Tribunal: Guilty

[ocfightfan]

As soon as they use the word "ecocide" you know the entire thing is BS.

 

[Madmick]

Let me reach into my pocket and see how many fucks I give about any opinion formulated in or forwarded by The Hague.

Spoiler

 

[Dolomite]

After their homemade po$ter, I really like their bottles of EARTHWATER:

The production site is pumping pure spring water from a depth of approximately 150 meters. This groundwater has fallen as rain in the Middle Ages on "the Hondsrug"; at a time when people did not use harmful substances. After a long journey of approximately 1000 years through the ground, the water has absorbed many minerals.

"@ a time when people did not use harmful" just shut the fuck up.

 

[PainIsLIfe]

Monsanto Tribunal: The Outcomes

April 18th 2017 Food and agriculture
Today, judges delivered their legal opinion on the evidence and witness statements presented at the Monsanto Tribunal that was held in The Hague (NL) in October 2016.

The tribunal concluded that:

• Monsanto has violated human rights to food, health, a healthy environment and the freedom indispensable for independent scientific research.
• ‘ecocide’ should be recognized as a crime in international law.
• human rights and environmental laws are undermined by corporate-friendly trade and investment regulation.

During the hearings that took place in The Hague in October 2016, judges heard testimonies from witnesses from all over the world, who testified how Monsanto has violated human rights and has committed crimes against the planet by aggressively promoting its products, lobbying politicians and attacking independent scientists.

Based on these testimonies, and considering both existing international law and ongoing legal initiatives aiming to improve the protection of human rights and the environment, the judges concluded that Monsanto has indeed infringed on the public’s rights to food, health, a healthy environment and the freedom indispensable for independent scientific research.

The Tribunal is also of the opinion that “international law should now precisely and clearly assert the protection of the environment and the crime of ecocide”. If such a crime of ecocide would be recognized in international criminal law, “the activities of Monsanto could possibly constitute a crime of ecocide”, the judges stated.

In their final conclusion, the judges highlighted the current imbalance in the international system, which offers much better protection to corporations and their financial interests (through trade and investment law including ISDS courts) than it does to human rights and the environment. It is now crucial for the UN to act on this widening gap, they warned, as “otherwise key questions will be resolved by private tribunals operating entirely outside the UN framework”.

Corporate Europe Observatory's Nina Holland welcomed the Tribunal’s outcome:

The verdict of the Monsanto Tribunal has our fullest support. Its legal opinion makes it crystal clear that corporations like Monsanto violate our right to live in a healthy environment and how they get around the international laws meant to protect people and planet.

“With the current wave of mega-mergers in the agribusiness sector, the biggest pesticide producers are becoming even more powerful. But so is our call to regulate them!

https://corporateeurope.org/food-and-agriculture/2017/04/monsanto-tribunal-outcomes

________________________________________________________________________________


Crazy Ct-ers at the Hague, with their tin-foil and judges in a International court......(E-sarcasm)

Ammidoingitright?


Discuss............

All I get from that is that if the govt's pass an ecocide law then Monsanto would be guilty of this law that doesn't exist.

If govt passed a frivolous tribunal law then those people would be guilty as well.


btw- how unbiased can that tribunal be when they have a banner that reads Mon$anto?

 

[Jack V Savage]

I figure that if a billion years of evolution, or God depending on how you swing, hasn't seen fit to swirl plant DNA with all this other crap it's pretty arrogant and short sided to believe we can magically get it right without fucking something up long term.

Pretty much all plants that we eat have already been massively modified.

Here's what watermelons used to look like:

Bananas:

Carrots:

and corn:

Note that those are full-grown.

 

[Teppodama]

Pretty much all plants that we eat have already been massively modified.

Here's what watermelons used to look like:

Bananas:

Carrots:

and corn:

Note that those are full-grown.

Hybridization of plants does not equate to splicing in non-plant DNA to achieve a particular favorable outcome. One works within the natural genetic potential of the plants being combined to achieve a favorable outcome while the other imposes a completely artificial outcome not inherent in any of the plants being modified without the inclusion of the non-plant DNA.

I look at it like this. Plant hybridization and animal husbandry simply does faster what nature, evolution/natural selection can already do naturally over time. What Monsato looks to do with their research into splicing non-plant DNA into plants is something that natural selection and evolution has apparently not seen fit to do in all the epochs of time that plants and non-plants have shared this planet. If such outcomes were favorable to the survival of a given species surely it would have already occurred naturally at some point and we would be able to find genetic examples of this natural occurrence to show that not only is it viable naturally, but ultimately desirable in a given ecosystem.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Hybridization of plants does not equate to splicing in non-plant DNA to achieve a particular favorable outcome. One works within the natural genetic potential of the plants being combined to achieve a favorable outcome while the other imposes a completely artificial outcome not inherent in any of the plants being modified without the inclusion of the non-plant DNA.

You're shifting the argument. I was responding to this: "I figure that if a billion years of evolution, or God depending on how you swing, hasn't seen fit to swirl plant DNA with all this other crap it's pretty arrogant and short sided to believe we can magically get it right without fucking something up long term." God or nature did not give us fruits and vegetables we liked after a billion years, so we modified them to get something we did like. I'm not arguing that no modification could possibly have negative effects, just that your specific objection there would apply to a lot of other stuff that we all agree is good.

 

[Teppodama]

You're shifting the argument. I was responding to this: "I figure that if a billion years of evolution, or God depending on how you swing, hasn't seen fit to swirl plant DNA with all this other crap it's pretty arrogant and short sided to believe we can magically get it right without fucking something up long term." God or nature did not give us fruits and vegetables we liked after a billion years, so we modified them to get something we did like. I'm not arguing that no modification could possibly have negative effects, just that your specific objection there would apply to a lot of other stuff that we all agree is good.

I have no problem with either plant hybridization nor animal husbandry. It's a natural science that merely does faster what nature can, has and continues to do already. We simply direct the outcome by either adding or subtracting inherent natural factors of the components over time till the genetic tumblers of both plants or both animals unlock the expressible traits we desire. It's self limiting in that not all animals will combine "naturally" with every other animal, and likely not all plants, without genetic manipulative assistance.

By splicing non-plant DNA into a plant to achieve your desired outcome you have created a completely artificial organism that hasn't occurred, isn't occurring, nor likely to occur naturally in all the time plants and non-plants have had the opportunity to co-mingle DNA.

Given the relative youth of genetic science compared to the actual real world genetics work already occurring in natural all over this planet and time with which "nature" has been conducting it's experiments and suddenly I should believe that we have a real understanding about the possible long term consequences of gene splicing truly different organisms together or how that will effect us as a species over time if we consume them...

 

[Teppodama]

Jack, as a brief aside, do you believe or put any stock in the theory of intelligent design? I know it's more a religious question generally but it does bare tangentially if only from a philosophical point and I'm curious as to your stance.

 

[Bat Dad]

 

[lilelvis]

Stop taking medicines, vacinations, surgical procedures while you are at it then because God didnt intend for us to do any of those things either.

It's a good idea to be VERY selective with those things too. Big pharma does some hanus shit.