Civil society calls on world leaders at UN Summit on Sustainable Development to tackle "unjust rules governing finance, taxation, trade and investment"
"Public call to world leaders on the occasion of the UN Summit on Sustainable Development", 23 Sep 2015
A group of leading voices has come together to demand greater ambition in tackling social injustices, calling for a new emphasis on notions of well-being, a culture of care and shared prosperity...The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to the statement, seek to respond to many of today’s most pressing challenges, but do not overcome fundamental contradictions in the global economy. They do not tackle the unjust rules governing finance, taxation, trade and investment, the signatories warned, arguing that these are essential elements of the structural transformation that is needed in order to address the root causes of poverty and inequality. Meanwhile, world leaders were called upon to set limits on natural resource extraction, agree to equitable natural resource-sharing, resist the influence of entrenched interests, and to counter the power of transnational corporations to influence public policy. They were also urged to renew and redirect finance from dirty energy to decentralized community-based renewable energy production, transform the financial system to support the emergence of sustainable alternatives, reform the systems that exclude the majority of the world from determining global taxation rules, trade agreements, and other areas that have a great impact on them.